Since its inception on January 3, 2009, Bitcoin has undergone significant transformations, recording over 1.13 billion transactions across approximately 800,000 blocks. The genesis block, mined by Satoshi Nakamoto, included a headline from The Times, critiquing the traditional financial system amid the 2008 financial crisis. Initially viewed as an experimental digital currency, Bitcoin gained traction as a hedge against inflation, leading to its adoption as legal tender by El Salvador in 2021. This shift allowed the country to accumulate over 6,000 BTC. As adoption rises, technical challenges persist; the network's mining difficulty has soared, requiring miners to upgrade equipment for profitability. Strategies like pruning nodes and reducing block size have been proposed to manage the blockchain's growth, which now weighs in at 627 gigabytes. The ongoing evolution of Bitcoin presents both opportunities and challenges in maintaining security, decentralization, and efficiency.

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