Bitcoin genesis block
Satoshi Nakamoto mined block 0 of the Bitcoin blockchain, embedded with the Times of London headline from that morning: 'Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.' The reward was 50 bitcoins, unspendable by protocol design. The whitepaper had been published on October 31, 2008, six weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed. The entire premise was regulatory failure and the belief that cryptographic proof could do what sovereigns were failing to. Satoshi disappeared from public communication in April 2011 and has never been identified.
The Bitcoin whitepaper was published on October 31, 2008 — six weeks after Lehman collapsed. It is arguably the most consequential document produced in response to the 2008 crisis, and it was written entirely outside the institutions the crisis exposed.
07 · Crypto & Digital Fiat
Bitcoin proposed something new: money whose supply rules are enforced by mathematics rather than by a sovereign. Within fifteen years, crypto had become a $2T+ asset class and triggered central banks to build their own digital currencies. For the first time since the invention of coinage, the question of who issues money is genuinely open.
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