Some things in Bitcoin are not just controversial.
The majority of bitcoin is also bitcoin- not bitcoins. (One bitcoin, two bitcoin, three bitcoin…) Bits are a better sub-denomination than sats. (100 sats is actually a fraction of one, like 100 cents to one dollar; being a wholecoiner makes you the Bitcoin equivalent of a millionaire, since that would mean you have a million bits.) And October 31st is not Bitcoin’s birthday.
Bitcoin’s birthday is January 3. It says so right there in block 0: 2009-01-03 19:15:05 GMT +1. That day the Bitcoin blockchain was launched, with 50 newly minted coins issued from Satoshi Nakamoto’s public key. (But where the creator of Bitcoin would not use according to the rules of the protocol; since Satoshi was the only person who could create a genesis block, that would effectively make 50 BTC pre-mine.)
Yes, Bitcoin was first proposed in Satoshi’s white paper on October 31, 2008. But you don’t celebrate your birthday the day your mom tells your dad she wants to have a baby. And you don’t celebrate the day your parents got pregnant, or the day they announced it to the world with a gender reveal party.
You celebrate your birthday on the day you were born, and the same is true for Bitcoin. January 3rd.
Bitcoin White Paper Day.
This article is a Take it. The views expressed are entirely those of the author and do not reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.