The First BTC Transaction

January 12, 2009 is one of the most important days in cryptocurrency history because on this day the first decentralized peer-to-peer financial transaction broadcast across the Internet. Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, sent 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney, a renowned computer scientist and cryptographer. This transaction marked the beginning of a new era in digital finance, proving that the Bitcoin protocol works. This is also the first and only time Satoshi Nakamoto sent bitcoins from his million BTC hoard.

Hal Finney was an early adopter and supporter of Bitcoin. He had been involved in cryptographic projects and was intrigued by the concept of a decentralized currency. When Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin software on January 9, 2009, Finney was one of the first to download it and start mining bitcoins. The transaction between Nakamoto and Finney was a test to demonstrate the functionality and security of the Bitcoin network. It proved that Bitcoin could be transferred securely and without the need for a central authority. This event laid the foundation for the growth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which have since become a significant part of the global financial system

This 10 BTC transfer is now known as the Genesis Transaction, and because of the way cryptographic blockchain technology works, the data conveyed in this transaction is part of every subsequent transaction, and will be until the end of time. This is because the genesis transaction data occurred on block 170, and that data was used to create the identifying hash for block 171, just as block 170 was created from block 169’s data in a process that has continued for thousands of succeeding blocks. You can view all the data of the genesis transaction by looking up “block 170” on any blockchain explorer.

Is This Different Than The Genesis Block?

The Genesis Block is the first block in the Bitcoin’s public ledger and is often referred to as “Block 0”. It was mined on January 3, 2009, when the only node on the network belonged to Satoshi Nakamoto. It is the foundation of the network and all blocks on the blockchain hold a piece of its data. There weren’t any transactions on the Genesis Block, just a 50 BTC mining fee paid to Satoshi Nakamoto.

Here are some fun facts about the Genesis Block

• The 50 BTC Nakamoto earned for mining it can never be spent and is hard coded into the protocol.

• The first block had a difficulty rating of 1.00, meaning it could have been mined by an old smartphone with a broken screen. For reference, blocks mined on Jan 3, 2025 had a difficulty of about 109.78 trillion, requiring a warehouse of highly specialized mining computers.

• In the block’s metadata Satoshi Nakamoto added a statement: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” This is regarded as a commentary on the banking industry and its many perceived shortcomings.