Every groundbreaking breakthrough has its origin in a basic notion. Almost 13 years ago, an individual/group of anonymous developers under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto gave the world a revolutionary financial innovation known as Bitcoin. The then-unknown software provided by the anonymous author permanently changed the way people look at money and prompted millions of individuals worldwide to assume that the technology’s influence on the global economy would change the course of history.

Fast forward to 2022, and Bitcoin has become a household buzzword, with everyone talking about it. The last decade has been a magnificent ride for Bitcoin and those who hold it, and on January 3 2022, cryptocurrency enthusiasts worldwide marked the 13th anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block, which was mined at roughly 18:15:05 UTC.

Block 0 – The Birth of Bitcoin

A document titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was published on October 31, 2008, by an anonymous developer under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. On January 3, 2009, Nakamoto mined block 0, bringing the Bitcoin blockchain to life two months later. Several properties of the genesis block distinguish it from the hundreds of following mined blocks, making it unique. For example, the genesis block is hardcoded into the vast majority of software clients that use the chain as a point of reference and infrastructure.

In addition, 50 BTC was the reward for each block at the time of its creation. However, the genesis block is a value that can’t be spent, and it will always have those 50 coins in it. Nobody knows for certain whether Satoshi intentionally rendered these coins unspendable. Many admirers have also given cash to the genesis address throughout the years, and there is currently a total of 68.52797419 BTC resting there at the time of posting. Scanning the list of dust transactions sent to the genesis address reveals messages to Satoshi pleading for bitcoins, as many of the senders anticipated the creator would return additional coins to them.

Another cool detail about the genesis block would be the fact that it was mined on a Windows PC. Version 0.1 of Bitcoin was originally a Windows GUI application created in the C++ programming language. To put it another way, the first block Satoshi mined was entirely processed by the CPU of a PC. People mined Bitcoin using this manner for the next two years following the creation of block 0.

The genesis block’s hash features two additional leading hex zeroes, which are rarely encountered in block creation nowadays (save for the notorious 21e800 hash on June 19, 2018). The content of a produced bitcoin block’s ‘input’ field contains what is known as a ‘coinbase parameter,’ which in the case of the genesis block is recognized as one of the most impressive examples of hardcoded text kept inside the chain.

Satoshi’s hidden message for the world in the genesis block:

It’s possible that Satoshi wrote it as a response to 2008’s financial crisis and following bank bailouts as a philosophical statement. Along with the coinbase parameter, when the hexadecimal format is decrypted, the message displays the “Chancellor bailout” wording reversed. It took Satoshi six days following the creation of the genesis block to locate block 1, making January 9 the official birthday of Bitcoin. Additionally, some bitcoiners believe Satoshi took a vacation between mining blocks 0 and 1 in order for the timing to correspond to the Genesis story, in which God created the planet in seven days.

The first Bitcoin transaction

On the third day, Satoshi transferred the first Bitcoins to Hal Finney, the software engineer who had opted to execute the program and accepted 10 BTC from Satoshi. Indeed, Finney had the Bitcoin protocol operating on his computer the day after block 1 was generated on January 10 and had tweeted about the program that day. 

Despite the fact that Finney was the first known or identifiable bitcoin receiver, Satoshi transferred coins to a significant number of others that day. For an unexplained reason, Satoshi also opted to transmit money from block 9 rather than funds from blocks 1-8.

The financial revolution continues

As time passed, the establishment of Bitcoin’s Genesis block and the early phases of the network gained more adherents. At the time of Satoshi’s disappearance in 2010, at which point he is said to have mined close to 1 million bitcoins, no one has any idea what happened to him. Despite the elite’s continued dismissal of Bitcoin, its popularity has grown gradually over the years. Large numbers of technophiles and political idealists, on the other hand, began to believe that the protocol would completely transform the global financial system.

This technology has allowed for pure voluntary free market trading since the genesis block was created 13 years ago. Permissionless transactions between global persons occur across hundreds of invisible boundaries without the necessity for pre-existing trust. Satoshi’s 2008 innovation is the black swan of the present monetary system, complete with a virtuous circle. Its ability to survive 13 difficult and challenging years is unquestionably an occasion to be celebrated.