The Mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto - The Bitcoin Breakdown

The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto is not a story the Sith would tell you

And yet it is one of the most fascinating legends ever told

It’s the story of a cryptic computer scientist, an unknown person or a group of people whose invention has changed human civilization forever.

Unlike many legends of past, this story takes place in the modern, digital age, where everything is tracked and logged. Satoshi’s communications are publicly available to read, and yet the details around her identity are still shrouded in mystery.

Let’s turn back the clocks to the year 2008

In the midst of a global financial crisis, the worst economic emergency since the great depression, and *almost* the most cataclysmic economic event in the history of mankind…

A shadowy figure quietly emerges

They call them-self Satoshi Nakamoto

To calm markets and suppress a meltdown, emergency measures are taken by world governments, flooding the economy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts.

Our political and economic leaders barely save us from catastrophe, as the entire world is thrust into recession. Global debt reaches record levels, with the consequences merely postponed…

The date is October 31st

On a Halloween night, against the backdrop of this global crisis, this mad computer scientist quietly published the instructions to a new kind of money. A digital money, an unstoppable money, ruled by no human being. An invention they call bitcoin.

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
Satoshi Nakamoto

In a time where overleveraged financial institutions had risked the solvency of the global economy, the seeds of rebellion were planted. A revolutionary new economic system was born.

For you see, this unknown inventor of bitcoin, was a Cypherpunk

The Cypherpunks were a group of rogue anti-authoritarian computer programmers, digital liberty advocates and anarchists. Computer scientists who were terrified of a future Orwellian surveillance state.

They decided to take freedom into their own hands, creating technology no government or corporation could stop.

And independent money was their holy grail.

The Cypherpunks had been diligently working towards the perfect digital money for decades. Their aim was to free humanity from the regulation and control of banks and middlemen, and to move money privately, without permission, and without censorship. The separation of money and state.

Standing on the shoulders of the Cypherpunk giants, Satoshi had a breakthrough.

No one ever meets this person. No one even knows if they are a single person or a group. No one ever hears her voice and no one ever sees his face.

That’s because there’s no one actually named Satoshi Nakamoto. It’s a pseudonym, a disguise, a mask.

Like a real life superhero, they conceal their identity from the world. All communication was done digitally through forum posts and email. Through meticulous planning, evasive linguistic tactics, and unpredictable posting times, Satoshi left no traceable personal clues in their writing.

In their whitepaper published on that fateful Halloween, Satoshi presents a solution to a computer science dilemma, a problem once thought impossible to solve.

Simultaneously reinventing one of the oldest technologies in human civilization, and solving a multi-thousand-year-old trust problem, with the first accounting innovation in over 700 years, Satoshi created a trust machine that runs on its own without human involvement. Eliminating the need to trust in institutions like banks, corporations or governments.

Satoshi discovered a way to put physics into the internet, to recreate the thermodynamic law of conservation of energy, within cyberspace. Satoshi discovered a new form of time, a decentralized clock, that ticks for eternity. Satoshi discovered a way to give everyone on earth access to immutable money, a revolution in property rights.

Her invention has profound consequences for the history of mankind. Completely altering our relationship with technology and the future of the internet.

For a couple of years, this mysterious computer scientist worked with volunteers to bootstrap the project. Fixing bugs and tweaking the code. And then suddenly…disappears. Like a ghost.

It’s a departure without a display. She simply leaves. They stop answering questions and emails, and he stops participating in discussions.

No one ever finds out who they are, where they came from or where they went. Satoshi remains unknown to this very day.

But with its creator gone, what is to become of this digital money project? Does it fade away into obscurity?

Quite the opposite, bitcoin jolts to life, its thunder is heard around the world.

Bitcoin went on to become the fastest trillion dollar valuation of any asset in history, at an adoption pace faster than the internet itself. Spawning an entirely new asset class and industry, and tens of thousands of other projects.

The invention of bitcoin marked a fundamental breakthrough in computer science, information theory, economics, fintech and cryptographic systems.

Now the largest supercomputer on earth, bitcoin is completely immortal. It can’t be shut down, it can’t be hacked, it can’t be banned, it can’t be changed, and it can’t be controlled. Even the most powerful governments, corporations and institutions in the world are powerless to stop it.

It is a self-running software program designed to last forever.

No one knows how it’s possible for Satoshi to both solve this unsolvable computer science problem and build an all-powerful, self-sustaining monetary system at the same time.

To be a polymath, specialized across multiple academic disciplines, and yet evade detection. The field of experts in distributed systems engineering is so small you would think it would be simple to nail them down, and yet there have been no definitive leads.

Is Satoshi an alien? A time traveler? A secret government organization? A libertarian nerd in his mother’s basement? It’s very possible that Satoshi isn’t even alive anymore. It’s been well over a decade and still no one can unmask her Halloween disguise.

By disappearing Satoshi left behind ultimate fame, power, and fortune. Adding to the mystery.

It’s estimated that Satoshi is in direct control of over one million bitcoins, and yet the coins have never been touched. Satoshi can anonymously move or sell their bitcoin whenever they want.

The fact that this treasure has sat dormant since 2010 leads many to believe that it’s unlikely Satoshi is ever coming back. If someone had access to that kind of money, they probably would have used some of it by now.

Instead, Satoshi’s treasure sits untouched as a monument to their selflessness.

Satoshi’s treasure is becoming the largest pile of money in history. In only a few years Satoshi is expected to be the richest person in the world, as the value of their fortune surpasses $300 billion. It’s predicted that this treasure surpasses a trillion dollars in value as soon as the 2030’s.

Because bitcoin’s blockchain is completely transparent, the wallets that hold Satoshi’s treasure are publically available for all to see, and yet remain completely untouchable. To compute even one of Satoshi’s keys would take until the heat death of the universe.

Satoshi’s treasure lies there mocking the old guard of money, the financial institutions he so adamantly dismayed. It lies there as a testament to the power of the individual, proving that anything is possible. And it lies there taunting those who are driven by greed, selfish minds who only seek out fortune and fame, proving that humans are capable of throwing it all away for the good of humanity.

It lies there forever jeering: “Here lies Satoshi’s legendary treasure — take it, if you can”

…

For many years to come, the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto will continue to incite awe and astonishment as people first learn about bitcoin’s humble origins. People from around the world will marvel at the genius of Satoshi and speculate on their identity and motivation. Classes will be taught on bitcoin and the chapter dedicated to Satoshi will inspire generation after generation.

We will probably never know who invented bitcoin. The moral of the story isn’t to speculate on who Satoshi is, but to understand that it doesn’t matter.

Satoshi gave bitcoin as a gift to humanity. We run bitcoin and we decide it’s future. There’s no one in charge now, bitcoin belongs to everyone. We are all equal participants in the network.

We are all Satoshi

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