Bitcoin Forum

The anonymous owner of Bitcoin.org, “Cobra Bitcoin,” explains his opinion of the situation and declares that Satoshi’s white paper needs to be revised.

“The white paper is to blame for all these dangerous beliefs — We seriously need to rewrite it, or produce a completely new white paper and call that the Bitcoin white paper,” details Cobra.

"The whitepaper is probably the only vaguely “technical” document that many people in positions of power and influence have read, it’s what they base their understanding of Bitcoin on. And it’s very easy to misunderstand in subtle ways. It’s an extremely dangerous document for an ignorant person to read."

Read More Here >>>   https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-org-owner-wants-to-revise-satoshis-white-paper/

It would make the most sense to call it "the Bitcoin whitepaper (revised)" and make sure to include a link to "the original Bitcoin whitepaper".

If there are some things in satoshi's whitepaper which bitcoin.org no longer perceives to hold true or which they perceive to be inaccurate, they should make all of the changes transparent.  As long as they don't replace the old whitepaper with the new one without mentioning all of the changes clearly, it's okay for them to make some alterations.

I think people commenting on bitcoin.com and some opponents of this suggestion are being very hyperbolic to claim that it's "rewriting history".  The old whitepaper will always still exist, it'll just be accessed differently.

Yawn. That article is trying to invent drama and controversy.

Yeah, the original paper is outdated since the reference implementation has changed significantly from 2009 and the context in which the terms nodes and miners were used is a bit confusing to newbies, but still the overall concept remains the same.

Rewriting/updating the original white paper to prevent individuals from citing/justifying their ideas as Satoshi's vision would be the same as justifying the updated version as Satoshi's vision. It would not only be unethical, but bad for the consensus driven Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin.org does have plenty of learning resources and for educational purpose creating a new white paper, citing the original, adding additional information, and calling it updated version, but not attributing it to Satoshi would be good.

I'm not super familiar with Cobra but this is only the second time I've read anything attributed directly to him/her, discounting all the other posts unsigned by Bitcoin.org like the ones that came out prior to the Segwit2x suspension. The first was expressing the need to hard fork - which I think is something actually many core developers would agree with anyway, should all security risks and concerns be addressed. And now the need to revise Nakamoto's whitepaper.

Appendments I think would be useful, or as someone said, linking to the original. Preservation of at least the very first version isn't a matter of mere posterity. Though, in the large scheme of time, it won't matter to generations from today.

As much as I'm against of any attempt to "rewrite the history", I must agree here.

For example, the header image suggests that someone wants to remove the word "Cash" of the title of the whitepaper (e.g. to replace it with "settlement" or "store of value"), although no person mentioned in the article proposes that. And the points Cobra and Theymos talk about are pretty subtle details about the difference of "validation" and "mining".

Another example of poor Bitcoin.com "journalism" ...

I doubt, however, that an attempted rewrite of the whitepaper really could describe correctly the extremely complex power structure of the Bitcoin ecosystem (Hint: not only miners and developers have "control" over it).

I see attempts to rewrite the whitepaper as loosely analogous to attempting to fork the code.  Feel free to go right ahead and make your changes, as no one can stop you, but people don't have to accept your changes and may well opt to continue using the original document.  I know I've got a copy of the original on my own webspace for posterity if the one at bitcoin.org suddenly becomes unavailable.  I'd suspect others have copies uploaded elsewhere too.  I honestly don't see how anyone could rewrite it in a way that wasn't contentious to someone.

 This should be the new version XD:


Abstract .    A  purely  peer-to-peer mildly centralized version  of  electronic  cash  would  allow  online payments  to  be  sent  directly  from  one  party  to  another  without  going  through  a classical financial  institution.    Digital  signatures, when and if included,  provide  part  of  the  solution,  but  the  main benefits  are  lost  if  a  trusted  third  party  is  still  required  to  prevent  double-spending. We propose  a  solution  to  the  double-spending  problem  using  a  peer-to-peer  network. The  network  timestamps  transactions  by  hashing  them  into  an  ongoing  chain  of hash-based  proof-of-work,  forming  a  record  that  cannot  be  changed  without  redoing the  proof-of-work.    The  longest  chain  not  only  serves  as  proof  of  the  sequence  of events  witnessed,  but  proof  that  it  came  from  the  largest  pool  of  CPU dedicated hardware power.    As long  as  a  majority  of  CPU dedicated hardware   power  is  controlled  by  nodes  chinese miners that  are  usually not  cooperating  to attack  the  network,  they'll  generate  the  longest  chain  and  outpace  attackers.    The network  itself  requires  minimal an huge structure.   

If it really has a good intention then it can be done but I think it should be done not by only one person a group of individual with the same interest must join the re writing of the white paper to avoid a selfish intent on re writing it. Or if Satoshi can do it by himself then that is better.

"Good intentions" can be a matter of perspective, though.  What one person might perceive as an innocuous clarification, another may perceive as a deliberate shift in emphasis to suit one's agenda.  Whether it's an individual or a group, there's no way to do it without someone taking exception to the changes.  I fully expect accusations of central planning, autocracy, revisionism and indoctrination if someone does so much as move a comma in that *.pdf file without making it beyond clear that it's not the original document anymore, but merely an interpretation based on opinion.

Also, it's probably not the best opening strategy to start casting aspersions about "dangerous beliefs" if your justification for unilateral change is that the original document gives people ideas that you personally disagree with.  Talk about spending too long in the echo chamber and thinking that silencing all dissent is the right way to go.  That's not a dangerous belief at all.   ::)

Get your popcorn ready in preparation for the ensuing drama.

If the whitepaper is revised, this may change the entire concept of crypto currency. The cost of bitcoin will inevitably decrease.

What is the need of revising the whitepaper of Bitcoin, Why don't he just do his own alt coin if he is seeing that something is wrong with the bitcoin. This alteration might result to a negative effect on bitcoin's price.

In fairness to Cobra and those who might agree with revising it, it's not quite that black and white.  Certain things have unfolded in ways that weren't foreseen.  The whitepaper works under the assumption that most full nodes would be mining, but the advent of ASICs mean that isn't the case.  It's difficult to say for certain, but it's possible, even likely, that Satoshi didn't envision mining becoming this centralised this quickly.

This is why some are concerned that the whitepaper could be misinterpreted to believe that miners are in control, when they aren't.