Bitcoin turns 18: Has the original rebel grown up? — SkimNews
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- Mt. Gox went offline in February 2014 after losing roughly 850,000 BTC, including customers' funds, making the collapse an early poster child for 'not your keys, not your coins.'
- SEC approved the first U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products in January 2024, and Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time by the end of that year.
- Bitcoin set a new all-time high of more than $126,000 in October 2025, against a 2010 Pizza Day purchase whose coins were worth around $41 and would be worth $780 million at today's prices.
- Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin 'a fraud' in September 2017 and said he would fire any employee trading it, before later shifting to allowing clients to buy the asset.
- China banned ICOs and acted against cryptocurrency exchanges in September 2017, then imposed a sweeping ban on crypto transactions and mining in September 2021, after which Bitcoin's price took a hit.
- Binance suffered a $6.3 billion hack this week, the largest crypto exchange hack on record, renewing fears about the security of centralized exchanges and the stability of crypto infrastructure.
- Transaction fees accounted for just 0.67% of total miner revenue in the 90 days to Oct. 4 and have stayed below 5% for most of Bitcoin's history, leaving a widening gap as block rewards diminish with each halving.
Why it matters: Wall Street now gives investors regulated Bitcoin exposure without touching private keys — the same dependency the Mt. Gox collapse and $6.3 billion Binance hack exposed. Meanwhile, transaction fees covered just 0.67% of miner revenue in the 90 days to Oct. 4, leaving network security reliant on a block subsidy that shrinks with each halving.
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