Satoshi made history, 17 years ago today via an obscure Times headline, marking the beginning of Bitcoin.

This post documents a newly discovered, complete copy of one of the most historically significant newspapers of the 21st century. On January 3, 2009 the first block of the Bitcoin block chain was minted by Satoshi Nakamoto. Its founder placed an important notation within it, indicating the intent behind what he had just created.

This was not a coincidence.
It was a timestamp.
And it was a statement.

Within the eye of the 2008 global financial crisis, governments around the world were committing unprecedented bailouts, socializing losses while privatizing gains. Trust in financial institutions was breaking. Lehman brothers had just died. The London Times ran a cover story entitled “Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks”.

Satoshi used this headline as an opportunity, and embedded it within Bitcoin’s codebase and within the Genesis Block. Thereby affirming the Bitcoin mission. Satoshi permanently anchored Bitcoin to this moment in history — a reminder of why it was created and what it stands to fix.

Money itself.

To this day, the world is awash with fiat money, sent down from the halls of power to the unwashed ignorant masses, pleading for more, without knowing why or that they are the ones actually paying for their chains and subservient subsistence.

But Satoshi said, no more! Let there be verifiable globally scarce units of account! Let there be code that lives through those with eyes to see and ears to hear!

The Genesis Block itself produced no spendable coins. It was never meant to. Its purpose was symbolic: a foundation, a declaration, and a line in the sand. Those 50 Bitcoin you see in the genesis block picture above cannot be spent by Satoshi, even if they were still around, and even if they had the keys to the Genesis Block. (This is a deliberate bug built by Satoshi).

Furthermore, given the current technical debate surrounding spam on Bitcoin, it might be worth noting that the genesis block Times headline message is only 69 bytes of data.

Which is considerably below core's now deprecated OP_RETURN limit of 80 bytes.

A bitcoin core Mistake.

One of the first pictures I took of The Times January 3 2009 when it arrived this past year on my doorstep…

The Times 03/Jan/2009 newspaper is the most rare, and most valuable Bitcoin collectible in existence. Only 12 verified copies of this newspaper exist, and not all of them are complete and include the extra inserts.

This 13th copy is complete, was recently discovered, and was substantially unread. It's been treated with the highest of care. All paper sheets have been meticulously placed in PAT tested archival plastic sleeving. It includes the extra inserts: 2 Magazines (1 gloss finished), And 3 Extra Newspaper-Like sections, 2 of which are stapled, while the middle most "Money" section has 3 free floating papers. The full main newspaper has all 96 pages in very good condition (24 full sheets total).

I'm currently in the process of archiving these pages and hope to share more in the future.
You can get a replica of the front page over on https://shopbitcoin.shop or on ebay where some people sell them.

Thank You Satoshi and Happy 17th Birthday Bitcoin.
May we all continue to fulfill Bitcoin's mission and the promise of Satoshi.