The Bitcoin Story: From Satoshi to Today

[stark2010]

In 2008, an anonymous genius, Satoshi Nakamoto, came up with an idea:
"What if money didn’t need banks? What if everyone could be their own bank?"
He wrote the Bitcoin whitepaper — a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. A currency that would be:
Fixed supply: 21 million
Censorship-resistant
Decentralized, anyone could mine
In 2009, the Bitcoin network went live. A small group of CPU miners started mining blocks — Satoshi, Hal Finney, Martti Malmi. Laszlo bought pizza, marking the first real-world transaction recorded on the blockchain.
Difficulty was extremely low, so coins were easy to mine. Satoshi mined 1.1 million BTC and never touched them. He let the network grow on its own. If he had stayed and guided it, Bitcoin might have become leader-centric and a target for governments.
In 2010, GPU miners appeared — the network remained decentralized and fair, but slowly the vision started to shift. People saw Bitcoin as “peer-to-peer cash,” but early adopters were spending coins for profit.

2013: Bitcoin price first crossed $1,000 — mainstream attention arrived.
2017: Retail frenzy → $20,000
2020–2021: Institutional entry → $60,000+
2025: New all-time high → $126,000

But Satoshi’s dream of every person holding and using BTC has faded. Today:

Big custodial holders & banks → ~10M BTC
Liquid BTC on exchanges → ~7M
Market hype + ETFs → mostly paper BTC

Bitcoin remains protocol-free, but the ecosystem is now leaderless yet institution-heavy. Freedom still exists for those who control their keys, but the retail advantage is diminished.

If Satoshi were watching, he might smile:
"I designed the rules, not the players."

[AbuBhakar]

But Satoshi’s dream of every person holding and using BTC has faded. Today:

Big custodial holders & banks → ~10M BTC
Liquid BTC on exchanges → ~7M
Market hype + ETFs → mostly paper BTC

Bitcoin remains protocol-free, but the ecosystem is now leaderless yet institution-heavy. Freedom still exists for those who control their keys, but the retail advantage is diminished.

If Satoshi were watching, he might smile:
"I designed the rules, not the players."

You can still hold BTC, but at the current price, it is really difficult to hold a whole one; you can only hold satoshis or sats, in short words. Because even big people see its potential as an investment, many of them took the risk earlier to buy more. We can't blame those people who didn't buy it because it is their own decision to have BTC and keep it, if they don't want to, and they don't believe in its potential, there is nothing we can do. In the end, those who are willing to take the risk still win, whether they win or lose on the bitcoin they bought.

[saphire24]

Not owning 1 BTC doesn’t mean you’re excluded. Bitcoin was built to be divisible and permissionless. The real advantage today is self-custody, not unit size.

Football Bros IO