Origins of Bitcoin

[seandochroi]

I could definititely need some help on my recent, rather intensive research on the origins of Bitcoin. It is a fresh approach, so do not be surprised by parts of the content.

Rather than the usual namedropping, I have attempted to systematically compile existing information, and interweave them with some new circumstantial evidence and findings out of my own research. You can freely download the latest version of the document from

http://arxiv.org/abs/2206.10257.

By the very nature of the complex topic, the document is quite comprehensive, featuring lots of citations to various sources; so, if you do not have the time, you might scan through it and focus on the sections you are most interested in.

My personal conclusion is that the real "Satoshi Nakamoto" may only be identified if he/she/they come out, whether voluntarily or under pressure, which might not even be very desirable for the Bitcoin community. Yet, my work will probably be useful to dismiss false hypotheses about the origins of Bitcoin, and debunk fake Satoshis.

[Doan9269]

I can't really figure out your major purpose for creating this thread, possibly maybe you are advertising your own website or talking about the already known fact about Satoshi I can't just get it straight but i know you're upto something, my advice is that here is strictly on bitcoin discussion and adding your website or any third party blog address isn't that welcome, you are meant to discuss only on bitcoin but what i found here is that your topic does not correlate with the content on the thread, pls read the forum's rules and regulations before posting.

[seandochroi]

So you mean the origins of Bitcoin are not a welcome topic on this forum? I am not promoting my website, but offered a document that is free to download.

[Piesel]

So you mean the origins of Bitcoin are not a welcome topic on this forum? I am not promoting my website, but offering a document that is free to download.

Everything one needs to know about Bitcoin and its creator Satoshi is relatively available via just a search on the internet, and even Santoshi himself made some posts on this forum in the early days of the Bitcoin journey, which any newcomers could easily get access to such information. No doubt the fact that your document contains some known fact about Satoshi and his work but the truth remains that, most information around the internet about satishi personality are just mere assumptions and unproven information.

[seandochroi]

Thanks for your comment, but I suppose you have not read the article, otherwise you would see that it goes significantly beyond the state of the art. Otherwise I would not have invested the effort.

[Anonylz]

AM sure it will be relevant to some people who do not have the time to scan for this information from different source online. Although i haven't click on the article link yet but i believe you have managed to gathered all relevant information about btc origin from different source in one place which will be very handy. It seems this is not the right section to post this, it will be much useful in beginners & help section since that's the best place for new comers to visit for all relevant information about btc and this forum.

[tryingtolearn]

I have listened to a couple of podcasts where they theorize that Bitcoin may have been started by the NSA as a way to get people hooked on the idea of an all digital currency and to drain capital out of the system.  One of the biggest problems central banks face is the massive amount of currency sitting outside the banking system.  If you are a conspiracy theorist - it makes perfect sense to hook people in and then destroy capital - since the ultimate goal seems to be total control of every aspect of people's lives.  Do not underestimate the depths of deceit, underhandedness and lies of govt. 

[seandochroi]

My intention is not to pitch any ideology or conspiracy theory, but to provide an, as-much-as-possible, objective overview. The problem of podcasts is that they need short, compelling headlines, but this is not very helpful for elucidating the (rather complex) origins of Bitcoin.

[tryingtolearn]

All theories about the origins of bitcoin are just that.  Since no one really knows who started it (does that make any sense whatsoever?) - anything is possible.

[seandochroi]

Well, if you leave it at such a helicopter view, there is some truth to your statement.
However, based on existing and new findings, I developed a more refined picture.
So any concrete and constructive criticism is very welcome.
I find the whole topic about the origins of Bitcoin of high interest from a history of technology perspective!

[tryingtolearn]

why don't you summarize your views here so we don't have to read a 74 page paper...  I am tryingtolearn...  

[Diplester6666]

I could definititely need some help on my recent, rather intensive research on the origins of Bitcoin. It is a fresh approach, so do not be surprised by parts of the content.

Rather than the usual namedropping, I have attempted to systematically compile existing information, and interweave them with some new circumstantial evidence and findings out of my own research. You can freely download the latest version of the document from

http://arxiv.org/abs/2206.10257.

By the very nature of the complex topic, the document is quite comprehensive, featuring lots of citations to various sources; so, if you do not have the time, you might scan through it and focus on the sections you are most interested in.

My personal conclusion is that the real "Satoshi Nakamoto" may only be identified if he/she/they come out, whether voluntarily or under pressure, which might not even be very desirable for the Bitcoin community. Yet, my work will probably be useful to dismiss false hypotheses about the origins of Bitcoin, and debunk fake Satoshis.

Thank you.
I have downloaded the paper and just by having a glance I could tell you've invested non-trivial time and effort into this, so I'll not dismiss this as just another 'Google search'. I am really interested in reading the whole paper, so I'll go through it over this weekend when I have more time. One question though - is this just an academic research for university project or you're genuinely hooked to cryptocurrency?

[seandochroi]

Good point - I tried to actually have a short summary.
Yet, I am not into dropping names and making bold unfounded statements. I do not even have a new or old name, which I think is useless anyway.

There are a few issues to be raised, some of them have not, or rarely and incompletely, been investigated. Let's start with this:

Did you ever look at the bibliography of the Bitcoin whitepaper?

From a formal, scientific publishing perspective, it is rather "lousy".

The average age of citations predates 1990, i.e., more than 18 years prior to the release of the Whitepaper.

The bibliography is very short, essentially half of the papers [3-5] (plus [2]) from the "fathers" of blockchan (Stornetta & Haber), 2 web links [1,6] that have reportedly been added after the Whitepaper was already finished, 1 from the oldest, 1957-edition of a standard text book [8], and 1 citation [2] from a local, 1999 networking meeting from the Benelux that hardly any US-American would have had on the radar, and hard to find and retrieve.

Does that raise any eyebrows?

[sbrys]

Looks very interesting.

I’m very curious now who that promising student was of KU Leuven that ended his life in 2011…

[Eternad]

So you mean the origins of Bitcoin are not a welcome topic on this forum? I am not promoting my website, but offered a document that is free to download.

Nope, He just pertaining that your thread has no valuable content and reader need to browse the link you provide before they can read about your title. You should atleast provide here even the summary of your paper so that user will have a brief knowledge about your research using this thread because it really looks like that you only want to gather view for your website by creating this thread without any content.

[seandochroi]

I have not been an insider at the time, so all my information results from available information, plus interviews I carried out with key stakeholders. As expected, none of these cryptologists liked to be an open book.

Another topic to look at:

The limited total supply of 21 million BTC is almost religiously cited amongst Bitcoin maximalists, and does have some rather straight-forward mathematical explanation. However, it could have easily been shifted to a more catchy number, like a billion BTC or so. Satoshi wrote initially wrote that he considered 42 million BTC, which would have been achieved by an initial coinbase transaction of 100 BTC.

21 - 42 - does that ring a bell?

21 can be obtained from the sum over off the points of the faces of a dice -> cube -> block

21 is also the key number in Blackjack, a casino card game very popular amongst math geniusses - and in March 2008, i.e., a few month prior to the release of the Bitcoin whitepaper, the movie "21" featuring the Hollywood-adapted story of the notorious "MIT Blackjack Team" was released to US cinemas.

42 - “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything”, most tech-nerd "Hitchhikers" likely know what I an talking about.

So maybe the initial and eventual choice of these particular numbers was not as random, and merely matehrematically reasoned, as assumed. You find more potential interpretations in the paper.

Note that these points, and other circumstantial evidence dug out in the paper, are certainly of speculative character, but you find more evidence that hints towards a certain propensity of Satoshi Nakamoto for "puns".

[seandochroi]

I have not been an insider at the time, so all my information results from available information, plus interviews I carried out with key stakeholders. As expected, none of these cryptologists liked to be an open book.

Another topic to look at:

The limited total supply of 21 million BTC is almost religiously cited amongst Bitcoin maximalists, and does have some rather straight-forward mathematical explanation. However, it could have easily been shifted to a more catchy number, like a billion BTC or so. Satoshi wrote initially wrote that he considered 42 million BTC, which would have been achieved by an initial coinbase transaction of 100 BTC.

21 - 42 - does that ring a bell?

21 can be obtained from the sum over off the points of the faces of a dice -> cube -> block

21 is also the key number in Blackjack, a casino card game very popular amongst math geniusses - and in March 2008, i.e., a few month prior to the release of teh Bitcoin whitepaper, the movie "21" featuring the Hollywood-adapted story of the notorious "MIT Blackjack Team" was released to US cinemas.

42 - “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything”, most tech-nerd "Hitchhikers" likely know what I an talking about.

Under theroretical / idealized (but unrealistic) boundary conditions of a calculation made prior to the launch of the Bitcoin whitepaper and the start of the Bitcoin blockchain, the final mint may be calculated around the year 2142 ...

So maybe the initial and eventual choice of these particular numbers was not as random, and merely mathematically reasoned, as assumed. You find more potential interpretations in the paper.

Note that these points, and other circumstantial evidence dug out in the paper, are certainly of speculative character, but you find more evidence that hints towards a certain propensity of Satoshi Nakamoto for "puns".

So here is the abstract of the preprint entitled "Satoshi Nakamoto and the Origins of Bitcoin – Narratio in Nomine, Datis et Numeris (There is a Story is in the Name, Dates and Numbers)":

The mystery about the ingenious creator of Bitcoin concealing behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto has been fascinating the global public for more than a decade. Suddenly jumping out of the dark in 2008, this persona hurled the highly disruptive distributed ledger technology “blockchain” that has added the missing native value layer to the internet. Purposely agnostic without advocating any old or fielding new names, this paper first identifies the degrees of freedom Satoshi Nakamoto had available in the design of Bitcoin, and in fabricating snippets of personal data.
By interweaving the substantial collection of previous and new circumstantial with direct evidence, like relevant locations and happenings in history and at the time, a consistent skeleton of Satoshi Nakamoto’s biography transpires. The results underpin that the iconic creator of Bitcoin most likely encoded bits of information in his self-chosen alias, dates and blockchain parameters, which particularly point to the numbers 21 and 42, and the numeral systems used in Bitcoin’s framework.
Moreover, a psychogram of a reclusive and capricious genius is drawn, which sheds new light on Satoshi Nakamoto’s background, mindset, pastimes, and penchant for puns; this study may also explain the motivation of his abrupt departure from the online community, his continuing abstinence from engaging with the Bitcoin community, and from reaping the fruits of his mindboggling wealth. From a history of science and technology perspective, such an altruistic sacrifice for the benefit of his brainchild is entirely unprecedented.

Note: For getting a better grip on the (unavoidably) large document systematically gathering the comprehensive pool of existing and new circumstantial evidence, you might use the bookmarks panel in teh PDF file.

[Piesel]

Thanks for your comment, but I suppose you have not read the article, otherwise you would see that it goes significantly beyond the state of the art. Otherwise I would not have invested the effort.

Ok good to see that you trust your work and that will make me want to give it a try, am going to read through the pdf doc during the next weekend when I have some time off work. I will come back to comment on the content of the writer since you already vouch for its high-quality content.