13 Fascinating Facts About Bitcoin White Paper

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.  

1. 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.
2. The white paper was published on the cryptography mailing list at 2:10 p.m. EDT.
3. Satoshi wrote the entire code before unveiling his white paper.
4. The Bitcoin white paper has been translated into 36 languages, including Norwegian, Portuguese and Slovenian.  
5. 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.   
6. The white paper never mentions the term "mining" or its derivatives. Satoshi referred to the process as "generating."
7. Satoshi didn’t foresee the rise of mining pools in his white paper.  
8. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey described the white paper as “the seminal work” of computer science.
9. Blockstream co-founder Adam Back is one of the individuals cited in the white paper.
10. Self-proclaimed Satoshi Craig Wright claims that he authored the white paper, but the Bitcoin community vehemently disagrees.
11. The white paper has been cited 17,201 times.
12. "Calculations," the longest part of Bitcoin’s founding document, contains 559 words.
13. Several national governments and companies have uploaded the Bitcoin white paper to their websites.