U.S. federal debt reached $38.5 trillion on Jan. 3, 2026, a milestone that coincided with Bitcoin's annual Genesis Day celebration marking the first block mined by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Crypto communities used the date to highlight contrasts between fiat debt growth and Bitcoin's fixed supply.
The crypto community is marking 17 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper, with entrepreneur Ted Pillows highlighting the anniversary on X. The milestone spotlights Bitcoin’s role as the largest digital asset and the broader industry it spawned.
Binance highlighted that Satoshi Nakamoto first registered on the BitcoinTalk forum in November 2009, calling it the start of Bitcoin’s public journey. The exchange framed the milestone as a turning point that helped spark the cryptocurrency era.
Social posts in 2025 claimed a 24-word seed could open Satoshi Nakamoto's ~1.1M BTC, but that’s not technically possible: the BIP39 mnemonic standard came years after Satoshi’s activity. Early keys use different formats and can't be recovered by a modern 24-word phrase.