the Bitcoin is known to everyone, even if it is actually used by only a handful of individuals on a global scale. An adventure that began in January 2009 with the effective commissioning of its network. But whose milestones had already been officially set a few months earlier, with the publication of its white paper on October 31, 2008. A historical document of only 8 pages which exposes a “peer-to-peer digital payment system” upsetting the international monetary balance…
No one knows who is Satoshi Nakamoto, pseudonym creator of Bitcoin. So much so that it can just as well be a single individual or a group of developers. But anyway, the latter has gone down in posterity since the official publication of white paper of this iconic cryptocurrency. To the point of profoundly overturning the very principle of money by bringing a whole new digital dimension to it and independent of any government and/or Central Bank.
Bitcoin – Happy White Paper Day
This happened on October 31, 2008 on the dedicated crypto mailing list by the name of Metzdowd.com. A publication still visible today, with a resolutely revolutionary character. Because it lays the foundations ofa digital currency finally capable of solving the recurring problem of “double spending”. And this while making it possible to make “online payments sent directly from one party to another without having to go through a financial institution. »
” Main properties: double spending is avoided thanks to a peer-to-peer network. No mint or other trusted parties. Participants can be anonymous. The new coins are made from Hashcash-style proof-of-work. Proof of work for the new generation of coins also feeds the network to avoid double spending. »
Satoshi Nakamoto
And even if it was primarily the innovative nature of the Proof of Work consensus mechanism that was put forward, the advances proposed were also ideological. With the main point, decentralization and resistance to censorship which will become the breeding ground for the cryptocurrency sector. And an increasingly painful thorn in the side of regulators and central banks.
Bitcoin – An adventure written in the present tense
Because since that time, Bitcoin has traveled an incredible path that even Satoshi Nakamoto could not have imagined. With the main example, the market capitalization of its cryptocurrency BTC which exceeded for the first time – and twice – the record amount of 1000 billion dollars last year. But also the development of solutions such as the Lightning Network, which allows it to regain its former glory by offering a means of payment for day-to-day operations in the form of near-instantaneous micro-transactions.
Because Bitcoin is an adventure that is always written in the present. And his white paper is even the source of conflicts as improbable as they are ridiculous. This to try to claim the writing or try to extricate from it a political vision which has nothing to do with its initial goal: “ a technical description of a problem and a proposed solution to that problem“. In any case, it is in this form that Dustin Trammell, one of its first external contributors, tries to explain its rationale.
Because one of the only certainties about the ideological vision of Bitcoin is that it fits into a CypherPunk dimension that is impossible to ignore. And whose maintenance looks more and more like a big gap impossible to hold…
