#Gate广场披萨节 The Path of Bitcoin's Ascension to the Divine Realm!

The Road to Bitcoin's Deification: Several forces gradually pushing it onto the divine throne!
If Web3 was forced out by five trust collapses, then Bitcoin was repeatedly "lifted" onto the divine throne by these forces along the way. Every time you think it's finished, a new hand reaches out to pull it higher. Understand how these forces take turns appearing, and you'll understand Bitcoin's underlying logic.

First Push: 2008 · Lehman Brothers' "Divine Assistance" — Collapse from the Old World
In 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed suddenly, and the global financial tsunami devoured everything. A mysterious figure—Satoshi Nakamoto—coldly threw out a nine-page white paper in cryptography mailing lists, with the first sentence: "I've created a completely peer-to-peer electronic cash system." Two months later, on January 3, 2009, he mined the "genesis block" of Bitcoin, inscribing a message forever in the block: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." (The Times, January 3, 2009, about the Chancellor being on the brink of a second bank bailout.)
This is not just code; it’s a declaration of war, and a tombstone. It buried the last trust in centralized financial systems, carving the first ideological stamp of Bitcoin: Why should our money always be messed up by the same group of people, and we have to pay to bail them out? The core trigger: anger and disillusionment from the financial crisis, providing the perfect spiritual soil for Bitcoin’s birth. It didn't come out of nowhere; it was "forced" by the collapse of the old world.

Second Push: 2010, the Two Pizzas Spark a Multiplied Legend — First "Pricing"
On May 22, 2010, programmer Laszlo bought two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins. The significance of this transaction goes far beyond a joke. It marked Bitcoin’s first transformation from a "geek toy" to "something you can buy things with." It gained a price, a exchange value.
In the same year, the first Bitcoin exchange MtGox was established. Bitcoin started to have a market, trades, and the first genuine believers and investors. The core trigger: from code to commodity, from commodity to asset, Bitcoin completed its first step from "0" to "1" in value. And this romantic yet absurd story became its best publicity for going mainstream.

Third Push: 2013
Cyprus’s "Escape Funds" First Became a "Safe-Haven Asset"
In 2013, the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus experienced a banking crisis. To seek aid, the government abruptly announced a "deposit tax" on all bank deposits. Overnight, people's savings in banks could be taken away with a single government decree.
Europe was terrified. People frantically searched for a refuge beyond government control, freezing or confiscation. Their eyes turned to Bitcoin. That year, Bitcoin’s price first broke through $1,000. It played the role of a "safe-haven asset" in a real-world financial crisis, declaring to the world: I can be the key to escape traditional finance. The core trigger: a crisis of trust in governments and banking systems, the best catalyst for Bitcoin. Whenever cracks appear in traditional finance, funds flee to Bitcoin as a digital safe harbor.

Fourth Push: 2014
MtGox’s Destruction and Rebirth — First Major Stress Test
Just as everything was smooth sailing, disaster struck. In 2014, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange MtGox suddenly collapsed, losing 850k bitcoins. The market instantly crashed, with prices plummeting 80%. It was like a giant bank suddenly saying, "Your deposits are gone." Everyone thought Bitcoin was finished.
But it didn’t die. Developers quietly patched vulnerabilities, the community silently rebuilt trust, miners kept mining. Bitcoin, like an indestructible cockroach, rose from the ruins. This "internal explosion" became its most important stress test. It proved with action: even if the core hub is destroyed, the network won't die. The core trigger: killing it makes it stronger. The MtGox incident taught the community "don’t put all your eggs in one basket," leading to safer wallets and more decentralized trading.

Fifth Push: 2017
Wall Street’s First Formal Entry — Wearing a "Suit"
In 2017, Bitcoin surged from $1,000 to nearly $20,000, and the ICO craze swept the globe. More importantly, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) launched Bitcoin futures. This meant that Wall Street institutions, dressed in suits and ties, finally had a compliant way to bet on Bitcoin. Bitcoin entered the mainstream financial arena, earning the nickname "digital gold." Despite an 80% crash in the 2018 bear market, the seed of institutional involvement was planted. Giants like Morgan Stanley and Fidelity began serious research, listing it as "a new independent asset class." The core trigger: the launch of financial derivatives opened compliant channels for institutional funds, upgrading Bitcoin’s status from "retail casino" to "alternative asset."

Sixth Push: 2021
El Salvador’s "National Bet" — The First Time a Country Puts Its Wealth on the Line
In June 2021, the small Central American country of El Salvador announced it would adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. This was the first time in history that a sovereign nation officially recognized Bitcoin as "money." You could pay taxes, buy things, and pay wages with it. President Bukele also announced that the government would buy Bitcoin and store it in the national treasury. This pushed Bitcoin’s narrative from a "civilian financial experiment" to a "national-level asset." The core trigger: a government officially accepting Bitcoin as legal currency, elevating its status from a grassroots experiment to a national asset. Despite controversies, its symbolic significance is indelible.

Seventh Push: 2024
Wall Street’s Full "Surrender" — The Largest "Gatekeeper" Opens the Door
This is the most important milestone since Bitcoin’s birth. On January 10, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the first 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs. BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco… the world’s largest asset managers all entered. What does this mean?
Previously, buying Bitcoin required registering on exchanges, understanding wallets, and managing private keys yourself. Now, you can just open your stock account and buy BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF as easily as buying Apple stock. Trillions of traditional funds worldwide suddenly have a compliant, safe, low-threshold channel to flow into Bitcoin. After ten years of rejection, the SEC—the biggest "gatekeeper"—finally opened the gates.
Standard Chartered analysts predict that in 2024 alone, Bitcoin ETFs could attract $50 billion to $100 billion in funds. With massive institutional inflows, Bitcoin’s price first broke $100k by year’s end. The core trigger: the approval of Bitcoin ETFs marks a watershed, transforming Bitcoin from an "alternative asset" to a "mainstream asset." This is a systemic victory.

Eighth Push: 2025
The White House’s Ultimate Endorsement — No Greater "Card" Exists
If ETFs are Wall Street’s "surrender," then this step is the highest authority of the world’s largest economy "entering the game." In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve." The U.S. government would include about 200k Bitcoin (worth roughly $20 billion) seized through legal means into the national reserve, exploring ways to increase holdings without taxpayer money. This is not a small country’s experiment, nor just an institutional investment. It’s the U.S. declaring: "Bitcoin is a strategic national asset." Once announced, global markets instantly boiled over. Analysts see this as a milestone event, likely triggering a worldwide "hoarding race" among nations. The core trigger: the U.S. strategic endorsement grants Bitcoin the highest official legitimacy, setting an example for other countries and sparking a national "hoarding" competition.

Looking back at this decade-plus journey of deification, each force stands on the shoulders of the previous one: the financial crisis shattered trust in the old system, Satoshi Nakamoto planted the seed of Bitcoin. Geek experiments gave it its first price, completing the move from 0 to 1. The Cyprus crisis made it a safe-haven asset, breaking out in value. MtGox’s collapse provided its first major stress test, making it more resilient. Wall Street futures dressed it in its first "formal" attire, elevating it to the grand stage. El Salvador’s national credibility gave it the biggest advertisement. ETF approval is a systemic surrender, fully opening the floodgates for mainstream capital. The U.S. strategic reserve is the ultimate official endorsement, heralding a new era of assets.
Bitcoin is not someone’s invention; it is the answer "forced" out by the problems of this era. It is still young, volatile, and uncertain. But if you understand all of this, you might realize: why its followers are so steadfast. Every failure of the old system fuels its energy. It is the huge, controversial presence that stands between the old world and the new land, impossible to ignore. $BTC