The First Bitcoin Block Is Mined
On this day · 3 January 2009
On a January day in 2009, an anonymous coder switched on a network that would reinvent how the world thinks about money.
On 3 January 2009, a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto mined the very first block of the Bitcoin blockchain. Known as the genesis block, or block 0, it brought the network into existence and seeded the modern era of cryptocurrencies. It carried a reward of 50 bitcoin that, by design, can never be spent.
Nakamoto buried a message in the block’s data: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”, lifted from that day’s London newspaper. The line doubled as a timestamp proving the block was not made earlier, and as a pointed jab at a banking system being propped up amid the financial crisis.
The note proves the block could not have been created before 3 January 2009.
The first Bitcoin transaction followed on 12 January 2009. From that single block grew a decentralised ledger maintained by a global community rather than any bank or government, a design now studied by standards bodies and central banks alike.
Sources & references
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