Bitcoin Turns 16: 16 Fun Facts About the Cryptocurrency

While it's only three days into the new year, Jan. 3 marks an important anniversary and a day the cryptocurrency world is celebrating.

On Jan. 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block of Bitcoin (BTC), forever changing the world of cryptocurrency. To celebrate the 16th birthday of Bitcoin, here are 16 fun facts about the cryptocurrency.

1. First Purchase: On May 22, 2010, history was made when Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas from Papa John's International. The purchase of the two pizzas became the first goods transacted with Bitcoin.

The pizzas cost around $41 at the time. The Bitcoin used to purchase the pizzas would be worth over $460 million today, based on the current price of the cryptocurrency. May 22 is celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day every year.

2. Ethereum Co-Founder Ties To Bitcoin: Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum (ETH), took a side job in 2011 working for Bitcoin Weekly. As a writer, Buterin was paid five Bitcoin for each article written. Later that year, Buterin founded Bitcoin Magazine, where he was the lead writer.

Buterin launched the white paper for Ethereum in late 2013 and officially launched the cryptocurrency on July 30, 2015.

3. Expensive Missing Wallet: James Howells threw out a hard drive in 2013 that contained his digital wallet. The wallet contained 8,000 Bitcoins. Howells, who lives in Wales, is trying to get the local city council to allow him to excavate the landfill in a last-ditch effort to find the hard drive containing the Bitcoin.

Howells offered a portion of the proceeds to the city if it allows him the chance to search. In 2024, Howells sued the local city council for not allowing him to excavate the landfill site. Howells’ ex-girlfriend also revealed in 2024 that it was her who threw the hard drive away. Today, the Bitcoin are worth over $700 million.

4. Satoshi Nakamoto, Still Anonymous?: The creator of Bitcoin remains anonymous to this date. Craig Wright previously fought in a court case to claim that he created Bitcoin, but many in the cryptocurrency community doubt the claim. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has supported a theory that computer scientist Nick Szabo created Bitcoin. Szabo is one of a dozen or so names including Wright that are often linked to the identity of Nakamoto.

In 2024, a Bitcoin documentary titled "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" from investigative filmmaker Cullen Hoback added to the mystery. The documentary said that Bitcoin engineer Peter Todd is most likely Satoshi Nakamoto, a claim which he denied.

The anonymous founder of Bitcoin is estimated to hold between 600,000 and 1.1 million Bitcoin.

5. Bitcoin White Paper: Before the official genesis mint of Bitcoin, there was the idea of the concept that became the cryptocurrency. On Oct. 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” The white paper laid out themes like time-stamped transactions, proof-of-work, privacy and a simplified payment verification method.

“A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution,” the opening sentence of the white paper read. Satoshi's white paper is considered required reading for anyone in the cryptocurrency space.

6. Nakamoto Statues: Despite Nakamoto being anonymous, a statue was created to honor the Bitcoin founder and unveiled in September 2021. The Satoshi Nakamoto statue can be found in Graphisoft Park, located in Budapest, Hungary. The statue features Satoshi wearing a hoodie with the Bitcoin logo on its chest. The Nakamoto statue is free to visit 24 hours a day. The group behind the sculpture accepts donations made to their crypto wallets to increase awareness for the project.

“The statue is made of bronze, the face is made of a special bronze-aluminum composite, thus every visitor can see their own face when looking at Satoshi. We are all Satoshi,” the statue's website reads.

In 2024, a new Satoshi Nakamoto statue was unveiled in Lugano, Switzerland. The statue honors the anonymity of Nakamoto by appearing transparent from the front and changing the view based on the angle the statue is viewed.

7. Coinbase Creation: Without the launch of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, many public companies of today that mine cryptocurrency or act as trading platforms might not exist. One of the companies that owes a lot to the creation of Bitcoin is Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) Inc.

Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong said he started the process of creating Coinbase after reading the Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin