Why Did Satoshi Create Bitcoin?

20 Jan, 2024

Jesse Myers

Author

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We spend a lot of our time talking about Bitcoin in terms of what it is, what it can do, and why it might be an attractive asset to include in a portfolio.

But for folks who are only just beginning to learn about Bitcoin (or your friends and family who have yet to begin), it's worth looking at things from a different angle to ask... why was Bitcoin created?

This topic is always in the background, but at a moment like this - with the global financial system straining in such a way that will soon necessitate large-scale money printing - it's time to bring it to the fore.

The Man

When I first got into crypto, I spent a good chunk of my time trying to figure out the real identity of the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. I have my short list of likely candidates — some living, some dead. But there comes a point in your Bitcoin journey where you stop trying to identify who this person is that could become the world's first trillionaire.

Instead, you slowly let go of that desire to know and start to understand that Satoshi never wanted to mine a million Bitcoin for himself... what he wanted was to provide consistent hashpower to the network in order for Bitcoin to attract the participation it needed.

Thankfully, Satoshi sowed just enough doubt about his identity that he achieved a plausible deniability. I couldn't figure out definitively who Satoshi was, which means most won't either. And that is a beautiful gift to Bitcoin and to the world.

We could have had a figurehead. A person whose words the press and general public would place significance on that would be countervailing to Bitcoin's essential governance model of decentralized consensus.

Someone whose politics, affiliations, and past speeding tickets would be used against Bitcoin, to undermine and besmirch Bitcoin's merit. I think Satoshi was smart enough to realize this, which is why he chose to veil his identity in the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.

What's more, I think all his choices in creating this pseudonymous identity were meant to obfuscate and confuse. Satoshi writes with British spelling and slang, worked on Bitcoin during American working hours, and chose a Japanese name.

To read the full report click the download link.