HistoryofBitcoin

Did you know the #Bitcoin logo we use today wasn’t the original? Its evolution reflects the community’s earliest debates about identity, symbolism and usability. In February 2010, #Bitcointalk user #NewLibertyStandard proposed two things: • adopting the Thai baht symbol (฿) for Bitcoin • using BTC as the three-letter currency code BTC caught on immediately. The symbol sparked debate. Some disliked borrowing from an existing currency; others argued that using a symbol already present in global keyboards and systems would accelerate adoption. #HalFinney joined the discussion, noting the dollar sign originally had two vertical bars, a subtle nod that helped push the Bitcoin community toward a similar aesthetic. Later that month, #Satoshi released a new logo: still a gold coin, but now featuring a B with two partial vertical strokes, distinguishing it from the baht (whose bar passes fully through). It was an improvement, though not universally loved. That changed on November 1st, 2010, when forum user bitboy introduced a new design: • flat, modern, and bright orange • the tilted ₿ we all recognise today The community embraced it instantly. Within months, the gold coin motif disappeared entirely. Bitcoin finally had a symbol that felt contemporary, global and native to the internet. A final milestone came years later when researcher Ken Shirriff succeeded in adding the Bitcoin symbol to Unicode. Before this, people resorted to pasting images or using the baht symbol as a workaround. His Unicode proposal was accepted, making ₿ an officially recognised character. He later donated the bitcoin he received in thanks to fund clean-water projects in Africa. From BC → ฿ → ₿, Bitcoin’s visual identity emerged the same way its technology did: openly, collaboratively and through community consensus. Read the full story: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/a-symbolic-day Artwork: A Symbolic Day by Marinel Sheu, featured in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and interactive timeline. #BitcoinArt #Art #DigitalArt

#Bitcoin doesn’t just run on energy. It runs on a self-correcting feedback loop #Satoshi embedded into the code from day one: the difficulty adjustment. Art by Arturo Fernández • Guest writer: Jason Deane Just one month after Bitcoin launched, the network hit a milestone that still defines its rhythm today – the first mining difficulty adjustment. Miners validate transactions, secure the network and issue new BTC according to rules fixed in the protocol. Blocks are meant to arrive every 10 minutes, but in an open system anyone can join or leave at any time. If too much hash power enters the network, blocks arrive faster. If miners leave, block times slow and transactions jam. Satoshi needed a mechanism to keep the heartbeat steady. His solution: every 2,016 blocks, the network automatically recalibrates difficulty based on how long the previous 2,016 blocks took to mine. If blocks were mined too quickly, difficulty rises. If they were slow, difficulty drops. This keeps Bitcoin anchored to its 10-minute rhythm, regardless of how much hash power comes online. The math is simple: Expected time (20,160 minutes) / actual time = adjustment factor. That factor is applied to the new difficulty. On February 18th, 2009, the very first adjustment increased difficulty from 1.0T to 1.18T – an 18 percent jump that prevented blocks from being solved too quickly. A second adjustment followed on February 29th. The mechanism has fired reliably every two weeks since, despite an astronomical rise in global hash power. Sixteen years on, Bitcoin still functions exactly as Satoshi designed: decentralized, predictable and self-stabilizing. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/the-game-gets-harder This artwork, “THE GAME GETS HARDER,” appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on the interactive timeline.

In #Bitcoin’s earliest days, mining didn’t require warehouses of #ASICs. You could earn 50 BTC by clicking “Generate Coins” on your home computer. Few recognised value in something that appeared worthless, but those early clicks helped secure a revolution. Art by Caspian Ievers, with insights from Sergio Demian Lerner Bitcoin mining today evokes vast data centres, but in 2009 it was far simpler. The first #BitcoinWallet, built by #Satoshi, let anyone mine with a couple of clicks. His readme.txt explained that users could support the network by running a node and keeping “Generate Coins” enabled. Blocks could take days or months to find, but mining ran quietly in the background. Notably, Satoshi didn’t use the term “mining” at all. He called it “generating,” and early users could generate coins with no cost beyond their computer’s idle time. Most of these early “zero-value” coins are believed to have been mined by Satoshi. Researcher Sergio Demian Lerner identified a unique fingerprint showing that a single entity mined roughly 1.1M BTC in 2009–2010. He argues that Satoshi’s concentrated hashrate was likely essential to protect the network when it was most vulnerable. Satoshi gradually stepped back as new miners arrived, decentralising the network at the moment it became secure enough to stand on its own. And he encouraged others to participate, writing: “As a reward for supporting the network, you receive coins when you successfully generate a block.” Mining on a home computer remained viable until late 2009, when difficulty began to rise. Yet very few people used the feature. One early #Bitcointalk user later reflected: “Remember when mining BTC was as easy as ‘click generate’? Even then, very few did, and most didn’t do it for long.” Satoshi didn’t just create a peer-to-peer money system, he designed a fair way for anyone to help secure it, long before today’s industrial mining landscape. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/generate-coins This artwork, “GENERATE COINS,” appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on the interactive timeline. #BitcoinArt #Art https://blossom.primal.net/d1b81368072708e701d00da64243c0ab960bd3fa15c0416202abe2c08510e988.mp4

Bid now on this one-of-a-kind piece to support an incredible charity nostr:nprofile1qqs0vzw43dp9x3v8drvm4udj326dld0ku6gdnxajwcxg8h36ssxrags952hav. shop.historyofbitcoin.io/first-edition "The auction is at 6M sats and rising, and you still have six days to join and own a unique art piece that becomes part of history while supporting Independent #Bitcoin Education Worldwide."

Join us tonight in #Dubai for a viewing of the First Edition and Collector's Edition. RSVP HERE: https://luma.com/85mk1pzg The event is oversubscribed so we recommend coming early. nostr:nprofile1qqsp7f8ttjugefs085gkd9p3aadlqnqgp92d02f73al2szuau8q04egppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj78cyhcp nostr:nprofile1qqs0vzw43dp9x3v8drvm4udj326dld0ku6gdnxajwcxg8h36ssxrags952hav nostr:nprofile1qqsphtcc46rrelvptfm4c2y58k85alnam0lfu773mgwdmtynka0zspsql7emy https://blossom.primal.net/94097ef71012462e447b8c2df919d7c0e3d0a5fd1a358d36017d7e815122ad8e.mp4

If the #blockchain records the transactions, #Bitcointalk records the humanity. It is the archive that captured #Bitcoin’s earliest culture: Satoshi’s posts, first debates, early memes and the birth of a movement. Artwork by Sasha Stiles (@sashastiles). While Bitcoin’s blockchain preserves its on-chain history, the Bitcointalk forum has become the permanent record of everything that happened around it. Across thousands of posts, you can trace the ideas, personalities and tensions that shaped Bitcoin long before it went mainstream. The forum originally lived at bitcoin dot org/smf and later at forums.bitcoin dot org before moving to bitcointalk dot org in 2011. Registered by Satoshi on November 17 2009, it quickly became the centre of discussion for the early community. From technical questions about how to run a node to philosophical debates about privacy and value, the forum documented Bitcoin’s evolution from concept to reality. #Satoshi posted only 575 times during the 13 months he was active, but every message now serves as a historical artefact. Alongside him were names who would later become central to Bitcoin’s story: #HalFinney, nostr:nprofile1qqsy2ga7trfetvd3j65m3jptqw9k39wtq2mg85xz2w542p5dhg06e5qpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhmnq3e, Gavin Andresen and even a young #VitalikButerin. In its earliest months, the forum felt small and united. A few dozen users experimented with the software, shared ideas and worked together to help Bitcoin grow. They did not know where Bitcoin was headed, but they sensed they were building something meaningful. After Satoshi stepped back, Martti Malmi took over as lead admin, later passing the role to #Theymos in 2012, who continues to maintain the forum. Though not decentralised, Bitcointalk has remained resistant to censorship and has preserved its grassroots ethos as Bitcoin expanded into global territory. Many pivotal early events occurred on Bitcointalk, including the first bitcoin to fiat trade in 2009. They remain archived there today, forming a parallel ledger of the human side of Bitcoin’s origin story. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/a-forum-for-debate Artwork: A Forum for Debate by Sasha Stiles (@sashastiles). Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline.

In 2009, someone bought 5,050 BTC for five dollars. This was #Bitcoin’s first recorded deal and the moment its market value began to emerge. Artwork by Limbo Mask (@Limbo_Mask Over on X). In Bitcoin’s earliest days, there was no way to buy coins. There were no onramps, no exchanges and no market price. The only way to acquire BTC was to mine it or to persuade another early user to send some. That worked for a short time, but as interest grew, not everyone wanted to mine, and network difficulty was rising. A solution was needed. A pseudonymous forum user called New Liberty Standard created the first #Bitcoin exchange in October 2009. It was simple and manual but revolutionary. Users could buy or sell BTC using #PayPal, with trades handled directly by email or #Bitcointalk messages. There were no accounts, no order books and no automated systems. Everything was peer to peer, just like Bitcoin itself. On October 12 2009, nostr:nprofile1qqsy2ga7trfetvd3j65m3jptqw9k39wtq2mg85xz2w542p5dhg06e5qpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhmnq3e made the first known bitcoin to fiat sale, trading 5,050 BTC for 5.02 dollars. The exchange rate was calculated from the electricity cost of mining. Martti did not need the money. He made the trade to support New Liberty Standard and prove that the exchange worked. At that time, #NewLibertyStandard was the only counterparty, acting as both market maker and escrow using his own BTC and dollars. This small transaction carried enormous significance. It showed that an online exchange could function. More importantly, it proved that bitcoin could be exchanged for real money. It set the first precedent for Bitcoin’s economic value and opened the door for every exchange that followed. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/putting-a-price-on-bitcoin Artwork: Putting a Price on Bitcoin by Limbo Mask (@Limbo_Mask). With thanks to AnimusArt (@AnimusArt). Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline.

Before #hashtags, podcasts and meetups, early #Bitcoin believers connected in a simple chat room. IRC was where the first Bitcoin community met, collaborated and kept the network alive. Artwork by Zigor (@zigor). IRC was a real time communication protocol created in 1988. Its decentralised server structure resonated with open source communities and later with Bitcoin itself. It was the natural place for early users to gather, troubleshoot software and support each other as they figured out how to run the network. Within 24 hours of Bitcoin’s launch, the #bitcoin channel appeared. Logs show #HalFinney joining on January 10 2009 and receiving a message with two peers’ IP addresses, one believed to be Satoshi’s node. These early channels were not just for conversation. They were essential for peer discovery. Without IRC, users had no way to know which nodes they could connect to. By mid 2010, the #bitcoindev channel became the informal headquarters of early development. It supported node bootstrapping and helped developers find and fix bugs. Satoshi often lurked quietly, preferring Bitcointalk for public posts, but he monitored IRC closely. When an early miner bragged in #bitcoin-dev about high hashpower, Satoshi appeared on the forum to ask what hardware he was using, a clue that he learned about GPU mining through IRC. IRC also documented the rise of early mining giants. ArtForz regularly shared updates about his hashpower, noting 2 Ghash per second in September 2010 and over 15 Ghash per second by December, at one point mining more than 1,200 BTC per day. IRC became a place to share ideas as well as hashrates. It was here that Namecoin, the first Bitcoin spin off, was announced in November 2010. In Bitcoin’s early months, IRC was vital. The Bitcoin client relied on IRC bootstrapping to help users find peers. Once the network grew, this was no longer necessary. Version 0.6.x disabled IRC bootstrapping by default, and by version 0.8.2 it was removed. But for a brief moment, IRC was Bitcoin’s first social hub and the technical bridge that helped the network come alive. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/bitcoiners-meet-bitcoiners Artwork: Bitcoiners Meet Bitcoiners by Zigor (@zigor). Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline.

Great ideas spark movements, but collaboration turns them into reality. nostr:nprofile1qqsy2ga7trfetvd3j65m3jptqw9k39wtq2mg85xz2w542p5dhg06e5qpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhmnq3e (@marttimalmi on X) was one of the first to help build #Bitcoin from nothing. Artwork by Pani Santiago (@pani_santiago on X). Martti discovered Bitcoin in April 2009 while studying computer science in Helsinki. He cared deeply about freedom and self sovereignty and believed technology could achieve what politics could not. Money, he realised, was the most powerful system to change. Centralised alternatives like e-Gold and Liberty Dollar had all failed. A peer to peer system was needed. Searching online, he found Bitcoin, read the Whitepaper and emailed #Satoshi offering to contribute. Satoshi first asked him to write an FAQ for bitcoin dot org. Soon he was helping develop the site and forums, improving the software, porting the client to Linux and coordinating translations. The early community was small, idealistic and focused on building a better monetary system. The Slashdot mention in 2010 triggered rapid growth. Miners flooded in and the culture shifted. Martti kept his node running so newcomers always had peers. With difficulty still at 1, he could mine 200 to 300 BTC per day on his laptop. Over time he mined more than 55,000 BTC, turning mining off only when playing Counter Strike. In October 2009, he completed the first known BTC USD trade, selling 5,050 BTC for 5.02 dollars. In 2010, he launched BitcoinExchange dot com, the first semi automated exchange. He shut it down later that year as Mt. Gox gained traction and due to Finnish regulatory constraints. As Bitcoin grew, Martti had less time to contribute. He sold part of his holdings in 2011 to buy a studio apartment, a major moment for him at age 22. Later he had to sell more BTC at low prices while between jobs. Today, the BTC he once had would make him a billionaire, but he does not dwell on that. He says he gained far more from the people, ideas and experiences that came from helping build Bitcoin. He reflects on gratitude, on nostr:nprofile1qqsq3ppke5pel7ysw3rgl5e8lt8ky7zwavm5jrs2zx9tnu2vn5nydnqpzemhxue69uhks6tnwshxummnw3ezumrpdejz7qgewaehxw309ahx7um5wghxcmnsd9ux2mrn9e3k7mf0eak8qj harsh sentence, and on the importance of appreciating what we have. Most of all, he is proud of Bitcoin’s impact. It has made millions ask what money really is and created a culture that still grows stronger. In his words, the snowball is only beginning to roll. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/from-solo-to-shared Artwork: From Solo to Shared by Pani Santiago (@pani_santiago over on X). With thanks to nostr:nprofile1qqsy2ga7trfetvd3j65m3jptqw9k39wtq2mg85xz2w542p5dhg06e5qpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhmnq3e (@marttimalmi over on X) for sharing his story. Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline.

Before #Bitcoin meant anything to the world, it meant something to two people who believed in it. The first transaction between #SatoshiNakamoto and #HalFinney still carries a quiet power. Artwork by Paul Milinski (@paul_milinski). On January 12 2009, Bitcoin recorded its first transaction. One day earlier, Hal Finney had already made history by becoming the first person to ever tweet about Bitcoin. His simple message read: Running bitcoin. A day later, his wallet received 10 BTC from #Satoshi. This was more than a symbolic gesture. It was the first verifiable proof that Bitcoin’s peer to peer network worked as intended. Hal was the natural choice. He had responded quickly to Satoshi’s announcement on the #Cryptography Mailing List and had spun up his own node almost immediately. He became a close collaborator, emailing Satoshi, finding bugs and helping stabilise the young network. At the time, the moment felt unremarkable. Two internet strangers were simply testing software and confirming that transactions could settle. Only later would the full significance become clear. Hal later reflected on the experience. Bitcoin was so early that difficulty was 1. Blocks could be mined with a regular CPU. He mined several blocks but stopped because the computer ran hot and the fan noise was irritating. As he said: I wish I had kept it up longer, but I was extraordinarily lucky to be there at the beginning. The first transaction showcases Bitcoin’s #UTXO model. Satoshi’s 50 BTC coinbase reward was split into two parts: 10 BTC sent to Hal and 40 BTC returned to Satoshi as a separate output. There were no network fees. No congestion. Just one input and two outputs. A clean, direct demonstration of Bitcoin working exactly as the Whitepaper described: a peer to peer electronic cash system. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/first-signs-of-life Artwork: First Signs of Life by Paul Milinski (@paul_milinsk over on Xi). Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. https://blossom.primal.net/04b0f326619c3e5bdbeb72c70cebb673452e7a5d308c21b623a0e541cf1a8576.mp4

Before #Bitcoin ran like clockwork, it waited six days for its second block. Block 1 is one of the most studied moments in Bitcoin history, surpassed only by the #genesisblock itself. Artwork by MLOdotArt (@MLOdotArt On X). Block 1 arrived on January 9 2009. It contained no hidden message from #Satoshi, yet in every practical sense it marked the moment Bitcoin became a functioning network. The mystery is the six day gap. Bitcoin targets a block roughly every 10 minutes, so why did the second block take almost a week? Some believe Satoshi simply rested after months of intense work. Others have suggested a playful nod to the seven day creation story in Genesis. The more grounded explanation is that Satoshi did not want to pre mine a large number of coins before others could join. There is evidence that the early Bitcoin client may not have mined until it connected to at least one other node. Block 1 appeared around seven hours after Satoshi shared the source code on the #Cypherpunk Mailing List. This timing suggests that a second user, likely Hal Finney, had to begin running the software before the network would continue producing blocks. Many theories surround what happened during the gap. One idea is that Satoshi may have run a private test network for several days after mining the genesis block. He could have mined additional test blocks to verify stability, then discarded them before the public release on January 9. What is certain is that Satoshi wanted Bitcoin’s first public steps to be solid. He understood that only a few cryptographers were willing to try it, and if the software did not work immediately, they might not return. Block 1 was worth the wait. It contained the first spendable coins. While the 50 BTC in the genesis block cannot be spent, the 50 BTC reward in block 1 is fully transferable. For this reason, some consider January 9 to be Bitcoin’s true birthday. Until that moment, Bitcoin existed only as an idea. With block 1, it became a living #peertopeer network. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/bitcoins-slowest-ever-block Artwork: Bitcoin’s Slowest Ever Block by MLOdotArt (@MLOdotArt over on X). Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and interactive timeline.

Did you know #SatoshiNakamoto’s pre release #Bitcoin code included a poker lobby and a peer to peer marketplace? These early features offer a rare glimpse into Satoshi’s broader vision for what Bitcoin might one day support. We explore them in this chapter, visualised by gmunk (@gmunk) using the original source code as his medium. After launching the Bitcoin network on January 3 2009, Satoshi published the source code five days later. Written in C++ and released for Windows, it revealed both his thinking and his technical depth. Many people have read the Whitepaper. Far fewer have read the actual code, which is long, intricate and full of unexpected details. Like the Whitepaper, #Satoshi privately shared an early draft of the code in late 2008. This pre release version contained features that did not make it to v0.1 on January 8 2009. These included a basic IRC client, a peer to peer marketplace and even a virtual poker game. It also used the term bitcoin miner, a phrase that never appeared in the Whitepaper. The curiosities are interesting, but the main achievement is more important. In roughly 15,000 lines of C++, Satoshi solved the double spending problem that had blocked earlier digital cash attempts. He implemented Proof of Work, the peer to peer network, and even included a graphical wallet interface. Satoshi later wrote that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was effectively set in stone. Still, he warned testers that the software was alpha and might need a full restart. Fefe Demeny observes that Satoshi created Bitcoin to help people escape a broken financial system. He delivered a profound innovation and chose to remain anonymous, giving the invention without seeking recognition. Bitcoin needed more than one node to come alive. The first to join was #HalFinney, who downloaded the code on January 10 and wrote: I am looking forward to trying it out. Those early users did not realise they were making history. They were simply experimenting with new software. Yet some saw something greater. They recognised a financial network unlike anything before it and kept their nodes online to support it. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/straight-from-the-source Artwork: Death of Kings, Rise of Code by gmunk (@gmunk on X). Appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and interactive timeline. https://blossom.primal.net/e7029daae59a21ac0c65174a678def00cbdb57c00d02f283cee1ff8a7063a380.mp4

Bitcoin began as a response to fear. On January 3rd, 2009, #SatoshiNakamoto launched the #Bitcoin network and embedded a warning inside its very first block, a newspaper headline about another looming bank bailout. The journalist behind those words, Francis Elliot (@elliottengage on X), later discovered his headline had become part of financial history and was anonymously sent Bitcoin in response. Every creation has a genesis moment. Bitcoin’s came with symbolism, mythology, and intent, but underneath it all, it was a network launch. At 18:15:05 UTC, #Satoshi mined block 0, awarding 50 BTC to the very first address. Bitcoin was empty, quiet, and inhabited by its unseen creator. The most famous part of the #genesisblock isn’t technical, though its hash beginning with two extra hex zeroes suggests Satoshi mined it with extra care. What matters is the embedded message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” On the surface, it was a timestamp. In reality, it was a manifesto. A statement that Bitcoin would be everything the legacy system was not: verifiable, auditable, transparent, and immune to bailouts. Physical copies of that issue of The Times have since become collectors’ items. Francis Elliot recalls tweeting his surprise after learning his headline had been encoded into the block. “Then a load of #bitcoiners reacted,” he said, “and threw me some coins, which I had the good sense to save.” Another curiosity: the 50 BTC block reward from the genesis block can never be spent. While some consider it an accident, it is far more likely to have been deliberate, a signal that #Satoshi wasn’t doing this for personal gain. The genesis block was his pledge never to cash out. In the years since, the block has taken on a life of its own. Satoshi’s first address has become a message board, with people sending tiny amounts of BTC and OP_RETURN messages in tribute. Analysts study the block for symbolism, easter eggs, and clues about Satoshi’s intentions. It remains the emptiest block in Bitcoin history, and one of the most meaningful. We explore this story in “In the Beginning, Satoshi Created Bitcoin,” accompanied by artwork from Federico Clapis (@FedericoClapis on X). The piece is scratch-reveal and appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/in-the-beginning-satoshi-created-bitcoin

The auction for the First Edition of History of Bitcoin is now live on nostr:nprofile1qyt8wumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qqsp7f8ttjugefs085gkd9p3aadlqnqgp92d02f73al2szuau8q04egnh83p5 in support of nostr:nprofile1qqs0vzw43dp9x3v8drvm4udj326dld0ku6gdnxajwcxg8h36ssxrags952hav A work that connects the history it preserves with the future it strengthens🧵 Full details: https://shop.historyofbitcoin.io/first-edition. https://blossom.primal.net/29ce2f0db2668a16a48180c2353af155a2a16f0ba19d18b51cf68d6c2669365e.mp4 Housed in a case crafted from 5,000-year-old fossilised black oak, England’s rarest native hardwood. Ancient and enduring, the case has been designed to safeguard the 128 artworks for generations to come. Inside: a Bull Leather bound volume crowned with a bespoke silver Bitcoin emblem by Asprey Studio ( @AspreyStudio @alastairjwalker ) Across 128 artworks, Bitcoin’s story is brought to life through the vision of leading artists around the world. The full Bitcoin source code is printed across the edition, with each copy carrying its own unique portion. Collectors together hold the entire code, forming a network shaped by the Bitcoiners who built its story. The First Edition includes the very first segment of that code. Accompanying the main volume is Revelations, a pocket companion linking each artwork to the historic event it represents. Where the art captures the moment, Revelations anchors it in fact and memory. How the proceeds are shared: • 21 percent goes equally to the 128 contributing artists • 79 percent is donated to My First Bitcoin My First Bitcoin provides free Bitcoin education to students and communities worldwide. By supporting this auction, you help preserve Bitcoin’s past and empower the next generation to shape its future. Our auction launch celebration event is taking place tonight at nostr:nprofile1qqstvj22wngc5t0687qvak06mt34spm3dl8pqu0ymcv7946xkmv8vpsmsrsqx with the brilliant nostr:nprofile1qy3hwumn8ghj7mtgwqer2wr6wfcxj6thdchxxmr0wfjkxmr0w4jzumn9wshszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz7qpqhghnjjpnvkz8t6gkszuf37d7puwc2qtxc65rnklqsngzv6kkug9q9v3424

In times of uncertainty, return to the #BitcoinWhitepaper. Nine pages. 2,736 words. A document that endures every market cycle and continues to shape the future of money. Like the Magna Carta, Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, and the U.S. Constitution, the #Bitcoin Whitepaper is both simple and revolutionary. These texts weren’t written to be literary masterpieces, they were written to redefine the systems they addressed. What those earlier documents did for rights, faith, and governance, the Bitcoin Whitepaper has done for 21st-century finance. Whitepapers are normally dry, technical documents. Bitcoin’s was different. Its language was understated, but the idea it presented was radical. Across its nine pages, #SatoshiNakamoto outlined a peer-to-peer monetary system built on decentralised consensus, timestamped data, and immutable records. It transformed how we think about value, identity, and digital ownership. Curiously, the words “blockchain” and “mining” never appear in the text, yet the entire crypto ecosystem originated from it. Decades earlier, W. Scott Stornetta and Stuart Haber had already built systems for immutable digital records, early blockchain technology. As Stornetta notes, “People assume Satoshi created blockchain. In reality, Satoshi built Bitcoin on top of #blockchain technology. The real innovations were making the ledger exclusively about money and introducing mining incentives.” Nearly half the citations in the Whitepaper reference their work. nostr:nprofile1qqs0w2xeumnsfq6cuuynpaw2vjcfwacdnzwvmp59flnp3mdfez3czpsprpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumr0wpczuum0vd5kzmp0ksxxx2 adds that Satoshi likely wrote the code first and the Whitepaper second: “I think the Whitepaper shows what Satoshi was focused on, enabling transactions without middlemen. The economics were secondary, meant only to bootstrap hashrate when BTC was worthless.” Satoshi quietly released the Whitepaper on October 31st, 2008, posting it to the #Cryptography Mailing List with a single sentence: “I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” The world barely reacted. The first reply questioned whether the system could scale. Others doubted whether honest participants would have enough computing power to resist attackers. #HalFinney was the first to truly understand it, calling Bitcoin “a very promising idea,” though he noted that the initial reception was skeptical at best. On the same day, Satoshi posted on the P2P Foundation forum, offering early readers some bitcoin, an offer now legendary for what it represented. The announcement generated strong interest within that community, even if the wider world took years to catch on. Since then, the Bitcoin Whitepaper has been translated into more than 43 languages, including braille. It is embedded inside every MacOS device and has been cited over 20,000 times. It introduced core concepts like Proof-of-Work security, preventing double-spends, decentralised consensus, timestamped records, and the blockchain data structure. It wasn’t a game-changer, it was a game creator. At just 2,736 words, it’s shorter than the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution, yet its influence is arguably greater. Thousands of blockchain whitepapers have followed, but none have been as concise or as influential. The Bitcoin Whitepaper distilled decades of cryptographic and economic research into a protocol that solved the longstanding problem of trustless digital money. It remains essential reading for anyone interested in cryptography, distributed systems, economics, or the future of finance. Satoshi credited the giants whose ideas paved the way: nostr:nprofile1qqsqyredyxhqn0e4ln0mvh0v79rchpr0taeg4vcvt64te4kssx5pc0spr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6un9d3shjtnhd3m8xtnnwpskxegpzamhxue69uhkummnw3ezuendwsh8w6t69e3xj7s3l2qlf, Ralph Merkle, Dave Bayer, Stuart Haber, W. Scott Stornetta, Wei Dai, and others. Their work shaped the breakthrough. We explore this history in “The World’s Most Famous Whitepaper,” with artwork by Hackatao (@Hackatao on X). It appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/the-worlds-most-famous-whitepaper

What was #SatoshiNakamoto’s first public act? Before the Whitepaper. Before the code. Before the #GenesisBlock. On 18 August 2008, #Satoshi anonymously registered a simple domain: bitcoin.org. Almost no one noticed. But that domain would become the launchpad for a monetary revolution. When the site first appeared, it was just 700 words in plain text. The opening line introduced “the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending. It’s completely decentralized with no server or central authority.” It was concise. Direct. #Cypherpunk to the core. To register the domain anonymously, Satoshi used a service called AnonymousSpeech, a tool designed for anonymous domains and email. Achieving this anonymity required creative methods: cash mailed to a Swiss PO box, e-gold digital currency, and a bank wire to a Swiss account under the name “Mike Weber.” There is irony in the fact that Satoshi had to jump through all these hoops. If only a peer-to-peer digital currency had existed. Once the domain was secured, he built a simple website that would become Bitcoin’s earliest basecamp. Six weeks after registering it, on October 31st 2008, Satoshi announced #Bitcoin to the Cryptography Mailing List, linking to the Whitepaper hosted on bitcoin.org. The site included screenshots of the original Bitcoin client, downloading instructions via SourceForge, and a brief explanation of how the system worked. For early adopters, it was all they needed to begin running the software. In the following months, the site expanded with an introduction to Bitcoin, a list of advantages, and help for new users. It emphasised key ideas: no central authority, no reliance on trusted intermediaries, and the ability to hide real-world identity. Many sections were likely written by #Satoshi or Martti Malmi, one of the earliest contributors. By 2010, bitcoin.org was receiving worldwide attention, and Satoshi was preparing to leave. True to his design principles, he decentralised control of the domain before stepping back. Developer wbnns recalls: “When Satoshi left the project, he gave ownership of the domain to additional people, separate from the Bitcoin developers, to spread responsibility and prevent any one person or group from easily gaining control over the Bitcoin project.” Since then, bitcoin.org has been maintained by various community members. It still receives millions of visits a year and remains one of Bitcoin’s most important historical artefacts. A simple domain, but the gateway to everything that came next. We’ve captured this chapter in “The History of Bitcoin by Smashtoshi” with the artwork “THE WEBSITE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD” by Vesa (@artbyvesa on X). It appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/the-website-that-changed-the-world https://blossom.primal.net/327911d7e5749109bfda2fd4aaef2c8b1d0284b5309fd8d7b86a9129a5d7794d.mp4

PAY ATTENTION TO BITCOIN WHEN THE WORLD IS FALLING APART. Every major global crisis has pushed more people toward #Bitcoin. 2009: Financial crisis → Genesis Block 2013: Cyprus bank haircuts → Bitcoin surges 2020: Pandemic fear → +416% 2025: You are here. The history matters. While Wall Street was burning in 2008, #SatoshiNakamoto was quietly building an exit. As the global financial system cracked under the weight of reckless lending, collapsing banks, and evaporating trust, #Satoshi was assembling a new kind of monetary architecture, one that didn’t depend on the stability or honesty of financial institutions. The crash began long before Lehman Brothers fell. In early 2007, New Century Financial collapsed under subprime defaults. HSBC announced a $10.5B write-down. Bear Stearns froze withdrawals in its mortgage-backed hedge funds. The warning signs were there, but few listened. By 2008, the dominos fell fast: Bear Stearns collapsed, Lehman Brothers died after 158 years, credit markets froze, and panic spread globally. Governments rushed in with bailouts while the public watched trust evaporate. During this period, #Satoshi was finalising the #BitcoinWhitepaper, opening with a simple idea and ending with a powerful message: electronic payments without relying on trust. Satoshi had started working on Bitcoin in mid-2007, around the exact time “bank run” re-entered common vocabulary. The timing wasn’t an accident. He recognised the need for a monetary system that couldn’t be manipulated, frozen, or debased by failure-prone institutions. On August 22, 2008, as markets were deteriorating further, he contacted Wei Dai to reference the earlier “b-money” concept. Bitcoin was nearing completion just as the traditional system was in freefall. Then came the statement that immortalised the moment: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” Embedded forever in Bitcoin’s Genesis Block, a timestamped reminder that Bitcoin was born from a crash. We capture this pivotal chapter in “The History of Bitcoin by Smashtoshi,” accompanied by artwork from Alex (@paintwithalex over on X). It appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. Read the full article: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/it-began-with-a-crash

To understand #Bitcoin’s resilience, it helps to understand the ideas that came before it. One of the most important was nostr:nprofile1qqsg9nvuv7ls3z66dj46nar2905t7c229p3qms2anykqg8pqkcq8x8qyr328d Bit Gold, a direct intellectual ancestor to #Bitcoin and a critical step in the evolution of electronic cash. Szabo was one of the #Cypherpunks who worked at David Chaum’s #Digicash in Amsterdam. But while he was there, he realized that #Ecash had a fundamental flaw: it was centralised. Employees theoretically had the ability to secretly issue coins and manipulate the system. This insight led Szabo to a principle he repeated often: “Trusted third parties are security holes.” About a year after nostr:nprofile1qqsqyredyxhqn0e4ln0mvh0v79rchpr0taeg4vcvt64te4kssx5pc0spr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6un9d3shjtnhd3m8xtnnwpskxegpzamhxue69uhkummnw3ezuendwsh8w6t69e3xj7s3l2qlf introduced #Hashcash, Szabo used its proof-of-work mechanism to design a new kind of digital money that didn’t rely on any single operator: Bit Gold. Like Hashcash, #BitGold units were created by hashing. Only some hashes were valid, and finding one required computational work. But Bit Gold added a new twist: when someone found a valid hash, they would publish it publicly and “own” it. The hash would be attributed to their public key. If they later wanted to transfer it, they would publish a signed message assigning ownership to a new public key. But Bit Gold faced two major challenges before it could function as money. The first was inflation. As computers become more powerful, generating valid hashes gets easier. Over time, the supply of new Bit Gold units could explode. Szabo envisioned a complex mechanism to stabilise difficulty and reduce technological inflation, but it was never fully fleshed out. The second challenge was ownership tracking. Szabo imagined a distributed registry to keep track of which public keys owned which hashes. But trusted third parties were not acceptable, so this registry would have to be maintained by a group of users. In theory, if a conflict occurred, such as a double spend, this group would resolve it through a sophisticated voting process. But Szabo never explained who these users would be, how they would be chosen, or how to prevent collusion and #Sybil attacks. In the end, Bit Gold was never implemented. It wasn’t yet equipped to solve these economic and coordination problems. Even so, Bit Gold represented a huge leap forward. It pushed the concept of digital money closer to what Bitcoin would eventually become, introducing ideas that would later prove essential. We honour this chapter in “The History of Bitcoin by Smashtoshi” with original artwork by Smashtoshi. It appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. You can read the full article by Aaron van Wirdum here: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/discovering-digital-gold https://blossom.primal.net/35551350c06e9ba306fb816a047e4726240a40380977030b32606c6784946d87.mp4

Red candles come and go. History says relax. Long before #Bitcoin existed, #HalFinney was keeping the #Cypherpunk dream alive. Even in the early 2000s, when many had lost hope that electronic cash would ever work, Finney refused to give up. Hal wasn’t just an early #Bitcoiner, he was one of the most committed Cypherpunks. A video game developer from California and an early contributor to PGP, he reviewed almost every e-cash proposal the mailing list produced. In 2004, he launched his own system: Reusable Proof of Work (#RPOW). Like #Hashcash and #BitGold, RPOW used proof of work to create new value. Users would connect to a server operated by Finney, solve a PoW challenge, and receive an RPOW token. The server kept a database of issued tokens to prevent double spending. To spend RPOW, you simply sent your token to someone else. They would then forward it to the RPOW server, which validated it and issued them a new one. In this way, proof of work became reusable. Privacy was built in. All connections to the server went through Tor, so Hal never knew who his users were. To guarantee honesty, Finney relied on open-source software and a new technique called “remote attestation.” The RPOW code ran on a special IBM chip that could cryptographically prove it was running the correct software, ensuring that no one, not even Hal, could secretly mint tokens. Unlike Bit Gold, RPOW was actually implemented and ran in the real world. But it had one major flaw: as computers became faster, generating new RPOW tokens became easier. Over time, the currency would inflate. There was no economic incentive to hold or accept it. Without that, RPOW never gained traction. Finney had solved electronic cash on a technical level, but the economics weren’t right. Bitcoin would later fix that by aligning incentives with proof of work. We honour this chapter in “The History of Bitcoin by Smashtoshi” with the artwork: “REUSABLE WORK” by Yonat Vaks (@yonatvaks on X). It appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. Read the full article by Aaron van Wirdum: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/reusable-work

How did an intelligence agency end up publishing the algorithm that #Satoshi used to secure #Bitcoin? This is the story of SHA-256. If the #Cypherpunks had a mortal enemy, it was the #NSA. On one side you had people like Tim May, Eric Hughes, and John Gilmore – fighting for a future where #cryptography protects ordinary people. On the other side you had the NSA – an agency specialising in surveillance, data collection, and monitoring global communications. For decades, it tried to control the spread of strong cryptography. But here’s the twist: The NSA also created one of the most important tools that Cypherpunk projects – and later Bitcoin – would rely on. The agency designed the SHA family of cryptographic hash functions, the foundations that would eventually power systems like Hashcash and, ultimately, Bitcoin. A hash takes any data and transforms it into a fixed string of numbers. Change even a single comma in a book and the resulting hash is completely different. Crucially, hashing only works one way. You can go from data → hash, but not from hash → data. That makes it perfect for security and integrity checks. The NSA released SHA-0 in 1993, replaced it with SHA-1 after flaws were discovered, and then moved again when researchers found “collisions” – different inputs that produced the same hash. Their solution was the SHA-2 family, published in 2001 under a royalty-free licence. That included SHA-256 – the workhorse that went on to secure modern internet protocols and, later, Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work. SHA-256 is unpredictable. There is no shortcut. The only way to find a “valid” hash is trial and error – swapping in new numbers until one fits. That property made it ideal for proof-of-work systems like Hashcash, and later for Satoshi’s Bitcoin mining. So even as Cypherpunks were fighting for digital privacy against agencies like the NSA, they still borrowed NSA-designed tools. Electronic cash was not built in isolation. It was built on top of primitives created by the very adversary privacy advocates were trying to resist. We’ve captured this chapter in “The History of Bitcoin by Smashtoshi” with the artwork: “MAKING A HASH OF IT” by Hannes Hummel (@hanneshummel on X). It appears in the History of Bitcoin Collector’s Book and on our interactive timeline. You can read the full article by Aaron van Wirdum here: https://www.historyofbitcoin.io/timeline/making-a-hash-of-it