The Bitcoin Blockchain Turns 13 Years Old

It mined Bitcoin’s genesis block 13 years ago as of today. Twitter has been active with a celebration over the special day, including some minor comments about Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk.

Happy Birthday, Bitcoin!

Bitcoin’s software was released for public participation on January 9th 2009. However, January 3rd 2009, appears to be when pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto mined Bitcoin’s genesis block. However, this block may have been back-dated.

The block was unique for several reasons. Firstly, unlike all other unions, the genesis block contains no reference to a previous block to prove its validity. Secondly, the first 50 Bitcoin the league had generated were hard-coded to be unspendable – even by Satoshi.

While the first Bitcoins were almost entirely mined by Satoshi alone, there exists evidence that the creator deliberately slowed down his mining speed to welcome other miners.

Ellipal - Store over 10,000 coins and tokens!

Twitter’s co-founder and Block CEO, Jack Dorsey highlighted this unique aspect earlier today. He tweeted the Coinbase of the initial block, in which Satoshi inserted a message hinting at the intention behind Bitcoin’s creation. Moreover, it referenced a news article from The Times on the same day, titled “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for a bank on the brink of Elon Musk offered a humorous response to Dorsey’s tweet: “Reminds me of when I hex edited Ultima V to get out of the final maze,” he said.

Both CEOs showed strong enthusiasm for Bitcoin this year. While Musk’s company purchased $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency, Dorsey has launched numerous developer initiatives to spread network adoption. These include a free lightning network dev kit and a global Bitcoin mining system, among other things.

Bitcoin’s price on its 13th birthday is higher than any birthday before. It currently sits above $46k, while it was only $32k this time last year.

Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins Day

The Bitcoin community has also recognized January 3rd as “Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins” day. The expression is a word of caution for users holding their Bitcoin using custodial wallets and exchanges.

Btc

Bitcoin

$44.024
price

5.52947%
price change

TRADE NOW

On this day, all holders are encouraged to withdraw all of their Bitcoin from exchanges at once temporarily. This should test whether businesses hold the reserve assets they claim to be on your behalf. Hypothetically, this would prevent exchanges and custodians from irresponsible lending practices.