On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious and anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, released the Bitcoin white paper, introducing the cryptocurrency—and how it could be used—to the world. By design, only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be "mined," or released into the market.
Titled “ Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” the nine-page thesis paper established the basic structure for the Bitcoin network. It also presented the idea of the decentralized cryptocurrency, or an electronic currency (think “digital cash”) that can make transactions with low costs while using no financial institutions or third parties.
When the white paper was released, the central idea of cryptocurrency itself had already existed. The paper’s major breakthrough, however, was convincing Bitcoin users to trust each other—and the Bitcoin network—without the presence of gatekeepers like a centralized bank or government. According to Emin Gün Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, "Satoshi opened the door to revamping the entire finance industry.”
Bitcoin accomplished this by utilizing “blockchain,” an electronic ledger that is signed and distributed to everyone in the Bitcoin network, making false spending or ledger tampering nearly impossible.
Over the years, Bitcoin would rise from fringe idea to global popularity, as investors began to see it as a place to park wealth or hedge against inflation, and as institutions found ways to create crypto-focused financial instruments. But the Bitcoin market has suffered dizzying volatility. Between its 2010 launch and early 2024, its price underwent four separate moments of dropping by half. In November 2021, it reached a (then) all-time high of $69,000; by the end of 2022, it had fallen below $20,000. In March of 2024, the price topped $73,000 a coin.
As for Nakamoto, he has remained anonymous, despite several attempts or claims to have figured out his identity—by everyone from internet sleuths and mathematicians to The New Yorker, the Financial Times, and Fast Company and HBO. No consensus however has ever been reached, and Nakamoto to this day remains a mystery.
