October 31, 2008, was an historic day. On this Halloween, the world was introduced to Bitcoin. Someone called Satoshi Nakamoto published his idea for Bitcoin in the Cypherpunks mailing list.
This kind of publication, in which the reader is informed about some kind of idea or plan, is also referred to as a white paper. In a mere nine pages (only eight if we don’t count the references), Satoshi Nakamoto explains why he came up with Bitcoin and how it works exactly.
He starts with describing the ‘why’, and moves on to the more technical side. This is some heavy material, so we sure hope you did well in math at school…
Nakamoto explains how Bitcoin transactions are processed on the blockchain. Fun fact: the term ‘blockchain’ is never mentioned in the white paper. The term was coined later on by someone from the Bitcoin community. Even the word ‘Bitcoin’ is only mentioned once: in the title. Let’s just say Satoshi wasn’t quite the marketeer...
We still have no idea who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. It could be a man or a woman, or maybe a group of people. We may never find out, but that’s okay! One could argue it doesn't even matter who Satoshi really is. The mystery makes the story of Bitcoin even more exciting.
Moreover, Satoshi’s anonymity may be exactly why Bitcoin works. Bitcoin does not belong to anyone; there is no one in charge. Bitcoin can therefore not be regulated by any central party to set the rules or change them as they please.