2008-BA: Origin of Web3

2008: Satoshi and Bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to be a Japanese American. There are no official Kanji for the name. Some Japanese media write it as 中本哲史. The person, with his real identity unknown, is the creator of the bitcoin protocol and its related software bitcoin-Qt. Nakamoto published a paper entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System in 2008, describing an electronic currency he called "bitcoin" and its algorithm. In 2009, he released the first bitcoin software and officially launched the bitcoin financial system. In 2010, he gradually faded out and handed over the project to other members of the bitcoin community. Nakamoto is believed to hold about one million bitcoins. These bitcoins were worth more than $40 billion at the end of 2021.Since the publication of the paper, Nakamoto’s true identity has never been known to the outside world. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, claimed that Nakamoto was a Cypherpunk. In addition, some called him an anarchist as his idea was to exempt digital cryptocurrency from control by a government or central bank, and make sure it flows freely throughout the world under no governmental regulation or control.”

Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC or XBT) is a cryptocurrency based on decentralization, adopting a peer-to-peer network, stigmergy, and open-source code, and taking blockchain as the underlying technology Bitcoin was published by Satoshi Nakamoto on October 31, 2008, in his paper, and Genesis Block was born on January 3, 2009. In some countries, central banks, government agencies, and academia regard bitcoin as a virtual commodity rather than a currency. According to Monetary Finance, money is defined to have three basic functions as a means of payment, a unit of account, and a store of value respectively. The highly volatile Bitcoin cannot be deemed as currency due to the lack of the last two functions.Bitcoin is accessible to anyone. It can be issued through mining on computers. The protocol sets a ceiling of 21 million coins to avoid inflation. The private key is used as a digital signature for transactions. This allows direct transfer from peer to peer, just like cash, saving high commissions, complex processes, and regulations generated by third-party institutions such as banks, clearing centers, securities dealers, and electronic payment platforms. Anyone with a digital device connected to the Internet has access to Bitcoin.