On January 3, 2009, the first bitcoin block was mined. The block contained only one transaction "genesis block", 50 bitcoins as a reward that Satoshi received for mining them.
(You can review this block here)
The invention of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin came as a response to the global financial crisis of 2008 after the US-based investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. The event affected many people, and the creator(s) of Bitcoin decided that this power was too high to be given to just a few people.
This sparked the decision to create a new form of money, a digital asset, that would be used peer-to-peer without the intermediary of banks and governments and controlled by many people in a transparent and fair way, rather than a single institution or government. This was a political insight that was first presented in the Bitcoon White Paper
Today, 12 years later, there are more than 18 million bitcoins in existence, and the price of bitcoin has gone from nearly zero to over $34,000.
I think Satoshi himself did not know that his invention would spread so quickly or whether it would reach the success he has seen so far.
