Ten years after the worlds first cryptocurrency appeared online- there is still no concrete evidence to the identity of its creator: Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin was designed as an open-source software and released to the public in 2009. It was created with openness in mind and designed to be a decentralized community driven project. Functioning on an open ledger that is accessible to the public- Bitcoin is an open-source project which has had hundreds of developers work on it over the years. With that being said, Bitcoin was first started by one person and that person is one of the worlds greatest mysteries that still remains unsolved.

The History of Bitcoins creation and Satoshi Nakamoto

The first step in the creation of Bitcoin occurred in 2007 when Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin code. In November 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin White Paper, which laid the foundations for the Bitcoin protocol. He wrote this whitepaper and created Bitcoin in direct response to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 which nearly destroyed the global economy. Centralized banking institutions and corrupt individuals nearly destroyed the entire world economy and the worst part about it was that no one was held accountable or punished. Bitcoins first block aka the genesis block was then mined On January 3rd, 2009. This moment marked the creation of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole.

Satoshi and the invention of Bitcoin began to spread thanks to the internet and a community grew supporting his vision and invention. This community helped grow Satoshis vision and Nakamoto worked closely with his newly formed community. Together Satoshi and the Bitcoin community modified and created the underlying bitcoin protocol. Eventually, after two years of working on Bitcoin, Nakamoto handed the helm of the project to Gavin Andresen. He then ended his involvement with the Bitcoin project in December of 2010. Nakamoto returned in the Spring of 2011, to leave one final message, stating that he had moved on to other things, and that Bitcoin was in good hands with Gavin Andresen and everyone. This was the last message that Satoshi Nakamoto ever left.

The mystery behind Nakamotos identity has only grown over the years since his involvement with Bitcoin and there are many people who speculate on the identity of Nakamoto with some even claiming to be him. Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to be Japanese, born on April 5, 1975 and it is unknown whether Nakamoto is male or female. In fact, many people speculate that Nakamoto may even be a group of individuals vs a single entity.

In an age where information is available to anyone and so widespread, Satoshi Nakamoto managed to keep his identity a complete secret for over a decade. If Nakamoto is indeed a single individual, then he or she owns approximately 5% of the worlds Bitcoin supply, making him/her one of the richest people in the world. The implications of this wealth are considerable- if Satoshi Nakamoto were ever to sell the rumored 980,000 Bitcoins in his or her possession the price of Bitcoin could potentially become more volatile than it already is. However, many people believe that these funds will never be used or recovered as the funds have not moved since Bitcoins inception. This is why many people believe Satoshi Nakamoto is dead and his funds are lost forever, further decreasing Bitcoins total supply and increasing its scarcity.

Ultimately, the world may never know who created Bitcoin and Satoshi may remain anonymous forever. While there has been plenty of speculation regarding Nakamotos identity, all the guesses so far have led to dead ends. Satoshis silence since the Spring of 2011 means we will likely never hear from him/her again. The mystery of Satoshi only aids in marketing Bitcoin as people speculate and share their thoughts on the matter. The anonymity of Satoshi also helps aid in Bitcoins decentralized nature as there is no true figurehead or leader to take credit for its design. One thing is for certain Satoshi was a genius whose vision of a decentralized payment system is just starting to come alive. As the debt bubble continues to inflate and centralized financial corruption increases, Bitcoin gains more followers and Satoshis vision becomes more widespread. Bitcoin has the potential to solve a lot of the problems which we face today and it remains to be seen whether the world accepts Satoshis vision or if centralized powers retain the control they have over society.

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? - The CryptoCation