In the fascinating realm of cryptocurrency, few names carry as much weight as Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious figure behind the creation of Bitcoin.
I did a short video about it a few years ago:
Satoshi’s contributions revolutionized how we perceive and engage with (digital) currency, yet much about this enigmatic persona remains mysterious.
Among the many enigmas surrounding Satoshi, the allure of his lost emails captivates the imagination of crypto enthusiasts and historians alike.
The story begins with Satoshi Nakamoto’s groundbreaking whitepaper, published in 2008, which laid the foundation for Bitcoin. By the way, it’s the best paper I read. In 9 pages, you can gain much wisdom and even understand this complex technical, game theory, and economic brilliance. These nine pages created around 1 trillion dollars of value as of today.
Following this seminal document, Satoshi engaged in correspondence with a select group of individuals, sharing insights, exchanging ideas, and offering guidance on this cryptocurrency project.
However, the intrigue deepened as Satoshi’s correspondence abruptly ceased in 2011, leaving a void of silence that has puzzled researchers and historians ever since. The reasons behind this cessation remain a subject of speculation, ranging from personal reasons to concerns about legal implications and privacy.
Despite the veil of mystery surrounding Satoshi’s disappearance from the digital realm, the significance of his lost emails cannot be overstated. These messages provide a rare glimpse into the mind of the visionary creator who sparked a global financial revolution. Within the digital archives lie clues to Satoshi’s thought processes, motivations, and challenges in birthing Bitcoin into existence.
Understanding the context of Satoshi’s emails is essential for several reasons. First and foremost, they offer a unique perspective on the early days of Bitcoin’s development, shedding light on the technical intricacies, philosophical underpinnings, and ideological debates that shaped its evolution. I was smiling when they mentioned ‘sourceforge’ as GitHub started to go public around 2008, and we are talking about 2009 here.
Satoshi’s lost emails are a cautionary tale about the ephemeral nature of digital communication. In an era where digital footprints are meticulously tracked and archived, the disappearance of Satoshi’s correspondence underscores the impermanence of online interactions. It reminds us of the importance of preserving digital artifacts for posterity, ensuring that future generations can study and learn from the pioneers who paved the way for technological innovation.
Luckly, we just got 120 pages of emails that were just released from the early Bitcoin days.
The emails are 14+ years old and were sent between:
- Martti Malmi who was an OG Bitcoin developer.
- Satoshi Nakomoto the creator of Bitcoin.
Here are some of the interesting questions that these emails are answering:
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network based anonymous digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or to keep track of the transactions.
Instead, those tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. Anonymity means that the real world identity of the parties of a transaction can be kept hidden from the public or even from the parties themselves.
How does bitcoin work?
Bitcoin utilizes public/private key cryptography. When a coin is transfered from user A to user B, A adds B’s public key to the coin and signs it with his own private key. Now B owns the coin and can transfer it further. To prevent A from transfering the already used coin to another user C, a public list of all the previous transactions is collectively maintained by the network of bitcoin nodes, and before each transaction the coin’s unusedness will be checked.
What is the root problem of conventional currencies? or in other words “Why Bitcoin”?
The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of
breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
and if you need a bit of context:
“…I’ve developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It’s completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust.”
Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper:
Download Bitcoin v0.1 at http://www.bitcoin.org
What is bitcoin’s value backed by?
Bitcoin is valued for the things it can be exchanged to, just
like all the traditional paper currencies are.
When the first user publicly announces that he will make a pizza for anyone who gives him a hundred bitcoins, then he can use bitcoins as payment to some extent – as much as people want pizza
and trust his announcement. A pizza-eating hairdresser who trusts him as a friend might then announce that she starts accepting bitcoins as payment for fancy haircuts, and the value of the bitcoin would be higher – now you could buy pizzas and haircuts with them. When bitcoins have become accepted widely enough, he could retire from his pizza business and still be able to use his bitcoin-savings.
Many more “bitcoin history nuggets” can be found here: https://mmalmi.github.io/satoshi and in this good twitter thead.
Enjoy!
Ido Green 