Bitcoin Turns 17-Years Old Today: From ‘Magic Money’ to Global Asset

On January 3, 2009, an anonymous creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Bitcoin genesis block, embedding a now-famous message referencing the global banking crisis unfolding at the time. Back then, almost no one noticed.

Fast-forward to today, seventeen years later, that creation has now become one of the most disruptive financial inventions in modern history, surviving ridicule, banks, crashes, and countless declarations of its death. Happy birthday, Bitcoin!

17-Years Old

In its infancy, BTC was little more than an experiment among cryptographers and libertarians. It didn’t really have a known price, there were no exchanges where you could openly trade it, and there was no clear use case beyond peer-to-peer value transfer, which was actually intended in the whitepaper.

The first known transaction occurred in May 2010 – the infamous Bitcoin Pizza Day, as it is referred to now, when 10,000 BTC was used to purchase two pizzas. At the time, though, Bitcoin was dismissed as a toy for geeks, a failed attempt at digital cash, or as “magical internet money” with no intrinsic value.

Later, the first actual attention from the mainstream was for all the wrong reasons. Darknet marketplaces thrived in the early 2010s, and BTC became associated with illegal activity, drugs, and crime, which earned it a reputation as the currency of the underworld. The legacy media quickly labeled it a tool for criminals, and regulators warned that it had no legitimate future.

That stigma followed it for years, despite later data showing that illicit activity accounted for only a small fraction of all BTC transactions.

From Dead to Trillion-Dollar Asset

Bitcoin’s debut on exchanges made it clear that the asset will face some enhanced volatility. It surged, it crashed, then surged again, only to collapse again, and then rise back up. This scenario has repeated countless times for the past over a decade. Given the fact that some of those corrections were by 50%, 60%, or even 80% at times, haters used every moment to call it ‘dead.’ In fact, there are roughly 450 such cases documented since 2010.

It was called a bubble or “rat poison square.” It has been compared to the tulip mania, and renowned economists have warned that it would go to zero. However, it never did.

Instead, it kept proving them wrong. The narrative began to change during the bull run in 2017 and was solidified after the COVID-19 crash and the subsequent rally. As governments printed unprecedented amounts of fiat currencies, Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million units started to matter.

Gradually, it was no longer pitched as just “digital cash.” It became something more: digital gold to some, a hedge against monetary debasement to others, or even a long-term store of value.

It was further legitimized in 2024 when roughly a dozen spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in the United States. Later, it became a key factor in the country’s presidential elections, and there are talks about a US-based BTC strategic reserve. Not bad for a teenager.

Community Celebrates

Naturally, the ever-vocal cryptocurrency community was quick to celebrate Bitcoin’s birthday, which helped launch a multi-trillion-dollar industry. Strategy’s Saylor, the champion behind the world’s largest corporate BTC holder, published an orange cake on X, wishing the cryptocurrency a happy birthday, while Lucky posted:

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