Over 900,000 blocks have been mined — one every ten minutes since 2009. Most are anonymous pages of transactions. A few are legends. Here's the tour, in order.
☕ 6-minute read
The first page of the notebook, mined by Satoshi with that morning's London Times headline embedded forever: “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” Its 50 BTC reward is unspendable by a quirk of the code — the founder's coins, welded to the foundation. Every block since chains back to this one. view block ↗
Satoshi sends 10 BTC to Hal Finney — the first time bitcoin ever moves between two people. Total market value of the network at the time: zero dollars. view block ↗
Laszlo Hanyecz's 10,000 BTC payment for two Papa John's pizzas gets mined — the first purchase of a physical good with bitcoin, and retroactively the most expensive meal in human history. Bitcoiners celebrate Pizza Day every May 22. view block ↗
A bug lets someone conjure roughly 184 billion BTC out of thin air — obliterating the 21 million cap for exactly five hours. Satoshi and early developers rush a fix, the network adopts the corrected chain, and the bad block is erased from history. Bitcoin's closest near-death experience, and the last time the supply rules were ever broken. view block ↗
This block and block #91,880 contain literally identical transactions — a duplication quirk nobody thought possible. The bug was so weird it required its own rule change (BIP-30) to make sure it could never matter again. A reminder that Bitcoin's boring reliability was earned one strange bug at a time. view block ↗
The block reward drops from 50 to 25 BTC — the first proof that the supply schedule wasn't just a promise in a document but a law the network actually executes. There was genuine suspense about whether miners would quit. They didn't. view block ↗
A database limit causes newer software to accept a block older software rejects — briefly splitting Bitcoin into two chains. Developers coordinate in real time, miners voluntarily abandon the longer chain, and the network heals in hours. The messiest day in Bitcoin's operational history, and the origin of its obsession with backward compatibility. view block ↗
The peace treaty ending the blocksize war takes effect — restructuring how transaction data is counted, fixing an old flaw, and clearing the runway for Lightning. Activated not by any authority, but by an unprecedented user-led pressure campaign. That whole saga, here. view block ↗
The third halving block, mined mid-pandemic, carries a deliberate echo of genesis — a New York Times headline embedded by the winning miner: “With $2.3T Injection, Fed's Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue.” Eleven years apart, the same commentary. view block ↗
Someone marks the devilish block number with an embedded Bible verse — Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” The notebook is a financial ledger, but people can't help writing in the margins. view block ↗
Bitcoin's biggest upgrade since SegWit — better privacy, cheaper complex transactions, and the foundations that today's covenant debates build on. Notable for how calm it was: after 2017's war, Taproot passed with near-unanimous support. Both modes are possible. view block ↗
The fourth halving block became a collector's item in real time: a frenzy to inscribe data into this historic block drove its fees to roughly 37 BTC — over ten times the halved subsidy itself. A single block earning millions in fees previewed Bitcoin's long-term future, where fees, not new coins, pay for security. view block ↗