The first Bitcoin block was mined this day, Jan. 3, exactly 17 years ago. On this date, BTC’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto officially launched Bitcoin as open-source software.
The crypto community celebrated this historic event, including the major crypto exchange Coinbase, which posted tweets to mark the occasion.
Coinbase initially posted a hash code-based tweet, which was followed by a happy birthday message. “Happy birthday bitcoin,” Coinbase wrote.
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On Jan. 3, 2009, the Bitcoin network was birthed when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Bitcoin genesis block. Embedded in this block was the text “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,” which is the date and headline of an issue of The Times newspaper.
Before this time, Satoshi laid the foundation for the Bitcoin network with the Bitcoin white paper published in October 2008.
On Oct. 31, 2008, a link to a white paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” was posted to a cryptography mailing list. About two months earlier, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered Aug. 18, 2008.
On Jan. 12, Hal Finney received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto, marking another noteworthy day in Bitcoin’s history.
Bitcoin gains institutional interest
Seventeen years later, Bitcoin is gaining institutional interest and is now a trillion dollar asset. On Jan. 2, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded total net inflows of $471 million, with BlackRock’s IBIT leading at $287 million.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $90,007, having reached an all-time high of $126,198 in October 2025.
The largest digital currency traded above the $90,000 price level for a second consecutive day after dipping below this level in December.
Bitcoin settled into a trading range of about $85,000 to $95,000 following the major sell-off in October, with bulls now making attempts to escape this range at 2026’s start.