Bitcoin Forum

Depending on who you ask, Bitcoin is either 9 or 10 years old right now.  It seems like we can't collectively decide which date is the right one to recognise as the official "birthday".  Which date do you think is most the appropriate one to celebrate?  Or do we celebrate all three equally?  

• The bitcoin.org domain name was registered on 18th August 2008.
• Satoshi's whitepaper was published on 31st October 2008.
• The Genesis Block was mined on 3rd January 2009.

I'd appreciate it if people didn't just post a date in response, but to actually justify their reasoning for it.  This is a self-moderated topic and I'll be deleting low-quality posts.  If all you can do is pick a date, use the poll and don't bother replying with a post.

of course i consider the day when the first block was found as the birthday of bitcoin (meaning genesis block) and i think other dates don't make sense because none of them are the start of bitcoin aka the decentralized network.

for example when the paper came out, bitcoin didn't exist yet. you couldn't use it. you couldn't mine it. there was no network so you can't say it was the birthday of bitcoin. you can call that day the "conception" of bitcoin.
it is like having a child, when your wife gets pregnant you don't mark that day as birthday. but instead the day that your child is born even if you choose its name before that date!

What BrewMaster said. The publishing of the whitepaper can probably count, but then it's more of the birthday of the concept of bitcoin; not the birthday of bitcoin itself.

The bitcoin.org site shouldn't even be on the list to be honest. Though it definitely helped as a tool to spread information about bitcoin in a easier-to-understand manner(as I assume a lot of people aren't willing to read a science paper), it's just a website.

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I will go with genesis block. Reason, I believe we all know the day you were given birth to should be celebrated as your birthday not the day your parents (in this case satoshi) planned your birth (white paper) nor your naming ceremony (domain name).[/list]

BrewMaster's analogy is perfect.

We recognize the anniversary of the birth, not the conception. We recognize the anniversary of the marriage, not the proposal. Satoshi's whitepaper even concludes with the phrase "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust." (Emphasis added) The word "genesis" comes from Ancient Greek and literally means "beginning".

The whitepaper is the proposal/conception of bitcoin. The genesis block is the birth.

I vote on when Genesis block was mined, maybe will same with a lot of people in here. Because we talk about when bitcoin born. And when it is mined, it is like birth of bitcoin. But whatever date it is, bitcoin will supported by a lot of people.

Well as it should be done i voted before reading the posts and I voted for October 31st.
I believed since the "publication" it was truly the first tiny flame of what was to eventually
Become a very warming fire bitcoin has become.

But BrewMaster's description is perfect really.

I propise to celebrate both the August and October dates not with a "bank holiday"
but a "bitcoin holiday" and then for January 3rd "bitcoin day" ... Every year!

Banks are closed on bank holidays though, so should all miners shut down their hardware twice a year? ;)

In all seriousness though, BrewMaster put it so perfectly that there's little to add. The registration of bitcoin.org is a rather arbitrary date and the date of the whitepaper release, while important, is not quite Bitcoin's birthday.

So remember:

I don't know about others but for me, it is when the Genesis Block was mined, alot of projects ideas that was conceived and do not materialized, it is good that the whitepaper was released to gain the world attention but mining the first block set the pace for BTC and gave birth to Bitcoin

I chose January 3 because where it was a block genesis began to be mined, this meant bitcoin was circulating after the genesis block began. Whereas if only the whitepaper and domain are made it is not too influential because concrete evidence does not yet exist. If genesis block starts it means that there is already an item being mined, in this case it is bitcoin.

The whitepaper was BTC's inception – the moment it was created in the mind of Satoshi. However, in my opinion it was born 3rd January 2009 with the mining of the first block. Before that, it only existed on paper.

Bitcoin will be the same as it is today with very few things. But don't hope to see Bitcoin making the same boom as it did its first 10 years. We will surely be in a word of KYC this is a sure thing. Now real users will switch to privacy coins, be sure a lot of them will perform well in 2019.

See this article "5 Things I Learned From the Digital Currency Group Summit" (#Privacy Coins Will Get Attention in 2019)
https://cryptolawinsider.com/digital-currency-group-summit-2018/

Like others I will also go for 3rd of January 2019, the reason is none other than the first block of the network named "Genesis block." Although the idea for creating Bitcoin was way earlier than the "Genesis block," and it is also a fact that the domain name for Bitcoin was registered in 2008, and after that the white paper was published in the same year.

Even after the release of the white paper no Bitcoins were mined thus there weren't any Bitcoins with anyone prior than 3rd Jan 2009. The first block was mined on 3rd January of 2009, which is also known to be as the birth date of the new revolutionary currency of the world Bitcoin.
 

Nope, the right thing is to do the opposite to what the banks do, stay mining !

Can we be confident in saying that the mining of the genesis block was a considered event?

https://static.businessinsider.de/image/5a1fe404ec1ade36084453d7-810/pasted%20image%20at%2020171130%201045%20am.png

I think bitcoin will be considered ten years old in 2019. I think the first Bitcoin was used in 2009 and in 2019, it will be exactly ten years old since its usage. I also think that January 3rd is the best day to celebrate the birthday of Bitcoin.

When the first block arrived. Before that it was theory. On that day it became functioning reality. That'll do for me. That's not to say that tomorrow isn't worth celebrating too.

It would be very interesting to know when the idea was first germinated. It may be considerably earlier than we imagine.

In part, I somewhat consider bitcoin's birthday to be the day when the whitepaper was introduced to the world, but then, like many other theories and hypotheses, it's not true until it's fully functioning, working, and being witnessed real-time. The Genesis block marked the actual birth date of bitcoin and from that point we started counting bitcoin's years as a materialization of Satoshi's vision and concept of a trust-less, digital cash. I can't believe it has been 10 years since, and staying on this community for more than 4 years, too. Time flies by so fast.

Well personally i think it should be when the first sat was mined. It's the fruition of all thr preparation previously made by satoshi and his group. Though i don't think it's really that important to specify a single date for btc's birthday 😛

I think it has to be the Genesis block and I'd like to use the example of a baby to make my point. We do not call a baby 1 year old a year after the parents first decided to try for a baby or a year after they were conceived, no - we call a baby 1 year old a year after they first came in to existence as a real thing - their birth day. It's the same to my mind for bitcoin, before Genesis block bitcoin was just an idea or something in development, it didn't yet exist.

When the genesis block was mined since before that it was more so a concept, one the genesis block was mined and Bitcoin was mine able it was more proven.

Like the majority, I would go for the first block option. Bitcoin.org domain doesn't sound like anything important at all, whitepaper is like impregnation (oh, Brewmaster said it already) and mining a block is birth. Thus, bitcoin is not 10 years old yet and 2019 has chances to give us some adequate prices and the market that is not full of panic sellers. The reason for this is that the whitepaper is barely a theoretical document which gives nothing but hope that the actual thing will eventually be created. When the first block is mined, it creates something that never existed before and can then grow into something bigger and actually usable.

conception date: before august 2008
pregnancy test confirmation date: august 2008 (domain registration)
first ultrasound: october 2008 (white paper)
birth date: january 2009 (code release)

10th birthday january 2019

From my personal point of view, Bitcoin birthday is the first block mined on January. I don't know why people think the Birthday of bitcoin is considered to be Satoshi whitepaper. It was only his thoughts, research and functionality explanation written there. Bitcoin has not been physically existing until January 3rd.

It looks like most people agree that the genesis block is the most important date in Bitcoin's history. I wish I knew about Bitcoin when it happened. Let's hope the child goes through puberty and we'll celebrate its 20th birthday with a blast.

I'm glad to see my vote is part of the majority: The Genesis Block was the birth of Bitcoin.

Although nobody voted for the registration date of bitcoin.org, I'll add an argument against it: a domain registration can simply be ended. If bitcoin.org disappears (or starts selling car parts), that doesn't mean Bitcoin ends. Satoshi's whitepaper will never disappear, and neither will the Genesis Block.

In retrospect: yes! It makes perfect sense that not all historical events had a large impact the moment they occurred. Think about great inventions like steam engines, steel, electricity or transistors: it took a while before it become common.
Now let's see if Bitcoin can become mainstream in the next 10-20 years!

It's reassuring to see that even though the media don't seem to understand the difference, most people here do.  I'll lock this one down now since there's probably now much else to discuss.  I just thought it odd lots of places online were suddenly saying Bitcoin is 10 years old when it isn't quite there yet.