17 лет назад: начало эры биткоина с загадочным генезис-блоком 17 years ago: the dawn of the Bitcoin era with the mysterious genesis block

On January 3, 2009, an individual or group using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin mainnet by mining the genesis block, which contained 50 BTC. Embedded in its hash was the headline from a Times article titled «Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.»

Just prior to the network launch, on October 31, 2008, a Bitcoin white paper was published.

The inaugural transaction took place on January 12, 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney. This occurred three days after the release of Bitcoin version 0.1.

The true identity of Nakamoto and the motivations behind the creation of Bitcoin remain a mystery, sparking intrigue within the cryptocurrency community and beyond.

One likely reason for Bitcoin’s inception was the global financial crisis that unfolded in 2007-2008, marked by the collapse of major investment banks, widespread production decline, a drop in demand and commodity prices, rising unemployment, and significant government intervention in the economy.

In October 2025, the first cryptocurrency reached a new peak at $126,080. At the time of this writing, digital gold is trading around $90,000, with the market leader’s capitalization standing at $1.8 trillion.