Thirteen years ago on 31st October 2008, Bitcoin’s first-ever whitepaper was published online by a person using the pseudonym ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. The document that explained the basis of the world’s first crypto had the title ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’. The document emphasized the benefits of this digital payment system, futuristic and totally self-governed. At the time, each token of currently the most-valued cryptocurrency was priced at $0.0008, a far cry from the current prices.
In the whitepaper, Satoshi noted that there was a need for an ‘electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.’
Marking this iconic day, Bitcoin enthusiasts around the world have tweeted birthday greetings to the cryptocurrency and its whitepaper. Netizens are sending gratitude-filled messages for Nakamoto, who is until this day anonymous.
The concept behind Nakamoto’s Bitcoin idea was to avoid financial institutions acting as trusted third parties to process electronic payments and charging service fees.
According to Nakamoto’s whitepaper, ‘While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non-reversible services.’
Despite being perceived as a challenge by existing financial systems and institutions around the world, Bitcoin’s price has soared high in the last thirteen years. Each token of the cryptocurrency is currently trading at $62,265.
Nakamoto capped the total number of Bitcoin at 21 million. By August 2021, there were 18.7 million Bitcoins in circulation, leaving about 2.3 million to be mined as per a report by Investopedia. This supply limitation makes Bitcoin scarce, keeping its value continuously rising.
In the meantime, Nakamoto remains anonymous. In 2011, the secretive Bitcoin inventor bid a farewell to the industry and ‘moved on to different things’. Bitcoin tokens in Nakamoto’s wallet worth more than $66 billion are unspent up to now.
