Twelve years after the launch of its white paper, Bitcoin is still scaring away fiat money, representing an alternative to it.
We all know what’s celebrated today: Halloween. The party that children and adults from all over the world are waiting for to dress up, eat candy, and enjoy a few good scares. However, today also marks another important date, the anniversary of the launch of the Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. And we can say that twelve years later, Bitcoin is still scaring the fiat money.
A dark launch?
On October 31, 2008, the unthinkable happened. Satoshi Nakamoto, the legendary and anonymous creator of Bitcoin, launched the cryptomoney white paper to the public. An individual without even revealing his identity was thus standing up against a global economic system established and protected by the world’s governments. But why do it on October 31st? Why on Halloween?
As with everything about Satoshi Nakamoto, there are dozens of theories on this subject. After all, Nakamoto had 364 more days on which he could have released the Bitcoin white paper, without having to do so on a date as symbolic as Halloween. For this reason, there are members of the crypto community who wonder if it might not be an evening reference to the Reformation.
Reformation Day is a religious holiday celebrated in Germany to commemorate the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. A religious movement, which ended up being political, economic and social, and which led Christianity to face its greatest crisis so far. Whole countries were separated from the Catholic Church following the theses of Martin Luther.
Therefore, Satoshi Nakamoto could have used the day to insinuate that Bitcoin was the beginning of a new Reformation, this time economic. However, there is an even darker theory, which links Bitcoin’s white paper to Samhain. The Celtic festival that gave rise to Halloween and is still celebrated by neo-pagan movements such as the Wiccans.
The Battle of Bitcoin and Fiat Money
However, while none of these theories can be proven, what is clear is that in its twelve years of existence, Bitcoin has spread a good deal of scare. For no one could have imagined the emergence of a virtual, decentralised currency, born to challenge traditional fiat money.
Thus, in this short period of time, Bitcoin has gone from being a technological curiosity with little or no value. To become one of the main financial assets in the world. With a price tag of thousands of dollars, and millions of users using its Blockchain. Becoming a direct threat to fiat money.
And, although it still has a long way to go before it can displace fiat money, and become a common currency worldwide. No doubt Bitcoin’s achievements in these years are sufficient to ensure its global importance in the future. So today is not only Halloween, Samhain or Reformation Day, but above all the Bitcoin Anniversary.