Remembering Satoshi
Stepping into the archive of Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin's earliest days
“If Bitcoin is an invention that will be talked about in 1000 years, then we still live in a time where it can be understood.” - Pete Rizzo
We should properly remember Satoshi Nakamoto.
Satoshi Nakamoto was the anonymous creator of Bitcoin. This new Astrolabe series will chart the history of Satoshi, in his own words and ideas. Taking you through archival sources from the earliest days of the project.
We still lack proper historical context of Satoshi’s active years on the Bitcoin project (2007-2011). In the coming months, alongside regular content regarding macroeconomic developments, we will together step into the Satoshi archive to better understand the person and his role in Bitcoin’s story. The series will feature original interpretation from Satoshi’s various posts, emails and public statements as well as the few secondary sources we have.
Let’s review some basics about Satoshi.
Satoshi Nakamoto was the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin who surfaced on a cryptographic mailing list in late 2008. He claimed to have solved a one of computer science’s most difficult problems — The Byzantine Generals problem. To that end, he provided a framework for a decentralized, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, building on the back of several attempts at digital cash in the 1980s and 1990s.
The identity of Satoshi remains unknown to this day. He was active for 3 years before he stepped back from the Bitcoin open-source project and disappeared. Many have tried to identify him or track him down without success. For the purpose of our series, his identity doesn’t matter as much as his thoughts, ideas, and approach. The goal is to understand Satoshi and interpret him. For reasons that will become clear, I reject the narrative that Satoshi was mysterious, elusive and shadowy. He was in many ways quite the opposite: cooperative, helpful, seeking to educate and stress test the project.
Satoshi also said quite a bit after all. By Ivy Macklemore’s count, Satoshi penned 80,000 words in his active years explaining, stewarding, troubleshooting and securing Bitcoin.
This series will share different aspects about Satoshi you did not know.
How did he understand digital cash history and P2P networks? What was Satoshi’s position on fiat money? How did Satoshi approach security in Bitcoin? What did Satoshi know about commodity history? How did Satoshi write? How did he deal with technical objections to Bitcoin after its release? Why was he so concerned by Wikileaks using Bitcoin in the fall of 2010?
There are deeper questions to answer as well. What was Satoshi’s relationship with time? How did he view his own role and legacy? Did Satoshi fully appreciate what he had created? And one of the most challenging questions of all in Bitcoin history: why did Satoshi leave?
The Bitcoin community needs a deeper textual interpretation of Satoshi grounded in the available primary sources (available mailing list posts, internet forum posts, and private email correspondence). Some have contributors have waded into Bitcoin’s past, such as Aaron Van Wirdrum, Phil Champagne and Ivey Macklemore who have offered excellent contributions to Bitcoin history. Pete Rizzo, who has motivated me to build on his work, has definitely led the charge. Pete has argued that we need to go back to beginning and properly recount that time and has provided a wonderful starting point you can explore here:
Still, the Satoshi archive remains understudied. We do a disservice to future historians by not interpreting this very recent past in Bitcoin’s history. Too much attention has been paid to identifying Satoshi and not enough to remembering the story of how Satoshi navigated the release and earliest years of Bitcoin.
A powerful idea was released into the wild in January 2009 — one that has scaled to over 100 million users, 200,000 transactions per day, and a total value of nearly a trillion dollars. It outstrips all but a few national currencies in the world and the rivals the worlds largest companies. All without central management, outside investment, advertising or patents. Bitcoin is something deeper and more elemental.
We will now step back together to its earliest days where a small group of cryptographers huddled around a newly lit orange flame as the first sparks of an unlikely story burst into life.
Thanks for reading,
Nadir
*Satoshi is referred to as a he for convenience as we still do not know Satoshi’s true identity