$BTC

The original creator of Bitcoin is known by the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. As of 2021, the true identity of the person or organization behind this pseudonym remains unknown.

On October 31, 2008, Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper, which detailed how a peer-to-peer online currency could be implemented. They proposed using a decentralized ledger of transactions packaged in groups (called "blocks") and secured by cryptographic algorithms; the entire system was subsequently referred to as "blockchain."

Just two months later, on January 3, 2009, Nakamoto mined the first block in the Bitcoin network, known as the genesis block, thereby launching the world's first cryptocurrency. The price of Bitcoin was $0 when it was first introduced, and most Bitcoin was obtained through mining, which only required sufficiently powerful hardware (e.g., PC) and mining software. The first commercial Bitcoin transaction occurred on May 22, 2010, when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz exchanged 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas. With the price of Bitcoin today in mid-September 2021, those pizzas would be worth an astonishing $478 million. This event is now known as "Bitcoin Pizza Day." In July 2010, Bitcoin first began to be traded, with the price of Bitcoin ranging from $0.0008 to $0.08 at that time.