In the previous chapter, we saw how Bitcoin emerged in 2009 as a social response to the 2008 financial crisis — a seed planted in the belief that technology could rebuild the foundations of financial trust.But in its early years, Bitcoin was far from mainstream.It lived mostly within:small cryptography circles,developer communities,and early believers in decentralization.Its market value was negligible.Transactions were rare.And for the outside world, Bitcoin looked like a strange, abstract concept with little real-world purpose. This was the era when Bitcoin resembled “experimental gold in a digital lab” — bold in theory, but unimaginable as a global financial force.#Bitcoin #crypto