Note that the genesis block is block _#0_, not block #1
When Bitcoin was publicly released, only the genesis block existed, so every block after that point could have been mined by anyone.
When Bitcoin was publicly released, only the genesis block existed, so every block after that point could have been mined by anyone.
Block #1 has a timestamp of 2009-01-09 02:54:25
So, does this mean there were 6 days separating the first block in the chain and the first block to be mined?
https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e...
https://blockchain.info/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f41...
Since the genesis block is hardcoded in the software, what likely happened is Satoshi generated it in advance, added it to the code, and then did a few more days of final testing prior to release. Block #1 on the other hand was mined after the initial announcement on the cryptography mailing list: http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/... (about seven or eight hours after if I got my timezone conversions correct)
>becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout
>the world. Then the
>total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all
>the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household
>wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With
>20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million.
>So the possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute
>time may be quite a good bet, with a payoff of something like 100 million
>to 1! Even if the odds of Bitcoin succeeding to this degree are slim,
>are they really 100 million to one against? Something to think about...
First ever reply to Satoshi. Finney was a smart guy.