On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz bought 2 pizzas with bitcoin, marking the first ever bitcoin purchase. At the time, Hanyecz's 10,000 bitcoin was worth approximately $41; in May 2023, it would be worth approximately ~$263 million.
Time Magazine became the first mainstream magazine to publish an article about Bitcoin. Today, Time Magazine accepts cryptocurrencies as payment for digital subscriptions in partnership with Crypto.com.
The Ethereum Yellow Paper was released. 4 months after the publication of Vitalik Buterin’s white paper, Dr. Gavin Wood wrote this paper detailing mathematical and technical descriptions of how the network operates.
On April 30, 2016, The DAO, the first iteration of modern decentralized autonomous organizations, launched, designed to be a type of venture capital fund.
After raising $150 million in ETH, hackers siphoned over $60 million worth of ETH, which led to the network’s split, or hard fork—Ethereum versus Ethereum Classic.
The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance—a member-led industry organization to drive open-source blockchain technology—was founded. Cross-industry participating members include Accenture, Banco Santander, ConsenSys, Chainlink, DTCC, Microsoft, and JP Morgan Chase Bank.
The SEC rejected the first Bitcoin ETF request submitted by Gemini. The SEC has since rejected over a dozen spot Bitcoin ETF proposals but approved 6 futures Bitcoin ETF products.
On May 9, 2018, the first crypto index, Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI) was established with 10 cryptocurrencies.
Today, the BGCI includes these 11 crypto assets: Bitcoin, Ether, Cardano, Polygon, Solana, Polkadot, Litecoin, Avalanche, Uniswap, Cosmos, and Chainlink.
On May 15, 2019, Ledger launched the Ledger Nano X hardware wallet, currently considered one of the top 2 cold wallets for cryptocurrency storage. The Ledger Nano X was a significant upgrade from the Nano S, providing larger storage capacity and supporting active trading for multiple assets.
Bitcoin hit a $1 trillion market cap. Bitcoin, the first crypto asset created, reached the highest market cap per token at $1.28 trillion later that year. However, as of February 2023, Bitcoin’s market cap dropped to approximately $445 billion.
Morgan Stanley became the first major U.S. bank to offer wealth management clients access to Bitcoin. Other investment banks that offer clients similar exposure today include BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, and Wells Fargo.
On March 22, 2021, an NFT of Jack Dorsey's first tweet, “just setting up my twttr,” sold for $2.9 million. The crypto/NFT community on Twitter has grown more rapidly than on any other social media platform, with over 1 billion tweets shared about crypto since 2020.
On April 14, 2021, Coinbase IPO'd on the NASDAQ, becoming the first major crypto company to go public in the U.S. Coinbase recently announced the launch of its Ethereum Layer-2 chain, Base, taking it one step closer to its vision to transition the business from centralized to decentralized.
Tesla, Block, and Blockstream teamed up to mine Bitcoin from solar power. This facility was designed to mine Bitcoin at a large scale using 100% renewable energy—one remedy to critics’ concerns that Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism consumes too much energy.
On April 27, 2022, Blackrock launched iShares Blockchain and Tech ETF, becoming the 11th firm to offer a product that indirectly invests in digital assets. Some of the ETF’s holdings include Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN), Block Inc. (SQ), Nvidia Corporation (NVDA), and PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL).
On June 3, 2022, the New York State Senate passed a bill imposing a 2-year pause on new proof-of-work (PoW) mining projects powered by carbon-based fuel. The state will study the potential environmental impact of carbon-based mining, requiring in-state miners to explore alternative power sources, such as solar and renewable energy.
