Satoshi's own short summary is a great TL:DR of what Bitcoin is

[gentleman2019]

I've been reading and trying to understand the various aspects of Bitcoin in the last few weeks.

Though I had seen the original whitepaper when I started down the rabbithole, I saw Satoshi's own short summary for the earliest newsgroups today. (source https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/)

It could be helpful to beginners as a good TL:DR

I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.

The main properties:
 Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network.
 No mint or other trusted parties.
 Participants can be anonymous.
 New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work.
 The proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending.

Next is the Abstract which fleshes out more technical details and finally the link to whitepaper:

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the burdens of going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted 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 power. As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcasted on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

Full paper at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Satoshi Nakamoto

Guy was a very clear thinker and writer

[Lucius]

It is a rare occurrence to see that someone is interested in the beginnings of Bitcoin, mostly newcomers are asked how to get BTC for free or when BTC will be worth $ 1million. History is important because those who do not learn from history usually make big mistakes in the future because they misunderstand some important things.

Without a doubt, Satoshi was a special person, and Hal Finney who was one of his closest associates wrote this about him :

Today, Satoshi's true identity has become a mystery. But at the time, I thought I was dealing with a young man of Japanese ancestry who was very smart and sincere. I've had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.

[bitmover]

This forum is also an amazing place to collect more informal out the beginnings of bitcoin, as this forum is part of bitcoin history.

This thread is an interesting summary as well.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4322078.0

[nakamura12]

Satoshi made that short summary about bitcoin in order for us to understand what really is a bitcoin. With such  short summary you can understand it easily like bitcoin is an electronic cash without a third party or institution associated with and then the whitepaper will be the full information. Summary - learning, Whitepaper - understanding.

[notblox1]

It is always good to see Satoshi Nakamoto words and posts being quoted.
I am not 100% sure Satoshi would be very happy with current Bitcoin situation in 2020.
Yes price is up a lot from first days, but how far are we from mass adoption?

[hornbill]

This forum is also an amazing place to collect more informal out the beginnings of bitcoin, as this forum is part of bitcoin history.

This thread is an interesting summary as well.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4322078.0

I've been reading and trying to understand the various aspects of Bitcoin in the last few weeks.

Though I had seen the original whitepaper when I started down the rabbithole, I saw Satoshi's own short summary for the earliest newsgroups today. (source https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/)

It could be helpful to beginners as a good TL:DR

I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.

The main properties:
 Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network.
 No mint or other trusted parties.
 Participants can be anonymous.
 New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work.
 The proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending.

Next is the Abstract which fleshes out more technical details and finally the link to whitepaper:

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the burdens of going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted 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 power. As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcasted on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

Full paper at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Satoshi Nakamoto

Guy was a very clear thinker and writer

 
For a newcomer as me and new to crypto, reading is all what I can do at the moment.
Luckily my new job/role gave me this opportunity of learning. Before, I didn't know there are so many ppl out there know these two words, Satoshi and bitcoin, but that is all.
I'm glad my limited knowledge now can explain better and help others to understand better. 
 
Thanks for sharing!

[Soratrade]

It is fascinating how he could have this vision without much input from others.
If he is still alive and around, i wonder which of the current top thinkers in the bitcoin space he is following on twitter.
Must be so super hard not to try to comment on the more recent development.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It is fascinating how he could have this vision without much input from others.

Not to belittle his achievement in any way, but I wouldn't say he had no input from others.

The bitcoin whitepaper has a number of references to work that Satoshi built upon, such as Wei Dai's "b-money" (http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt) and Adam Bcak's "Hashcash" (http://www.hashcash.org/papers/hashcash.pdf). Chaum, Fiat and Naor wrote a paper entitled "Untraceable Electronic Cash" 20 years before the bitcoin whitepaper (http://blog.koehntopp.de/uploads/chaum_fiat_naor_ecash.pdf), and Nick Szabo wrote "Bit Gold" in 2005 (https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/12/bit-gold.html). There was an awful lot of work which came before the bitcoin whitepaper which Satoshi built upon. You can see lots more of it here: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/literature/

Further to that, you can read his early email chains here: https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/threads/1/. There are names in there you (hopefully) will recognize, such as Hal Finney, but plenty more that you probably don't.