Odaily Planet Daily report: On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper, proposing a peer-to-peer electronic payment system that operates without the involvement of banks or central authorities. Over the past 18 years, Bitcoin has evolved from an obscure experiment on early dark web forums into an asset class recognized by Wall Street and institutional investors. In October last year, $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in a single day, and the 2022 crypto winter led to more than $2 trillion in digital asset market value evaporating. On the 18th anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper’s release, Bitcoin’s price hovers around $80,000, facing its weakest month since June.
Today, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF has reached approximately $66 billion in assets, multiple public companies have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets, and traditional financial institutions are actively investing in stablecoins, asset tokenization, and blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Yet this growth presents a certain irony: Bitcoin was originally designed to challenge centralized financial systems, yet it is now increasingly embraced by traditional financial institutions. (Bloomberg)