Hall of Fame
Remarkable blocks and transactions that shaped Bitcoin
Showing 20 of 57 entries
Genesis Block
Block 0, the first Bitcoin block ever mined. The coinbase contains the famous headline: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." The 50 BTC reward is unspendable due to a quirk in the original code.
First Bitcoin Transaction
Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney in block 170, the first person-to-person Bitcoin transaction. Finney reportedly ran Bitcoin on his laptop and was the first person other than Satoshi to mine blocks.
Bitcoin Pizza Day
Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John's pizzas, the first known real-world Bitcoin purchase. Jeremy Sturdivant accepted the deal. Those coins would be worth billions today.
184 Billion BTC Overflow Bug
An integer overflow bug in block 74,638 created 184,467,440,737 BTC out of thin air, 8,784x the total supply. Satoshi published a fix (v0.3.10) within 5 hours. The good chain overtook the bad chain at block 74,691.
Duplicate Transaction IDs (BIP-30)
Blocks 91,842 and 91,880 contained coinbase transactions with identical TXIDs, possible because coinbase inputs are all zeros. The duplicates overwrote the earlier UTXOs, permanently destroying 100 BTC. This led to BIP-30 (forbidding duplicates) and BIP-34 (requiring block height in coinbase).
Satoshi's Last Public Post
Satoshi's final message on BitcoinTalk discussed DoS attack prevention. After this post, Satoshi was never heard from publicly again. The last known login was December 13, 2010.
First Halving
Block reward dropped from 50 to 25 BTC. About 10.5 million BTC (50% of the total supply) had been mined in just under four years. Mined by Braiins (Slush Pool) with 457 transactions.
Mt. Gox Halts Withdrawals
The exchange that once handled 70% of all Bitcoin trading suspended all withdrawals. Weeks later, it filed for bankruptcy, revealing 850,000 BTC (~$450M at the time) had been stolen over several years.
20,000-Input UTXO Cleanup
A single transaction swept 20,000 anyone-can-spend dust outputs left behind by the July 2015 flood attack, sending them all into one OP_RETURN. Zero BTC moved, zero fee paid. 20,000 UTXO entries removed, zero created.
Highest Fee Block (291.5 BTC)
Block 409,008 collected 291.5 BTC in fees, by far the highest ever. This was caused by a single transaction paying 29.1 billion sats (14.8 million sat/vB), almost certainly an accidental fat-finger fee. Mined by CKPool.
Second Halving
Block reward dropped from 25 to 12.5 BTC. Price was approximately $650 and would reach $20,000 within 18 months. Block contained 1,257 transactions.
Bitcoin Cash Fork
Block 478,558 was the last block shared by Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. BCH forked with 8 MB blocks while Bitcoin kept 1 MB + SegWit. The "block size war" that defined Bitcoin's governance ended here.
SegWit Activation (BIP-141)
Segregated Witness activated at block 481,824. SegWit fixed transaction malleability, increased effective block capacity, and enabled the Lightning Network. The activation block contained 6 SegWit transactions out of 1,866 total.
Third Halving
Block reward dropped from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC. Price was approximately $8,600 and would reach $69,000 within 18 months. Mined by AntPool with 3,134 transactions.
Taproot Activation (BIP-341)
Taproot activated at block 709,632, introducing Schnorr signatures, MAST, and new script capabilities. The activation block contained 14 Taproot spends out of 2,043 transactions. Mined by F2Pool.
First Ordinals Inscription
Casey Rodarmor inscribed a pixel art skull as inscription #0 in block 767,430, launching the Ordinals protocol. This enabled arbitrary data to be embedded directly in Bitcoin witness data. The block contained 1 inscription among 2,332 transactions.
First Spot Bitcoin ETFs Approved
The SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs simultaneously after a decade of rejections. Over $4 billion in volume traded on day one, marking Bitcoin's arrival in traditional finance.
Largest Block Ever Mined
At 3.99 MB, block 836,964 is the largest block ever mined on Bitcoin. It contained just 5 transactions, dominated by a single massive inscription that filled nearly the entire block. Mined by F2Pool.
Fourth Halving + Runes Launch
Block reward dropped from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC. The Runes fungible token protocol launched simultaneously, causing a massive fee spike: 37.6 BTC in fees for this single block. Mined by ViaBTC with 3,050 transactions.
BTC Breaks $100,000
A psychological milestone 15 years in the making. From $0 to six figures, driven by institutional ETF inflows and growing mainstream adoption.