Assets, Bitcoin

Who Wrote Bitcoin White Paper?

In October 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper on the cryptography mailing list at metzdowd.com describing a new digital currency called bitcoin. It was titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. Nakamoto proposed that the network could be secured through a system of proof-of-work and referred to it as “a chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work”.

The paper outlined a method of using a peer-to-peer network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3, 2009, the bitcoin network came into existence with the release of the first open source bitcoin client and the issuance of the first bitcoins.

Nakamoto’s identity remains unknown. In January 2015, Coinbase raised 75 million USD as part of a Series C funding round, smashing the previous record for a bitcoin company. Less than one year after the collapse of Mt. Gox, United Kingdom-based exchange Bitstamp announced that their exchange would be taken offline while they investigate a hack which resulted in about 19,000 bitcoins (equivalent to roughly US$5 million at that time) being stolen from their hot wallet.

The exchange remained offline for several days amid speculation that customers had lost their funds. Bitstamp resumed trading on 9 January after increasing security measures and assuring customers that their account balances would not be impacted.

NOTE: Warning: It is important to note that the identity of the author of Bitcoin White Paper is not confirmed and remains unknown. The pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto has been used in the paper and as such, it is difficult to determine who actually wrote the paper. Therefore, it is important to be cautious when making any claims about who wrote the white paper.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the unknown person or people who designed bitcoin and created its original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, they also devised the first blockchain database.

In the process they were able to solve the double spending problem for digital currency using a peer-to-peer network. They were active in the development of bitcoin up until December 2010.

Nakamoto is estimated to have mined one million bitcoins[27] before disappearing in 2010 when he handed over control of the network alert key and control of the code repository over to Gavin Andresen. Andresen later became lead developer at the Bitcoin Foundation.

[28][29] Andresen then sought to decentralize control stating: “As soon as Satoshi stepped back and threw open the project to more developers, it became obvious that Bitcoin needed a foundation to support it.” This left opportunity for controversy to develop over the future development path of bitcoin.[30][29].

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