From 9 pages published one October evening in 2008 to a trillion-dollar asset: the events that made Bitcoin, told simply and dated. A descriptive account, not advice.
A 9-page document, a network of a few machines, and one idea: electronic money without a trusted third party.
Satoshi Nakamoto publishes “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”: 9 pages that solve double spending without a central authority, combining proof of work with a timestamped chain.
First block of the chain. Satoshi engraves that day's Times headline, “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”: the block is dated, and the context is signed (the 2008 banking crisis).
Satoshi sends 10 BTC to cryptographer Hal Finney, the first user to run the software after him.
Laszlo Hanyecz pays 10,000 BTC for two pizzas: the first documented purchase of a real-world good with bitcoin, now the gold standard of anecdotes.
The creator's last public messages. He vanishes, leaving the code, ~1 million BTC that never moved, and no identity. The project continues with no leader.
Bitcoin leaves the cryptographers' circle: first exchanges, first bubbles, first front pages.
One bitcoin is worth one dollar. Two years earlier, it was worth nothing at all: it didn't even have a price.
Carried by the first press articles, the price touches $31 then collapses more than 90% in a few months. A pattern Bitcoin will replay every cycle.
The block reward drops from 50 to 25 BTC. Programmed from the start, this halving every ~4 years is the heart of Bitcoin's scarcity: issuance tends toward 21 million, never beyond.
The Cypriot crisis taxes bank deposits above €100,000. For the first time, Bitcoin publicly appears as an emergency exit from banking risk.
Second bubble of the year: after $266 in April, the price passes $1,100 in November, fueled by Asian demand. China restricts right after, and the bear cycle begins.
The largest marketplace collapses and the network tears itself apart over its own growth. Bitcoin survives both.
The platform handling ~70% of global trading collapses: ~850,000 BTC gone. The founding lesson of self-custody, “not your keys, not your coins”, enters the culture.
Fourteen months after the peak, the price has lost ~85%. The network, meanwhile, never stopped producing a block every ten minutes.
The reward drops from 25 to 12.5 BTC per block. Bitcoin's monetary inflation falls below gold's: the 'digital gold' argument gains credibility.
The 2017 bubble brings the word 'bitcoin' into households; the winter that follows sorts out convictions.
After two years of 'block wars' over network capacity, SegWit activates and the big-block camp secedes (Bitcoin Cash). Lasting lesson: no one — neither miners nor companies — can force a change on the nodes.
Global fever: the public discovers Bitcoin, the CME launches futures, and the price touches ~$20,000… before losing 84% the following year. The word 'crypto' never leaves everyday vocabulary again.
The cycle's bottom. The ghost projects of 2017 disappear; serious infrastructure (custody, Lightning, tooling) gets built in silence.
Listed companies, funds, even a nation-state: serious capital arrives, and the ecosystem's excesses are paid for in cash.
Global liquidity panic: Bitcoin halves in 24h, to ~$3,900. The monetary response that follows (trillions printed) becomes its best argument.
6.25 BTC per block. A few months later, MicroStrategy becomes the first listed company to move its treasury into bitcoin, paving the way for 'treasury companies'.
Tesla announces $1.5 billion of bitcoin on its balance sheet. The signal that the largest companies' finance departments now take the asset seriously.
Bitcoin becomes legal tender in El Salvador: a world first, watched by every government, praised or mocked, but historic.
New record at ~$69,000. Four days later Taproot activates, the biggest protocol upgrade since SegWit (Schnorr signatures, more private and efficient scripts).
After Terra/Luna and Celsius in the spring, FTX's fraudulent bankruptcy caps a black year for CENTRALIZED crypto finance. The Bitcoin protocol has nothing to do with these failures, but its price pays for the contagion, ~$15,500 at the bottom.
Wall Street gets its regulated product. Bitcoin enters ordinary portfolios, with its cycles intact.
The world's largest asset manager ($10T) files for a spot Bitcoin ETF. The market understands approval is no longer a question of 'if', but 'when'.
The SEC approves 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs on the same day, after a decade of refusals. Bitcoin exposure becomes an ordinary brokerage product, and institutional flows change scale.
3.125 BTC per block. More than 93% of the 21 million bitcoins are now issued; annual issuance drops below 1%.
Bitcoin crosses $100,000 for the first time, fifteen years after first being quoted at a fraction of a cent.
The United States formalizes by executive order a 'strategic bitcoin reserve' made of court-seized BTC. The asset born against states enters state balance sheets.
New absolute record above $126,000. As in every cycle, what follows is a correction: the very one this site's metrics measure live.