Happy Birthday, Bitcoin!
Today is the 10-year anniversary of the cryptocurrency’s emergence on the global stage. To Bitcoin enthusiasts, January 3 is known as the date that Satoshi mined the Genesis block or “block zero” – and the rest is all in the funny papers.
Bitcoin has really become a force in today’s financial world. It’s the biggest household name as far as cryptocurrencies go, and it has immense value on the markets.
So it’s kind of crazy that we still don’t know the real identity of the genius behind this early crypto coin.
We have an assumed profile – that of a middle-aged Japanese man, someone who is in tune with the industry and the markets. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Satoshi is an innovator – but that doesn’t really provide much of a clue.
So who is Satoshi?
First, there’s the drama kicked up by Craig Steven Wright, an Australian computer scientist and academic who has been promoting himself as the Bitcoin originator. Despite Wright’s pwning of various critics over Bitcoin Cash, there’s a lot of skepticism over his claim that he actually is Satoshi himself. After all, why would the original mad genius be trotting along with the pack?
A story published today by Stephen O’Neill at Cointelegraph talks about more of the people on that list of suspected Satoshis that sleuths trying to solve the Bitcoin mystery might pore over.
There’s Vili Lehdonvirta, a finish professor who knows a bit about digital currencies. There is Shinichi Mochizuki, a Japanese mathematician at Kyoto University and Dorian Nakamoto, whose last name is a partial qualifier, and who, according to local legend, has the chops to garner the nomination.
There’s a range of innovators and business people, including a man some think of as the king of them all – Elon Musk. If you’re the type who thinks that genius comes out of a bottle and tends not to spread itself around, you might be forgiven for believing that Elon Musk made Bitcoin in his spare time between creating electric cars and sending rockets to Mars.
The bottom line is that Satoshi’s identity still remains a mystery – but for traders who want practical advice, the numbers are still more important, even on this auspicious anniversary. In that case, the news is good – Bitcoin is rising now, and many experts say it will rise more in 2019 because of new institutional interest and new trading options.
Look for the opening up of the world to Bitcoin this year as we overcome some of the hurdles and challenges mentioned in our reporting last year. While some governments view cryptocurrencies as too unstable or volatile and not ready for prime time, blockchain use cases are steadily advancing, as you can see from continual reporting here and elsewhere.
Keep an eye on the individual cryptocurrency values and the indexes and everything else that’s happening in the crypto world to make good trading decisions that Satoshi, whoever he or she is, would be proud of.
