• December 2013: Launched by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a light-hearted experiment.
  • 2014–2017: Gained traction through community tipping culture and charity drives.
  • 2018–2020: Survived the crypto winter through organic use rather than hype.
  • 2021: Major visibility spike via Elon Musk and broader meme-coin interest; reached all-time high price.
  • 2022–2024: Continued steady development and merge-mining with Litecoin for added security.
  • 2025–2026: Ongoing speculation around X platform integration and real-world payment experiments.

The same era is when home nodes became ordinary. A Raspberry Pi 5 8GB, model SC1112, board only is the current board-only listing. A 4GB board, a case, a power supply, and an SSD are different listings.