VOL 53: Satoshi Nakamoto! Mysterious Bitcoin Creator
Lets unravel this brilliant inventor of our time.
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Trust you all had a great week đ¤?
Today at a Glance:
Quote of the Week
Satoshi
Was Satoshi Nakamoto a native of Japan?
Why was Bitcoin Created?
Satoshi Nakamotoâs Brief Public Life etc.
Conclusion
Past Greats đ´
Business & Startups
Random Tech Facts
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Quote of The Week
âHe who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.â
â â â
Michel de Montaigne
Satoshi
For more than 14 years, the identity of Bitcoinâs creator or creators has remained a mystery. On January 3, 2009, a character known as âSatoshi Nakamotoâ mined the first Bitcoin (BTC). Nobody knows who is behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto that has been credited with developing the worldâs first and largest, cryptocurrency â Bitcoin.
Months before mining the first Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper titled âBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Systemâ on a cryptography mailing list. The paper, which was published on October 31, 2008, described a cryptographically secure decentralized peer-to-peer protocol.
Was Satoshi Nakamoto a native of Japan?
Itâs best not to judge a book by its cover. Or, perhaps, we should.
âSatoshiâ is a Japanese word that means âclear thinking, quick-witted; wise.â âNakaâ can be translated as âmedium, inside, or relationship.â âMotoâ can refer to either âoriginâ or âfoundation.â
All of these things would apply to the person who started a movement by creating a clever algorithm. The issue, of course, is that each word can have multiple meanings.
We donât know for certain if Satoshi was Japanese or not. In fact, assuming that he was a âheâ is presumptuous. Allowing for the possibility that âSatoshi Nakamotoâ was a pseudonym, âheâ could have been a âshe,â or even a âthey.â
Why was Bitcoin created?
Although Satoshi remains unknown, his intention for creating cryptocurrency was never a mystery.
Satoshi envisioned Bitcoin as a transaction token that would be purely a âpeer-to-peer version of electronic cash,â allowing âonline payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution or any intermediary.â
Bitcoin remains open-source, which means that no one can own or control it entirely. Its design is open to the public, and anyone can participate.
Satoshi Nakamotoâs Brief Public Life
Satoshi Nakamoto sent a nine-page paper to a group of cryptographers on October 31, 2008, outlining a new form of âelectronic cashâ called bitcoin. Nobody cared about Satoshiâs identity at the time. The majority of those in that group were sceptical of bitcoin concept itself.
For more than a decade, cryptographers and developers such as Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, David Chaum, and Wei Dai had been attempting to create an electronic version of cash. They all failed for various reasons.
Satoshi Nakamoto launched the bitcoin network on January 9, 2009. Mr Finney was one of the few who was intrigued by it, and the two collaborated remotely in the early weeks to get the network up and running. Satoshi sent the first bitcoin transaction to Mr Finney.
Satoshi wrote on message boards and privately exchanged emails with developers for about two years as bitcoin slowly grew. Satoshi stopped posting publicly in December 2010 and stopped communicating with developers in 2011. Satoshi entrusted project leadership to Gavin Andresen, a software developer.
Does anyone know who Satoshi Nakamoto was?
Several people have claimed or were thought to be Satoshi, but their true identity has never been verified or revealed.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla has stated that he believes that the person behind the Nakamoto pseudonym is none other than cryptographic expert Nick Szabo.
âHe seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind Bitcoin than anyone else. He claims not to be Nakamoto, but Iâm not sure thatâs neither here nor there,â Musk told podcaster and AI researcher Lex Fridman.
Szabo was a pioneer in the development of ideas for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. In 1998, Szabo was the primary developer of the now-defunct Bit Gold project, which was the first attempt to create a virtual, decentralized currency.
âYou can look at the evolution of ideas before the launch of Bitcoin and see who wrote, you know, about those ideas,â Musk said. Szabo has repeatedly denied the claims to be behind the identity of Satoshi.
Satoshiâs true identity has sparked much speculation. Many people and organizations have claimed to be the true Satoshi Nakamoto, but only a handful of candidates have proven notable;
Dorian Nakamoto: Japanese-American man, who worked as a computer engineer for technology and financial services companies, heâs denied ever having worked on the project and didnât even know it existed.
Hal Finney: Out of all the candidates who could be Satoshi Nakamoto, Hal Finney is one of the most likely. He was an early user of Bitcoin and the recipient of the very first Bitcoin transaction.
Craig Wright: Whereas Dorian Nakamoto denied being Satoshi, Australian computer scientist Craig Wright claimed that he was the man behind the pseudonym. But evidence came to light proving the contrary, he has since backed away from the claim.
Gavin Andresen: Gavin Andresen was the lead Bitcoin developer and maintainer in the early Bitcoin years and was picked by Satoshi himself to take charge of the Bitcoin project when he chose to âdisappear.â In 2016, Gavin was attacked almost unanimously by the BTC world immediately after he publicly testified that Craig Wright was Satoshi.
How much is Satoshi Nakamoto worth?
Estimates of Satoshiâs BTC holdings vary, but most agree itâs around 1 million bitcoins. Satoshi Nakamoto has not moved a single Bitcoin from his wallet since early 2009. Today, those bitcoins are worth around $16 billion; the total value is determined by market conditions and the price of Bitcoin.
Any activity from these long-inactive wallets will attract attention and make headlines in the cryptocurrency world. Weâve seen the results of blockchain analysts closely monitoring significant bitcoin transactions from old wallets.
To move them, one must have the âprivate keyâ â a long, unique string of letters and numbers that controls access â and the person doing so must have a strong claim to be Satoshi.
Nobody else has the private keys or it is also possible that Satoshi lost the keys and canât move the bitcoin.
Conclusion
The changes brought about by this person or groupâs ideas have revolutionized many aspects of modern life.
âItâs an interesting quirk of human history that there is a particular technology that has a completely anonymous inventor,â said Musk.
PAST GREATS
MICHEL de MONTAIGNE (February 1533Â â September 1592)
The father of Modern Skepticism, Montaigne was an influential and key figure of the French Renaissance. He is best known for his essays which are considered to be the best of all time. He spent his writing life knocking the arrogance of intellectuals. In his great masterpiece âEssaisâ, he comes across as relentlessly wise and intelligent â but also as constantly modest.
He was the first person to use the word âessayâ to describe his writings. Today, it can be said that Montaigne was the first blogger. His essays influenced many other famous writers such as RenĂŠ Descartes, Isaac Asimov and William Shakespeare.
The birthdate of Montaigne (28 February) served as the basis to establish National Essay Day in the United States, also, the humanities branch of the University of Bordeaux is named after him.
Business & Startups
Orda
Nigerian food tech platform, Orda, is digitizing food businesses across the continent, primarily small and medium-sized restaurants. Orda helps many African restaurants in optimizing their business operations and expand their distribution.
African restaurants can use the startup's kitchen display systems, order and inventory management, integration with top food aggregators, accounting software, microsites, and mobile apps. A lending feature is also being considered.
To see whatâs in the works at Orda, visit their
website.
Random Tech Facts
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