Bitcoin Celebrates its 14th Birthday, Community Sends BTC to Genesis Block

Bitcoin turns 14 years old today. Fourteen years ago today, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the so-called genesis block. This was the first of the 770,211 blocks long blockchain network, now known as Bitcoin’s network. The genesis block contains the first 50 BTC mined in history. Every year, the crypto community sends Bitcoin to the wallet account of the genesis block, which holds over 68 BTC at the time of writing this article. 

Bitcoin Celebrates its 14th Anniversary

There are many days that deserve to be celebrated by Bitcoin supporters. These days include Bitcoins’ Pizza Day and the anniversary of the creation of the first Bitcoin block. Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, mined the genesis block that gave birth to the large blockchain network that we know today. 

The first block on the Bitcoin network rewarded its creator with 50 BTC. Let’s not forget that Bitcoin works thanks to a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm that lets miners secure the network and receive rewards for their work. From the very beginning of Bitcoin until November 2012, the reward for miners was 50 BTC per block. Nowadays, these rewards have halved to 6.25 BTC per block after the other two halving events that took place in 2016 and 2020. 

Every four years, the new issuance of Bitcoin decreases by 50%. It is now expected in 2024 to see a new halving event that would push the reward for miners to 3.125 BTC per block. That means that reward for miners will drop 93.75% from the Genesis block in 2024. 

The crypto community celebrates this day by sending BTC to a wallet linked to the Genesis block. At the moment, this wallet holds 68.569 BTC, which is worth close to $1.14M  at current prices. There have also been more than 3,600 transactions to this address. This is a tradition that repeats every year and that pushes the community to interact with their BTC and wallets. 

This is the Bitcoin address of the Genesis block, which is owned by Satoshi Nakamoto: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa. 

It is worth pointing out that most transactions sent to this Bitcoin address are very small. There is also a large number of users that sent funds in previous months. Despite the fact that the wallet holds already more than 68 BTC, these funds cannot be used or spent. 

2022 was a difficult year for Bitcoin. Indeed, it was the first bear market after the bull trend experienced in 2021 that pushed Bitcoin to over $69,000 in November of the same year. After these fast moves higher, it is very common for Bitcoin to enter bear trends that last between one and two years. 2023 could be the continuation of the bear trend that started in 2022 or the year in which BTC could bottom and start a new bull market.

According to data shared by CoinGecko, Bitcoin has a price of $16,637 per coin and it also has a market capitalization of $320 billion. How far Bitcoin will go in the next year?