The History of Bitcoin: A Timeline on the Record

2008 and 2009, the paper and the launch

The idea arrived in 2008. A whitepaper, published under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, described a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. The software arrived the next year. The network launched in January 2009, and the protocol’s FAQ states the system has proven reliable since its inception that year ^[1].

The first recorded payment came quickly. On 12 January 2009, a transaction sent ten coins from the pseudonymous founder to Hal Finney, a developer and early participant. The date is consensus history, uncontested, and this page keeps it as the network’s first entry in its payment ledger.

2010, the exit, the market, the pizza

Three 2010 events structure the year. The founder left the project in late 2010, without revealing much about himself, per the FAQ’s own words ^[1]. One correction rides here. The old version of this page said the pseudonym went quiet in 2011. The protocol’s documentation says late 2010, and the documentation is the source of record ^[1].

The first bitcoin exchange, Bitcoin Market, was established in 2010, giving the young network its first dedicated trading venue.

And the famous purchase. A programmer paid 10,000 coins for two pizzas on 22 May 2010. The old page dated it the following year after 2010, which reads as 2011 and is wrong. The purchase was 2010. The day it happened is remembered annually for exactly this reason: it is the first known exchange of coins for physical goods, and its date is not negotiable.

2011, the first peak on record

The price reached a peak of around 30 dollars during 2011. That is the year’s entry in the market record, uncontested consensus history. It was neither the first time the price moved nor the last, but it was the first peak large enough to become part of the story people tell about the asset.

The halvings, four dated blocks

The old version of this page told bitcoin’s history with no halving events at all. That was a gap, not a choice. Issuance halvings are protocol history with exact dates, each a specific block verified identically by two independent block-data providers ^[3].

Block 210000, on 28 November 2012, cut the reward from 50 coins to 25. Block 420000, on 9 July 2016, cut it to 12.5. Block 630000, on 11 May 2020, cut it to 6.25. Block 840000, on 20 April 2024, cut it to 3.125, the rate in force now ^[3]. The mining overview carries the schedule’s mechanics. The point for this page is the timeline itself. Every four-ish years, the protocol’s issuance steps down, on chain, on record.

2017 and 2018, the cycle everyone cites

The price reached nearly 20,000 dollars in December 2017, the then-all-time high. The wording matters. That figure was the all-time high of its moment, and this page time-anchors it as such, because the current all-time high is a different number entirely ^[2]. The 2018 drawdown followed, taking more than 80 percent off the high. Both entries are dated history on this page, not patterns and not promises.

2025, the high on record now

The all-time high in the current record is 126,080 dollars, reached on 6 October 2025, per a market-data provider ^[2]. It carries its date, like every market figure on this site. What it does not carry is an implication. A high is an event. The price page holds the full market record with the same discipline.

How this page treats its own past

Two year errors lived in the old version of this page, the founder’s exit year and the pizza year. Both are corrected above, in place, with the reason stated. A history page that quietly edits itself teaches readers that dates are soft. A history page that names its corrections teaches the opposite, and the opposite is the entire point of keeping a record.

The sources behind the dates

The dates on this page come in two strengths, and the page says which is which. Protocol events carry the strongest kind: the founder-exit year and the supply cap come from the protocol’s own FAQ ^[1], and the four halving boundaries are block reads, timestamped on chain and verified across two independent providers ^[3]. Market events carry the market’s kind: figures from a named data provider, stamped with read dates ^[2]. Community history, the first payment and the first purchase among them, is uncontested consensus, carried as consensus and labeled as such. A timeline that hides the difference between a block read and a memory is asking for trust it has not earned. This one shows its seams.

Where this page sits

The what is bitcoin page holds what the network is. The price page holds the market record. The investing page holds what the documents say about holding the asset. The bitcoin hub is this family’s home root, and every page in it dates its figures the way this one dates its events.