On the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the introduction of Bitcoin to the world; 14 interesting facts about the Bitcoin white paper

Fourteen years have passed since the publication of the Bitcoin White Paper (October 31, 2008). A design that challenged the prevailing monetary and financial structures in the years since its publication by its unknown creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. The Bitcoin White Paper certainly has a lot to consider; But in this article, on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the introduction of this digital currency to the world, we are going to review 14 interesting facts about the Bitcoin white paper.

Pete Rizzo is one of the longest-serving cryptocurrency writers and current editor of Bitcoin Magazine and Kraken Exchange. He, who conducts archival research on the history of Bitcoin, on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the introduction of Bitcoin to the world, in Tweet thread It has examined 14 interesting facts about the Bitcoin white paper, which we will read together in the following translation.

Also read: What is a white paper and how to read it?

1- At 2,736 words, the Bitcoin White Paper is shorter than the English Charter at 3,550 words and the US Constitution at 4,543 words. The average word length of a novel is 70,000 to 120,000 words.

2- The Bitcoin white paper caused a lot of controversy when it was published and provoked opposition from some people. From then on, the cypherpunks also intervened in these controversies, telling Satoshi to take his ideas and endless talk elsewhere.

Cypherpunk is generally defined as any person who believes that the social and political situation of the world should be changed with powerful cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies.

3- Hal Finney was the first public supporter of Bitcoin. However, he responded to Satoshi Nakamoto’s email on November 7, 2008, more than a week after the public introduction of Bitcoin. During this period, Satoshi was involved with many critics.

4- The word “Bitcoin” is used only 2 times in the entire white paper and that is only in the title. Many people believe that Satoshi Nakamoto decided to use the title Bitcoin for his project late in the process of writing the white paper. There is evidence that he intended to name Bitcoin Electronic Cash or Netcoin.

5- Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin code before writing the white paper. He later stated that he had been working on Bitcoin for two years until the global white paper was released.

6- The word “Blockchain” is not used in the Bitcoin white paper. Instead, Satoshi has used the term timestamp server due to the performance of the Bitcoin blockchain in keeping time for the network and its nature as an alternative to previous digital money systems (central servers).

7- Satoshi saw Bitcoin as an alternative to the coinage model used by older digital monetary systems. This discussion is a reference to previous projects such as DigiCash, which was created by David Chaum, but was not peer-to-peer. This digital money divided the network into two levels, the bank and the user

8- “Block” is the most frequent word in the Bitcoin white paper with 48 uses. Blocks are a series of time-stamped transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.

9- Satoshi Nakamoto has cited 8 old projects in his Bitcoin white paper. Among the failed projects to create digital cash such as Wei Dei’s B-money and Adam Back’s Hashcash. Beck is the only crypto expert still actively contributing to Bitcoin.

10- In the Bitcoin white paper, it is said that CPU power will be used to generate network blocks. This statement is not wrong in today’s situation, but it is not completely true either. Bitcoin mining is done by specialized computers called ASICs, which provide the computing power needed by the network.

11- There are parts of the Bitcoin whitepaper that the developers are no longer working on. In this article, Satoshi Nakamoto presents the “Simple Payment Validation” model as the first proposal to make Bitcoin more scalable. This model has since been abandoned as a viable solution.

12- Following attacks from legal entities, the Bitcoin whitepaper is now hosted on various websites around the world, including the US government website and the City of Miami. This document is in the public domain and anyone can freely publish it on their website.

13- Bitcoin developers maintain a dynamic list of inconsistencies, changes, and inaccuracies in Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper. Since the publication of the white paper, a lot has been learned about how Bitcoin works in a real-world environment.

14- bitcoin.org was the first website to publish the Bitcoin White Paper and still hosts the document. Bitcoin white paper, now in more than 40 languages, including Farsi, on this website Available Is.