Happy Birthday Bitcoin!
Why Bitcoin?
Bitcoin has firmly established itself in our world, it is important to understand what this phenomenon is, where and why Bitcoin appeared. And January 3 is probably the best date for discussion, only October 31 can compare with it, and now we will figure out why.
Exactly 11 years ago, at the height of the financial crisis, on January 3, 2009, the Bitcoin genesis block was created. A decade later, a small experiment that no one but a couple dozen people paid any attention to during the first year suddenly became a global phenomenon of culture, politics and economics. 10 years ago, it was hard to imagine that bitcoins would have a real value of more than a few cents, but today, the volume of transactions on the network is calculated in billions of dollars every day, without interruption, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year without weekends, holidays and lunch breaks.
A little earlier, on October 31, 2008, the Bitcoin white paper was presented. This event subsequently changed the world and created a whole movement of blockchain and cryptocurrency supporters.
Bitcoin: Just in Time
Firstly, Bitcoin did not suddenly appear in 2009. It is, in fact, an incredible combination of many technologies, theories and corrections of many mistakes made earlier.
The basis for the creation of Bitcoin were such developments as: hash trees (1979), cryptographic timestamps (1991), public key cryptographic systems (1980), Proof of Work (1993), the Byzantine generals problem (1999). The first ideas of cryptocurrencies began to circulate in narrow circles back in 1998.
Satoshi himself claimed that work on Bitcoin itself began in 2007.
Some argue that the timing of Bitcoin's appearance is a matter of chance, and many simply ignore certain "coincidences." But in reality, the "coincidences" are too obvious to ignore the significance of Bitcoin's creation timelines. There are several dates in its creation that provide information about the reason for the invention's emergence.
Financial crisis 2007-2009
We all, if not experienced the Great Recession first hand, have at least heard about it. I am not sure if Satoshi would have been waiting for the next great recession if he had not managed to put the necessary pieces of the puzzle together by 2008. But it would have been incredibly difficult to find a better time to publish a censorship- and manipulation-resistant monetary system (not controlled by any single governing body, government, person or group of people).
The decline of the economy in countries around the world by the end of 2008
(saturation of red color by degree of decline)
Causes of the crisis
According to the final report of the special commission of the American Congress created by decision of US President Barack Obama to investigate the causes of the 2008-2009 crisis, published in January 2011, the crisis was provoked by the following factors:
• failures in financial regulation;
• violations in the area of corporate governance, which
resulted in excessive risks;
• excessively high household debt;
• widespread distribution of “exotic” securities
(derivatives);
• the growth of an unregulated “shadow” banking system.
Simply put, the cause of the Great Economic Crisis of 2007-2009 was the manipulation of the global economy.
On October 8, 2008, all the world's leading central banks, excluding the Central Banks of Japan and Russia, made an unprecedented decision to simultaneously reduce interest rates.
This, in essence, served as an indirect recognition of the global financial crisis.
On October 10, finance ministers and central bankers from the G7 countries met in Washington and approved
an anti-crisis plan, saying they would take “urgent and exceptional actions.” The plan called for “using any means available to support systemically important financial institutions from collapsing,” among other measures.
Satoshi’s Solution
On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published his own paper titled “ Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Digital Cash System ,” thus proposing his own solution to the problem. The difference is that Satoshi’s solution is long-term and has nothing to do with manipulating the global economy.
Bitcoin: A Digital Peer-to-Peer Cash System
On January 3, 2009, the so-called “genesis block” was generated, the zero block of the Bitcoin blockchain. It was a starting point, allowing everyone to verify the absence of pre-mining . Looking at the genesis block, you can see that the coins were not created in advance, which serves as a confirmation of the transparency of the system.
'Chancellor on brink of bailout of banks'
Included in this very block is a headline from The Times newspaper , which reads: “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” The phrase was taken from the headline of an article in the British publication The Times. The article was about the UK finance minister being forced to consider new measures to save banks in the midst of an economic crisis, which may indicate that the global financial crisis of 2008 and the policy of governments buying out large banks’ debts was one of Satoshi’s incentives.
The Times newspaper issue of 03.01.2009