Back on Oct. 31, 2008, a simple email with a nine-page PDF called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was sent to a small cryptography mailing list.
Satoshi Nakamoto is just a pseudonym, and he came up with a new way to send value without trusting a bank. That one upload has since grown into a $2.4 trillion digital market. Financial language is now used by exchanges, ETFs and even whole nations.
The founder's coins are still untouched. A total of 1.096 million BTC — about $120 billion — have been sitting there since 2010. Over the past 24 hours, the value of these coins dropped about $5 billion following a minor dip, showing how big the still-dormant fortune is.
$13.4 billion in BTC and ETH options to expire on Halloween
Halloween has become Bitcoin's holiday, a day when traders mark their calendars — not for costumes, but for context, the moment the code religion began. This year, the anniversary coincides with a major market expiry: $13.4 billion in BTC and $2.5 billion in ETH contracts are set to clear by midnight.
This creates a liquidity storm with strikes around $113,000 and $4,100. Bitcoin is trading near $110,250, just below its week-long high, and derivatives desks are closely monitoring the November market opening.
Even 17 years later, the Bitcoin whitepaper document is still like a bible for millions of people and proof that code can outlast its author and that an idea born in crisis can keep defining the structure of digital money.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team