The first Bitcoin protocol and proof of concept was published in a Whitepaper in 2009 by a shadowy individual or group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Eventually Nakamoto, who remained mysterious, left the project in late 2010. Other developers took over and the Bitcoin community has since grown exponentially.
While Satoshi Nakamoto’s real identity remains shrouded in mystery, it is on record that he communicated extensively in Bitcoin’s early days. Let us speculate on questions like when he started working on Bitcoin, to what extent he was inspired by similar ideas and what was the motivation for bitcoin.
Creation of the first bitcoin domain
It is believed that Satoshi started coding Bitcoin around May 2007. He is said to have registered the domain bitcoin.org in August 2008. Around that time, he started sending emails to a few individuals he thought might be interested in the idea of bitcoins.
In October 2008, he publicly published a white paper that dwelt on the Bitcoin protocol, and released the Bitcoin code as well. Then he stayed in contact for about two years, during which he interacted actively in forums, communicated with several developers and later he also submitted patches to the initial code. He maintained the source code along with other developers, tackling issues as they happened. By December 2010, as others had slowly taken over, he quietly left the scene.
Entities
The entities involved in the implementation and maintenance of Bitcoins are −
- The Blockchain platform
- Cryptographic algorithms
- Bitcoin miners which are computers or specialized machines that mint the currency and make possible transactions
- People who participate in the transactions and thus help to move the payment system
The philosophy of Bitcoin, and in general, of all cryptocurrencies is that they are distributed systems where there is no central entity that manages the activities such as transactions, among others. It is a peer-to-peer (p2p) system that operates at the level of participants.