Eighteen Years of Bitcoin: A Mailing List Post That Became a Global Asset

Bitcoin turns 18 today, and few birthdays come with this many worries attached. Fears about quantum computing, smarter AI driven cyberattacks and the $6.3 billion Binance theft, the largest in the industry’s history, all hang over its long term security.

How Satoshi Nakamoto Launched the First Cryptocurrency

On this date in 2008, a pseudonymous cryptographer named Satoshi Nakamoto sent a paper to a cryptography mailing list describing a peer to peer electronic cash system. The aim was to let people move money without trusting banks or other opaque institutions. When the first block went live on January 3, 2009, Satoshi tucked a newspaper headline about a possible second bank bailout inside it, linking the new network to the financial crisis of that time.

Bitcoin Price History: From Pizza Day to the Mt. Gox Collapse

Early coins traded for pennies. In May 2010, developer Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas, which were worth about $41 then and would be worth roughly $780 million at current prices. Satoshi had hinted in 2009 that grabbing a few coins early might pay off. Bitcoin first passed $1,000 in late 2013 as the Silk Road marketplace drew public attention, but the climb stopped in February 2014 when Mt. Gox, then the largest exchange, collapsed.