Bitcoin Genesis block - Today, 12 years ago

[Upgrade00]

All the interest of Bitcoin is currently on the price which is constantly setting new record heights and most are trying to predict how high it can go or when it would crash. It's however still pertinent to remember events which shaped the history of Bitcoin. Today 12 years ago, the first Bitcoin block was mined in a test transaction between Satoshi and Hal;

When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.

• The Bitcoins were received by Hal on the 12th of January and were designed to not be spendable - https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nc13r/comment/cchdhrm

• Here is the address which the Bitcoins were sent to - 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
As can be seen on Blockchair lots of dust transactions has been sent to that address, probably an attempt to de anonymize it, but till date there is not outgoing transaction.

• The transaction carried this text;

Code:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

There have been lots of discussion on the message behind this text, but no definite explanation as yet.

Here's the Raw Hex version

Code:

00000000   01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000010   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000020   00 00 00 00 3B A3 ED FD  7A 7B 12 B2 7A C7 2C 3E   ....;£íýz{.²zÇ,>
00000030   67 76 8F 61 7F C8 1B C3  88 8A 51 32 3A 9F B8 AA   gv.a.È.ÈŠQ2:Ÿ¸ª
00000040   4B 1E 5E 4A 29 AB 5F 49  FF FF 00 1D 1D AC 2B 7C   K.^J)«_Iÿÿ...¬+|
00000050   01 01 00 00 00 01 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000060   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
00000070   00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF  FF FF 4D 04 FF FF 00 1D   ......ÿÿÿÿM.ÿÿ..
00000080   01 04 45 54 68 65 20 54  69 6D 65 73 20 30 33 2F   ..EThe Times 03/
00000090   4A 61 6E 2F 32 30 30 39  20 43 68 61 6E 63 65 6C   Jan/2009 Chancel
000000A0   6C 6F 72 20 6F 6E 20 62  72 69 6E 6B 20 6F 66 20   lor on brink of 
000000B0   73 65 63 6F 6E 64 20 62  61 69 6C 6F 75 74 20 66   second bailout f
000000C0   6F 72 20 62 61 6E 6B 73  FF FF FF FF 01 00 F2 05   or banksÿÿÿÿ..ò.
000000D0   2A 01 00 00 00 43 41 04  67 8A FD B0 FE 55 48 27   *....CA.gŠý°þUH'
000000E0   19 67 F1 A6 71 30 B7 10  5C D6 A8 28 E0 39 09 A6   .gñ¦q0·.\Ö¨(à9.¦
000000F0   79 62 E0 EA 1F 61 DE B6  49 F6 BC 3F 4C EF 38 C4   ybàê.aÞ¶Iö¼?Lï8Ä
00000100   F3 55 04 E5 1E C1 12 DE  5C 38 4D F7 BA 0B 8D 57   óU.å.Á.Þ\8M÷º..W
00000110   8A 4C 70 2B 6B F1 1D 5F  AC 00 00 00 00            ŠLp+kñ._¬....

• SourceForge hosted the first open source Bitcoin client.

• More information - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

[1714695584]

1714695584

[pooya87]

Fun fact:
First block (height #1) was mined 6 days after the genesis block (height #0) on 2009-01-09

Code:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

There have been lots of discussion on the message behind this text, but no definite explanation as yet.

It's simply a "timestamp" and the purpose is to show that it is highly unlikely that this block was created any time before 2009-01-03 since the popular paper article didn't exist before this date.

Without that little string you could claim that for example Satoshi might have created genesis block 10 years ago in 1999!

[Daltonik]

• The Bitcoins were received by Hal on the 12th of January and were designed to not be spendable - https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nc13r/comment/cchdhrm

• Here is the address which the Bitcoins were sent to - 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
As can be seen on Blockchair lots of dust transactions has been sent to that address, probably an attempt to de anonymize it, but till date there is not outgoing transaction.

But judging by the screenshot of the Hal wallet the first transaction was sent to the address 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3  https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16
To the address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa there was no transaction on January 12, 2009
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa?page=544

[Upgrade00]

Another year to celebrate, or just remember the genesis of bitcoin blocks. It has been thirteen years now, and a lot has happened over the past 365 days.
Happy Birthday Bitcoin.

[OcTradism]

It's 13 years ago, not 12.

This birthday of Bitcoin genesis block changed the world. From deny, uncertainty, curiosity to legal tender in 2020. I don't naively believe what the El Salvador's President said will become true. But we can not exclude a possibility that we will have other nations make Bitcoin legal tender. It can happen in 2022 or in future. No need to know in what year it will happen exactly. It will and that's enough.

[kaggie]

Fun fact:

In 2009, you could get a scanned pdf version of The Times from anywhere in the world, meaning Satoshi didn't have to be located in Europe.

[dkbit98]

In 2009, you could get a scanned pdf version of The Times from anywhere in the world, meaning Satoshi didn't have to be located in Europe.

He could also travel to London on that same day, or someone could bring him Times newspaper on the same day, or who knows how many theories exist about that.
I don't believe he would used scanned pdf document because he would have to pay for that digitally (probably with cards) and leave a trace about that.

[kaggie]

He could also travel to London on that same day, or someone could bring him Times newspaper on the same day, or who knows how many theories exist about that.
I don't believe he would used scanned pdf document because he would have to pay for that digitally (probably with cards) and leave a trace about that.

Fair. The point remains. Satoshi could have been located in many places, and the phrase does not provide conclusive evidence of his location at the time. He could have used a burner card, traveled (near) that day, used a foreign friend, or many other things. (Perhaps the reason that it took several days to mine the first block after this was because he was traveling?)

[Upgrade00]

It's 13 years ago, not 12.

This is a post I made last year about this topic. I simply bumped it and changed the topic on the reply, but not on the main post, so it does not get confusing.