Bitcoin celebrates ten years on the anniversary of Genesis Block

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Today, January 3, marks ten years since the creation of the first block on the Bitcoin blockchain (BTC).

Known in more technical terms as "genesis block", the first block on a blockchain is unique because, logically, it does not contain any reference to previous blocks and is always coded in the network software, establishing all the necessary variables required to create the blockchain that derives from it.

While Bitcoin's theoretical bases were laid with the publication of the Bitcoin white paper on October 31, 2008, on January 3, 2009, it announced the first practical implementation of the world's first cryptocurrency – the realization of a peer-to-peer and cryptographically secure system for digital cash transactions.

As indicated by the Bitcoin Block Explorer tool, block 0 – counted as block 1 in the early versions of the blockchain – was extracted on January 3, 2009 at 13:15:05. EST, with a reward of 50 BTC. Today, the reward would be worth around $ 191.350, but at the moment its value was priceless – Bitcoin's first recorded trading price was noted on March 17, 2010, on the now defunct trading platform, bitcoinmarket.com, at a value of $ 0.003.

The inventor of the cryptocurrency – the still mysterious or collective person identified only as Satoshi Nakamoto – has incorporated the hexadecimal code of the genesis block coinage with a Times title encoded since January 3, 2009, referring to the rescue plan of the United Kingdom banks. When decoded, this hidden hint to the economic and political context that gave impetus to the invention of money reads as follows:

"The Times 03 / Jan / 2009 Chancellor on the edge of the second bank bailout"

The consequences of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in the fall of 2008 had been the turning point for economic turmoil, the global recession and, subsequently, the controversial "too big to fail" logic for state intervention. In the midst of this context, Nakamoto's innovation has proposed a bold alternative – a digital exchange and an uncontrolled, state-controlled deposit of value – to the incumbent system in distress.

Ten years later, the mystery that surrounds the inventor of Bitcoin remains as impenetrable as ever. Those both inside and outside the cryptic community began to try to determine the identity of Nakamoto as early as October 2011, a few months after the mysterious figure fell silent.

At the time of printing, Bitcoin traded at $ 3,831 – up 127,699,900% from its first recorded exchange value.

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