The Bitcoin white paper, which birthed a $1 trillion asset and kickstarted a full-fledged financial revolution, was published 13 years ago by Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous creator.
These are 13 facts about Bitcoin’s founding document.
- While many believe that Satoshi chose to publish Bitcoin’s founding document on Halloween, Oct. 31 is also known as Reformation Day. On that day 504 years ago, small-town monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 “theses” to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, challenging the hegemony of the Catholic church.
- The white paper was published on the cryptography mailing list at 2:10 p.m. EDT.
- Satoshi wrote the entire code before unveiling his white paper.
- The Bitcoin white paper has been translated into 36 languages, including Norwegian, Portuguese and Slovenian.
- Bitcoin Cash proponent Roger Ver helped to translate the white paper into the Japanese language while Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu worked on the Chinese translation.
- The white paper never mentions the term "mining" or its derivatives. Satoshi referred to the process as "generating."
- Satoshi didn’t foresee the rise of mining pools in his white paper.
- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey described the white paper as “the seminal work” of computer science.
- Blockstream co-founder Adam Back is one of the individuals cited in the white paper.
- Self-proclaimed Satoshi Craig Wright claims that he authored the white paper, but the Bitcoin community vehemently disagrees.
- The white paper has been cited 17,201 times.
- "Calculations," the longest part of Bitcoin’s founding document, contains 559 words.
- Several national governments and companies have uploaded the Bitcoin white paper to their websites.
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin