Skip to content
UTXOHub

Bitcoin's history.

On 31 October 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto emailed a nine-page paper to a cryptography mailing list. Everything that followed is here, from two pizzas bought for 10,000 BTC to the halving due in 2028, each with its source and, where it happened on-chain, its block.

Price in US dollars from mempool.space, weekly from July 2010, on a log scale so each step up is ten times the one below. Each event sits on the line at the price of its day. Dates after 30 Oct 2026 are estimates from recent block times.

2012 to 2016

Miners earned 25 BTC a block until block 420,000, on 9 July 2016.

  1. 18 Mar 2013

    US treats bitcoin exchanges as money transmitters

    FinCEN, the US Treasury's financial-crimes unit, said businesses that exchange or administer convertible virtual currency, the category bitcoin falls in, are money transmitters. People who only use it to buy goods or services are not.

    PolicySourceFinCEN guidance FIN-2013-G001

  2. 2 Oct 2013

    FBI shuts down Silk Road

    The FBI shut down Silk Road, a hidden online market for illegal drugs where buyers paid in bitcoin, and arrested Ross Ulbricht, who was later convicted of running it.

    PolicySourceCNNMoney, 2 October 2013 (archived copy)

  3. 5 Dec 2013

    China bars banks from bitcoin business

    China's central bank and four other regulators barred banks and payment companies from handling bitcoin, calling it a virtual commodity rather than real money. Individuals could still trade it at their own risk.

    PolicySourceText of the notice, Yin Fa [2013] No. 289 (Chinese legal database)

  4. 25 Mar 2014

    IRS says bitcoin is property for US tax

    The US tax agency said virtual currency such as bitcoin is treated as property, not currency, for federal tax, so the general tax rules for property apply.

    PolicySourceIRS news release IR-2014-36

  5. 29 May 2015

    Ross Ulbricht is sentenced to life in prison

    Judge Katherine B. Forrest sentenced Ross Ulbricht to life in prison for running Silk Road, the hidden online market for illegal drugs where buyers paid in bitcoin, and ordered him to forfeit $183,961,921. A jury had convicted him of seven offences in February. President Trump pardoned him in January 2025.

    PolicySourceUS Attorney SDNY press release on sentencing, 29 May 2015 (archived copy)

  6. 24 Jun 2015

    New York's BitLicense takes effect

    New York's BitLicense came into force. Firms now needed a licence from the state's financial regulator before running a virtual currency business in New York.

    PolicySourceNY Department of Financial Services, virtual currency businesses

  7. 17 Sept 2015

    US regulator finds bitcoin is a commodity

    The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a US markets regulator, found for the first time that bitcoin and other virtual currencies are commodities.

    PolicySourceCFTC press release 7231-15

  8. 2 May 2016

    Craig Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto

    Craig Wright publicly claimed to be Bitcoin's creator, and Gavin Andresen wrote the same day that he believed him. Other experts doubted the evidence; in 2024 a UK court ruled that Wright is not Satoshi.

    PolicySourceGavin Andresen, "Satoshi" (2 May 2016, archived)

2016 to 2020

Miners earned 12.5 BTC a block until block 630,000, on 11 May 2020.

  1. 1 Apr 2017

    Japan's law on crypto exchanges takes effect

    Japan's amended Payment Services Act came into force. From then on, only registered businesses could run a virtual currency exchange, a service that exchanges currencies such as bitcoin for money or for each other.

    PolicySourceFinancial Services Agency, registration screening details (PDF)

  2. 6 Apr 2018

    India's central bank cuts crypto off from banks

    The Reserve Bank of India barred the banks and other firms it regulates from dealing in virtual currencies or serving anyone who does, and gave them three months to end existing relationships.

    PolicySourceReserve Bank of India circular RBI/2017-18/154

  3. 22 Jun 2018

    Mt. Gox moves from bankruptcy to civil rehabilitation

    At the request of some creditors, the Tokyo District Court put Mt. Gox into civil rehabilitation, which stopped its bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, customers' claims to bitcoin would have been turned into money claims valued in 2014; in rehabilitation they stayed claims to bitcoin.

    Policy · 08:00 UTCSourceMt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, Announcement of Commencement of Civil Rehabilitation Proceedings (order issued at 5:00 p.m. Japan time on 22 June 2018; with Q&A, PDF)What happened

  4. 15 Mar 2019

    Mark Karpelès is convicted of tampering with Mt. Gox's data

    A Tokyo court found Mark Karpelès, who ran Mt. Gox, guilty of tampering with its data and acquitted him of embezzling from client accounts. It sentenced him to two and a half years in prison, suspended for four years. Japan's Supreme Court dismissed his last appeal on 27 January 2021, making the conviction final.

    PolicySourceAFP via phys.org, MtGox 'bitcoin baron' gets suspended sentence for data tampering (15 Mar 2019; Wayback Machine copy)What happened

2020 to 2024

Miners earned 6.25 BTC a block until block 840,000, on 20 April 2024.

  1. 5 Nov 2020

    US files to forfeit 69,370 bitcoins taken from Silk Road

    US prosecutors in San Francisco filed to forfeit 69,370 bitcoins seized two days earlier. They said a hacker they called "Individual X" had taken the coins from Silk Road in 2012 and 2013 and never spent them.

    PolicySourceUS Attorney, Northern District of California, United States Files A Civil Action To Forfeit Cryptocurrency Valued At Over One Billion U.S. Dollars (5 Nov 2020; Wayback Machine copy)

  2. 21 May 2021

    China's cabinet calls for a bitcoin mining crackdown

    A State Council committee on financial stability, chaired by Vice Premier Liu He, called for a crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading.

    PolicySourceChinese government website, 21 May 2021 (Chinese)

  3. 9 Jun 2021

    El Salvador passes its Bitcoin Law

    El Salvador's Legislative Assembly voted 62 of 84 to make bitcoin legal tender, the first country to do so. The vote came late on 8 June in El Salvador, which was early on 9 June in UTC; President Nayib Bukele posted the result just after midnight there. The US dollar stayed legal tender too.

    PolicySourceAl Jazeera, 9 June 2021 (the vote "late on Tuesday", 8 June)

  4. 24 Sept 2021

    China declares crypto trading illegal

    China's central bank said all business involving cryptocurrencies, including trading and exchange services, is illegal financial activity, and that foreign exchanges serving people in mainland China are breaking the law.

    PolicySourceText of notice Yin Fa [2021] No. 237 on the Chinese government website (Chinese)

  5. 9 Nov 2021

    Agents find James Zhong's stolen Silk Road bitcoins

    Searching James Zhong's house in Gainesville, Georgia, US agents found about 50,491 bitcoins he had taken from Silk Road in 2012 by tricking its withdrawal system, held in an underground safe and on a small computer hidden in a popcorn tin. Zhong pleaded guilty to wire fraud and in April 2023 was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

    PolicySourceIRS Criminal Investigation, Silk Road dark web fraud defendant sentenced following seizure and forfeiture of over $3.4 billion in cryptocurrency (14 Apr 2023)

  6. 21 Nov 2021

    Bukele announces Bitcoin City

    On the night of 20 November, El Salvador time, President Nayib Bukele announced plans for a "Bitcoin City" near the Conchagua volcano, powered by its geothermal energy, with value-added tax as its only tax. He said a bond to fund it would be offered in 2022, entirely in bitcoin.

    PolicySourceAP via NBC News, A Bitcoin city? That's the plan in El Salvador (22 Nov 2021; "Saturday night")

  7. 8 Feb 2022

    US seizes 94,000 bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex

    The US Justice Department announced the arrest of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan in Manhattan, charged with conspiring to launder bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex in 2016, and the seizure of more than 94,000 of the stolen coins, then worth over $3.6 billion. Both later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

    PolicySourceUS Justice Department, Two Arrested for Alleged Conspiracy to Launder $4.5 Billion in Stolen Cryptocurrency, 8 Feb 2022 (Wayback Machine copy)

  8. 17 Nov 2022

    El Salvador starts buying a bitcoin a day

    Late on 16 November in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele posted: "We are buying one #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow."

    Policy · 05:28 UTCSourceX, Nayib Bukele (17 Nov 2022, 05:28 UTC)

  9. 3 Feb 2023

    Tulip Trading's claim against Bitcoin's developers is sent to trial

    England's Court of Appeal let Tulip Trading, a company associated with Craig Wright, take its claim against Bitcoin's developers, among them Mara van der Laan, Pieter Wuille and Gregory Maxwell, to trial. Tulip argued that they owed it a duty to help recover bitcoin whose keys, it said, had been lost in a hack; the court found only that this raised "a serious issue to be tried". Tulip discontinued the claim on 16 April 2024, a month after the High Court ruled that Wright is not Satoshi.

    PolicySourceTulip Trading Ltd v van der Laan and others [2023] EWCA Civ 83 (3 Feb 2023)

  10. 13 Mar 2023

    A court stops Lightning Labs using the name Taro

    A US federal judge in Northern California temporarily barred Lightning Labs from calling its protocol for creating assets on Bitcoin "Taro", finding that Tari Labs, maker of a protocol called Tari, was likely to succeed in its trademark claim. Lightning Labs renamed the protocol Taproot Assets, and the case was dismissed in August 2023 after a confidential settlement.

    PolicySourceTari Labs v. Lightning Labs, No. 3:22-cv-07789-WHO (N.D. Cal.), Order Entering Temporary Restraining Order (13 Mar 2023)

  11. 29 Jun 2023

    EU crypto rules (MiCA) enter into force

    The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), one set of rules for crypto issuers and service providers across the EU, entered into force. Most of it applied from 30 December 2024.

    PolicySourceEUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114

  12. 29 Aug 2023

    Court rules for Grayscale against the SEC

    A US appeals court ruled that the SEC's rejection of Grayscale's plan to turn its bitcoin trust into a spot bitcoin ETF, a fund holding bitcoin itself, was "arbitrary and capricious", because the SEC had approved similar bitcoin futures funds without explaining the difference. The court cancelled the SEC's order.

    PolicySourceUS Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Grayscale Investments, LLC v. SEC, No. 22-1142, opinion (decided 29 August 2023)

  13. 21 Nov 2023

    Binance and its founder plead guilty in the US

    Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, pleaded guilty to breaking US anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws and to running an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and agreed to pay about $4.3 billion. Its founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to failing to keep an effective anti-money-laundering programme and stepped down as chief executive.

    PolicySourceUS Department of Justice, Binance and CEO Plead Guilty to Federal Charges in $4B Resolution (21 Nov 2023; Internet Archive copy)

  14. 10 Jan 2024

    SEC approves the first US spot bitcoin ETFs

    The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 spot bitcoin exchange-traded products, funds that hold bitcoin and whose shares trade on stock exchanges, for listing on three US exchanges.

    PolicySourceSEC Chair Gensler, statement of 10 January 2024

  15. 14 Mar 2024

    UK court rules Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto

    At the end of a trial brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), Mr Justice Mellor of England's High Court declared that Craig Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper, is not the person who used the name Satoshi Nakamoto from 2008 to 2011, and did not create Bitcoin or write its first software. He said the evidence was overwhelming and gave his full written reasons on 20 May 2024, in which he wrote that, page for page, a witness statement by the Bitcoin developer Pieter Wuille "turned out to be the most significant document in this Trial".

    PolicySourceCourts and Tribunals Judiciary, COPA v Wright, judgment of Mr Justice Mellor, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch) (20 May 2024; Pieter Wuille's evidence at paras 276–279)

2024 to now

Miners earn 3.125 BTC a block until block 1,050,000, expected around June 2028.

  1. 27 Jul 2024

    Trump promises a national bitcoin stockpile

    Speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville as the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump said that if elected he would keep all the bitcoin the US government holds or acquires as "the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile". He also said he would fire Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on his first day.

    PolicySourceCoinDesk, In Donald Trump's Own Words: a Partial Transcript of His Bitcoin 2024 Speech (27 July 2024)

  2. 18 Dec 2024

    El Salvador agrees an IMF loan that scales back bitcoin

    IMF staff and El Salvador's government reached a staff-level agreement on a 40-month loan of about $1.4 billion. Under it, accepting bitcoin would become voluntary for businesses, taxes would be paid only in US dollars, and the government's bitcoin dealings, purchases and part in the Chivo wallet would be cut back.

    PolicySourceIMF press release 24/485, IMF Reaches Staff-Level Agreement with El Salvador on an Extended Fund Facility Arrangement (18 Dec 2024; Wayback Machine copy)

  3. 22 Jan 2025

    Trump pardons Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht

    President Trump announced that he had signed a "full and unconditional pardon" for Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving life in prison since 2015 for running the Silk Road online drug market. Silk Road buyers paid in bitcoin.

    Policy · 00:12 UTCSourceUS Department of Justice, Office of the Pardon Attorney, Clemency Grants by President Donald J. Trump (2025-Present) (Internet Archive copy, Jan 2026)

  4. 29 Jan 2025

    El Salvador ends forced acceptance of bitcoin

    El Salvador's Legislative Assembly amended the Bitcoin Law so businesses no longer have to accept bitcoin and taxes can no longer be paid in it. The change was part of a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF.

    PolicySourceEl Mundo (El Salvador), 29 January 2025 (Spanish)

  5. 26 Feb 2025

    IMF approves El Salvador's $1.4 billion loan

    The IMF's Executive Board approved El Salvador's 40-month loan of about $1.4 billion. Its terms included making acceptance of bitcoin voluntary, limiting the government's bitcoin dealings and purchases, and barring public debt denominated in or tied to bitcoin.

    PolicySourceIMF Country Report No. 25/58, El Salvador: request for an extended arrangement, with the press release of 26 Feb 2025 (PDF; Wayback Machine copy)

  6. 6 Mar 2025

    US creates a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

    President Trump signed an executive order setting up a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, filled with bitcoin the government already owns through forfeiture, and a separate stockpile for other digital assets.

    PolicySourceWhite House, executive order of 6 March 2025

  7. 20 Jun 2025

    Texas creates a state bitcoin reserve

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 21, creating the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, run by the state comptroller and kept outside the state treasury. It took effect immediately.

    PolicySourceTexas Legislature Online, SB 21 bill history

  8. 8 Oct 2025

    UK lets retail investors buy crypto ETNs

    The UK Financial Conduct Authority lifted its ban on selling crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs), securities that track the price of a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, to ordinary investors.

    PolicySourceFCA press release, 1 August 2025

  9. 14 Oct 2025

    US files to seize 127,271 bitcoin, its largest forfeiture

    US prosecutors filed to forfeit about 127,271 bitcoin, then worth about $15 billion, in what the Justice Department called the largest forfeiture action in its history. The bitcoin was already in US government custody.

    PolicySourceUS Justice Department press release 25-1031 (archived copy)

  10. 6 Nov 2025

    Samourai Wallet co-founder sentenced to five years

    A US federal judge sentenced Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of the Samourai Wallet bitcoin app, to five years in prison for conspiring to run an unlicensed money-transmitting business through its coin-mixing service, which pooled users' payments to hide where they came from. Co-founder William Hill was sentenced to four years on 19 November.

    PolicySourceCoinDesk, Samourai Wallet Dev Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison (6 Nov 2025)

  11. 11 Nov 2025

    UK sentences Zhimin Qian in its record bitcoin seizure case

    A London court sentenced Zhimin Qian to 11 years and 8 months in a money-laundering case tied to a Chinese investment fraud. Police had seized about 61,000 bitcoin from her, the largest cryptocurrency seizure in UK history, and in October 2026 the courts were still deciding who keeps it.

    PolicySourceCrown Prosecution Service, How we prosecuted Europe's biggest crypto money laundering case

  12. 13 Nov 2025

    Czech central bank buys bitcoin

    The Czech National Bank said it had bought digital assets for the first time in its history: a $1 million test portfolio of bitcoin, a dollar stablecoin and a tokenised deposit, held outside its official reserves.

    PolicySourceCzech National Bank, The CNB creates a test portfolio of digital assets (13 Nov 2025)

  13. 20 Nov 2025

    Texas funds its bitcoin reserve, the first state to do so

    Texas bought about $5 million of shares in BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT) for its new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the first time a US state put money into a bitcoin reserve.

    PolicySourceThe Block, Texas reportedly kicks off state bitcoin reserve with $5 million IBIT purchase (25 Nov 2025)

  14. 15 Jul 2026

    Japan regulates crypto like stocks

    Japan's parliament passed amendments that regulate crypto assets such as bitcoin as financial instruments, like stocks, rather than as a means of payment. They add insider-trading bans, clear a legal obstacle to spot bitcoin ETFs, and allow a flat 20% tax on crypto gains, down from up to 55%, from 2028.

    PolicySourceCoinDesk, Japan moves crypto under financial rules in regulatory overhaul (15 Jul 2026)

  15. 15 Sept 2026

    US crypto market bill fails in the Senate

    The US Senate voted 49-50 on a procedural motion to take up the Clarity Act, far short of the 60 votes needed to advance it. The bill would have set the first comprehensive federal rules for crypto markets, including making the CFTC the watchdog for crypto spot trading.

    PolicySourceCoinDesk, Crypto's biggest Senate push falls flat as the Clarity Act fails to clear a crucial procedural vote (15 Sep 2026)

  16. 16 Oct 2026

    Mt. Gox repayment deadline moved to 2027

    Mt. Gox's rehabilitation trustee, with the court's permission, moved the deadline for repaying the collapsed exchange's creditors from 31 October 2026 to 31 October 2027, because many creditors had still not completed the steps needed to be paid.

    PolicySourceMt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee, Notice Concerning Change of Repayments Deadline (16 Oct 2026, English translation)