BAT

A Brief Bitcoin History Lesson - The Genesis Block

By B18 | B18 | 24 May 2020


Lets start with a Satoshi Nakamoto quote from 2008:

Its very attractive to a Libertarian point of view if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than words though.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto started coding the first implementation of Bitcoin in C++ in May 2007. In August of 2008, he sent two private emails to cypherpunks, Wei Dai (b-money) and Hal Finney (recipient of the first Bitcoin transaction), asking them for feedback on early versions of the Bitcoin white paper.

Brave

They both gave Satoshi positive feedback.

A couple of months later, Satoshi published the Bitcoin white paper to a cryptography mailing list.

Trick or Treat

Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper was published on Halloween 2008 (October 31). Was the date intentional or coincidental? We can only speculate.

Brave

The response from publishing the Bitcoin white paper was muted at best, some of the cypherpunks were a bit curious. 

The Genesis Block

It was took a further two months work for Satoshi Nakamoto to finalise the code. Satoshi open-sourced the codebase and launched the Bitcoin network.

On January 3, 2009 the first event on the Bitcoin blockchain occurred. Its founder placed an important notation indicating the intent behind what he had just created.

The London Times ran a cover story entitled Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks.

Brave

This newspaper headline was quoted and embedded into the first transaction ever to be included in the new Bitcoin blockchain, by Satoshi Nakamoto.

The block containing this transaction was called The Genesis Block.

Brave

A few eager coders like Hal Finney ran the initial client and submitted bug reports. But early on it was mostly Satoshi himself that was running the software and mining Bitcoin.

Early Bitcoin Client

Dated 03/01/2009

Brave

The Bitcoin network gradually was gaining followers. Early tech communities such as Slashdot caught on to this interesting experiment and the word spread gradually.

At the end of 2009 Bitcoin had some users running the software but it did not have a price or market value.

#BitcoinPizzaDay

That would all change in May 2010 when the first ever Bitcoin purchase was made.

Brave

The End

 

Bitcoin, a decentralised, a non-trust-based system of e-currency now had a price or market value.

I hope you found this post interesting and informative. I always enjoy doing the research and putting it all together.

Feel free to post comments, as getting feedback is how we learn. All feedback is greatly appreciated.

Or a thumbs up if you enjoyed your read.

Stay Safe

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B18
B18 Verified Member

I am a sun sea and sand person, chocolatier, grows organic vegetables, rides a Vespa and collects crypto.


B18
B18

Bought our 1st pieces of BTC, July 2017. The process was daunting and confusing. Could easily given up & put it in the too hard basket or have fallen victim to one of the many scams or pitfalls. Grateful to a friend of my son's, who had been in this space for awhile, giving me some good advice & steering me in the right direction. That experience has helped shape my desire to share what I learn. Also always had a morbid fascination with Snake Oil Salesman & their sales pitch; Bitconnect, USI Tech..

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