It is almost inconceivable that Bitcoin will celebrate its fourteenth “birthday” in late 2022. Over the past 14 years, Bitcoin has made great strides and grown exponentially and is ready to take the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Bitcoin seems to last forever, but January has been significant for years with some historical events and milestones in Bitcoin’s past.
2009: Dawn of Bitcoin
On January 3, 2009, a few months after the release of the bitcoin white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the bitcoin blockchain and said, “The Times of January 3, 2009, the second relief of the bank. Signed with the letter “The Prime Minister is on the line.” Officially launching the network. Bitcoin, to highlight some of the financial turmoil that influenced the invention of Bitcoin.
Just six days later, on January 9, the first Bitcoin client (0.1) was launched, allowing users to conduct Bitcoin transactions, when Satoshi Nakamoto Hal Finney sent 10 BTC on January 12. The first Bitcoin transaction is now executed. Block number 170.
2010: Was it the first real Bitcoin purchase?
Almost everyone knows the story of Laszlo Hanyecz, famous for paying 10,000 BTC for two large pizzas in May 2010, widely accepted as the first “real” Bitcoin purchase. However, on January 24, 2010, Sabunir, a BitcoinTalk forum user, posted a forum post titled “Beginners Quiz – Who Wants to Buy Images for $1?”. He asked if anyone wanted to buy wallpaper for $1 with Bitcoin.
He posted his wallet address, and just a month later, two newly mined 50 BTC payments were sent to his address. This may be the person who “bought” their wallpaper. Forum posts. If such a purchase was actually made, it would be the first real “real” purchase with Bitcoin and another milestone in the digital currency we know today.
2011: Bitcoin for Nonprofits
On January 20, 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) became the first non-profit organization to accept Bitcoin donations and establish history by paving the way for more people to come. By June 2010, before WikiLeaks began accepting Bitcoin donations, they had stopped accepting donations, but by May 2013 they would resume accepting Bitcoin.
Another historical event occurred in January 2011, when three people bought 4 BTC at the rate of 100,000,000,000,000,000 of Z$. This is equivalent to 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars using OTC services. To date, it is still the largest single number ever exchanged for Bitcoin.
2012: for TV
By 2012, Bitcoin began spreading around the world and appeared in The Good Wife, Season 3, Episode 13, and Bitcoin for Dummy. I’ve seen a lawyer being defended on anonymity of his client, who appears to have created Bitcoin. The episode, which aired on January 15, was watched by 9.45 million American viewers when the price of one bitcoin was only $6.90. This was the first case of Bitcoin that appeared in mainstream media other than newscasts.
2013: Entering the startup scene
Three years after its launch, and almost five years after its initial offering, investors are starting to look to bitcoin-related startups. Founded in 2011, BitPay is a Bitcoin payment service provider, and became the first Bitcoin-related startup to raise venture capital funding in a $510,000 funding round. It will raise another $2 million later that year.
2014: Games and gambling
By January 2014, things were getting hotter with more companies accepting Bitcoin payments. Zynga, the mobile developer behind everyone’s favorite mobile games like FarmVille, announced plans on January 4 to allow users to make in-game purchases with Bitcoin. Initially, the address was limited to seven while the company was testing payments using BitPay’s infrastructure.
Later that month, on January 21, two Las Vegas hotels and casinos announced plans to start accepting bitcoin at some of their properties. The D Las Vegas Casino and Golden Gate Hotel and Casino became the first hotels in Sin City to begin accepting Bitcoin long before Bitcoin became the main currency today.
Interestingly, a hard copy from February 2014 Bitcoin MagazineIt was written in January 2014, and will subsequently be displayed at the National Museum of American History by the Smithsonian Institution.
2015: Asc and Desc
Bitcoin started 2015 with a huge turmoil, sinking 30.9% during January 2015, confirming one of the biggest monthly declines at the time. It wasn’t all bad at the time, but Coinbase’s $75 million Series C was a bitcoin-related company at the time, launching Coinbase Exchange later that month.
At the time, Coinbase focused only on Bitcoin, Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network and Time Inc. Others have been helping companies start accepting Bitcoin payments. We also partner with payment providers Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal to process Bitcoin payments.
2016: Popular Madness
In January 2016, the first of several failed Bitcoin forks were introduced and Bitcoin Classic entered the ring. It won’t last long, but it encourages many others to release their bitcoin forks. Most of them are part of a quick cash acquisition. Bitcoin as the only real Bitcoin will continue to grow and adopt exponentially over the next few years. Interestingly enough, the Bitcoin network hash rate will also exceed 1 Exa Hash per second for the first time in January 2016.
2017: The start of the bull run
January 2017 started with a very bullish year when bitcoin topped $1,000 for the first time in three years. It will then drop to just under $20,000 before dropping significantly in late 2017.
2018: Government Attacks Bitcoin
After a significant rally in late 2017, January 2018 saw one of the world’s largest government FUD campaigns against Bitcoin. During the month, banks and governments in Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Mozambique, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Slovenia, South Korea, and Tajikistan became bitcoins. As a currency I was vehemently opposed to it.
More countries will follow in the coming months, and by the end of January 2018, Facebook will ban all crypto-related ads from global platforms. Interestingly, when Samsung partnered with a Chinese company to start manufacturing chips and semiconductors for bitcoin miners, Swiss municipalities began accepting Bitcoin payments and the Peter Thiel Foundation bought Bitcoin. So it was not all fate and darkness.
2019 (and beyond)
After the huge drop from the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2018, Bitcoin has barely kept an eye on the public. Instead, cautious investors gradually built up and Bitcoin continued to rise and fall throughout the rest of 2018 and most of 2019. Bitcoin started a massive rally in the second half of 2019, all the way to the final halving in May 2020. Just before the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Nothing critical happened during these times, but bitcoin first crossed $40,000 in January 2021 and quickly reached its historic $1 trillion market cap. Moreover, January 2022 is not without historical events. On January 2, Bitcoin exceeded 203.5 Exa hashes per second for the first time, more than 200 times over the past six years.
Bitcoin celebrates many historical milestones in January. Given that the network was launched in January 2009, when Satoshi mined the Genesis block, it can be called the true birth month of Bitcoin. After all, January should be a festive month for everyone in society, given years of achievement, growth, and the building of a global and lasting community.
This is a guest post by Dion Guillaume. The opinions expressed are entirely original and are not necessarily BTC or Bitcoin Magazine..
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