I believe (not 100% positive) this is the first announcement of Bitcoin using the word "Bitcoin". Satoshi may have posted earlier possibly under another psuedonym and not using the word Bitcoin (speaking in general terms about p2p cash) but that would be pretty hard to track down. Note the date, the whitepaper was published roughly
a year two months before the first client and genesis block. Interestingly Satoshi must have decided on the name by August 2008 because that is when bitcoin.org was registered.
Satoshi Nakamoto Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:16:33 -0700
I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully
peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
The paper is available at:
http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdfThe 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.
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Abstract. 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.pdfSatoshi Nakamoto
http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09959.htmlSome more dates from the early history
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/HistoryFun fact the first recorded exchange rate was 1309 BTC per USD. That would be worth ~$1.5 million today. Lots of people talk about the million dollar pizza but this first trader only got a buck.