Reading notes from article by OSATO AVAN-NOMAYO:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-turning-12-from-the-genesis-block-to-wall-street-adoption

BTC 12th Anniversary: From the Genesis block to Wall Street adoption

Jan. 3, 2009

• Satoshi mined the Genesis block, known as #0, coding it into the software.

Jan. 9, 2009

• The first block, or #1, was mined, putting a true start to the network as it is known today.
• Satoshi announced the news to the cryptography mailing list with a download link to Bitcoin 0.1.0 (which was only compatible with the Windows operating system) on the open-source software database platform Sourceforge.

Jan. 12, 2009

• Hal Finney received the first-ever BTC transaction.

“The possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute time may be quite a good bet.” ~ Hal Finney

The programmer and cryptographer enthusiast famously predicted that Bitcoin could attain world reserve currency status and reach $10 million per coin.

“It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on.” ~ Satoshi

October 2009

• Bitcoin (BTC) received its first official valuation.
• The New Liberty Standard, an early BTC exchange, created a benchmark price for Bitcoin set at 1,309 BTC to $1.

December 2009

• The first client version with Linux support through the release of Bitcoin 0.2.0.

May 2010

• Laszlo Hanyecz cemented his place forever in Bitcoin folklore, paying 10,000 BTC for pizza in what is widely considered to be the first “real-world” Bitcoin transaction.

2010

• Satoshi’s plea to Assange (WikiLeaks) was one of the last pieces of digital correspondence from the Bitcoin creator before exiting the scene completely.

2011

• Bitcoin appeared to be evolving from being a strictly cypherpunk affair to the realm of anarchists and proponents of a free market.

Middle of 2011

• Bitcoin was at $30, but a 25,000-BTC theft from a user’s slushpool account caused a great price crash.
• Graphics processing units and field-programmable gate arrays provide more efficient Bitcoin mining capabilities.

2013

• Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange platform handled over 70% of the global BTC trade.
• The news of hackers stole about 850,000 BTC between 2011 and 2014 caused another major Bitcoin price crash.
• Tech adoption was on the rise, leading to the emergence of such products as BTC storage devices by the likes of Elliptic.
• U.S. crypto exchange giant Coinbase came on the scene, raising $25 million in funding.

Between 2013 and 2014

• The beginning of several governments taking notice of Bitcoin.

2015

• Major altcoins projects such as Ethereum begun to emerge.
• The introduction of application-specific integrated circuits and the rise of industrial Bitcoin mining.

August 2017

• A chain split leading to the creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
• Bitcoin’s price grew almost 20-fold from January 2017 to mid-December, almost eclipsing the $20,000 mark, followed immediately by a substantial and prolonged crash that bottomed out at $3,800 in early 2018.
• Several proponents arguing for institutional adoption as the next step in the Bitcoin evolution.

By mid-2019

• 
  BTC fundamentals continued to improve. The network hash rate topped 70 exahashes per second — more than 10 times the number of grains of sand on the planet.
• Bitcoin derivatives took off, introducing markets such as futures and options contracts
• Mainstream firms such as Fidelity announced plans for Bitcoin custody solutions.

2020

• Bitcoin appeared to have become the darling of institutional investors.
• Hedge funds and corporations pursuing direct exposure to BTC.
• Some publicly listed companies added Bitcoin to their balance sheets, holding the top-ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization as a treasury reserve asset amid recurrent currency debasement policies in major economies.
• Bitcoin shot past the $20,000 mark in late 2020.

Early days in 2021

• Bitcoin reached above $42,000, two times more than the magic number back in 2017.

What next?

Perhaps, government adoption is next on the agenda, and Bitcoin could become a reserve currency of a major world power.

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