Satoshi's Intention/Vision For Bitcoin

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Hi Bitcoiners...

This Thread is a response to this thread - What Do you think Satoshi Would Think About Today's Bitcoin?
In my comment there, i said i was going to make a thread on that which is being discussed there soon, This thread is that thread i said i was going to make.

So what exactly is or was Satoshi's true intention or vision when he created Bitcoin?- in my quest to find answers to this question, i dived into doing some research , and luckily, i found a post on X(formerly twitter) which is not just insightful, but also very educative in regards to what Satoshi's true vision, intention for Bitcoin was or is..

Without wasting much time, lets dive in, i am just gonna share the same post here, please read carefully for better understanding.

Satoshi intended for Bitcoin to be digital gold AND digital cash, but with the emphasis on digital gold.
Don't believe me? Think I'm just a crazy maximalist making stuff up? Read and learn. 

The first thing Satoshi wrote publicly, after the white paper was the following -

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” - Satoshi

He also describes Bitcoin as a commodity multiple times in his communications -

“Bitcoin [is] more like a collectible or commodity.” - Satoshi

"In this sense, it's more typical of a precious metal. Instead of the supply changing to keep the value the same, the supply is predetermined and the value changes. As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases” - Satoshi

“As a thought experiment, imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold but with the following properties: [not useful/no utility]. And one special, magical property: can be transported over a communications channel” - Satoshi 

“If there were nothing in the world with intrinsic value that could be used as money, only scarce but no intrinsic value, I think people would still take up something. (I'm using the word scarce here to only mean limited potential supply)” - Satoshi

“It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” - Satoshi

He also timed the release of Bitcoin to the middle of the 2008 banking crisis. What did he put in the genesis block?

"Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks".

Clearly Satoshi was focused on the Store of Value properties of Bitcoin, and not so much on the velocity of payments over its rails,
But what about the fact that the white paper calls Bitcoin a Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System"? Doesn't that mean Bitcoin was meant to compete with VISA?" 
The answer is "No."

What is Cash?
Cash is simply a bearer instrument, In the words of Danheld.

"cash represents a pseudonymous push payment in contrast to a credit-based system."

 In the words of Pierre Rochard

"He wrote the paper to fit his target audience, but the source code implementation were his product specs. “If the Bitcoin Whitepaper is the Declaration of Independence, the Source Code is the Constitution” 

So, the white paper was marketing. The important info that reveals Satoshi's intentions was in the source code. The white paper didn't mention the 21m hard cap, the 10 minute block times, or the 1mb block caps either, but these details were included in the original source code and reveal a great deal about what Bitcoin was intended to be, and what problem it was intended to solve. 

If Satoshi intended to design a currency to be a high velocity currency FIRST, he would have designed it differently and he would have made it inflationary instead of deflationary. 

Satoshi knew that the store of value problem was the big opportunity. They also knew that Bitcoin would have to disrupt central banks FIRST, before BTC could become a medium of exchange. 

If only Satoshi had come back one last time to clarify his intentions. But he didn't. And here we are, arguing about what he/she/they intended for Bitcoin to be, Look at the clues Satoshi left behind and decide for yourself. To me, Satoshi's intentions are abundantly clear.

REFERENCE HERE

So what do you guys think...?

[1714317504]

1714317504

[_act_]

If only Satoshi had come back one last time to clarify his intentions. But he didn't. And here we are, arguing about what he/she/they intended for Bitcoin to be, Look at the clues Satoshi left behind and decide for yourself. To me, Satoshi's intentions are abundantly clear.

So what do you guys think...?

Who are those that are arguing? I have not seen anyone that is argue with other users on this forum about bitcoin and how it can be used as an investment and a store of value in long term, but no matter the prospect of something or how good the thing is in design, some people are just existing to criticize that thing.

I have not read bitcoin white paper before because I do not need to read it after knowing what it is already. But are you sure the 21 million supply is not on the white paper?

[Fivestar4everMVP]

If only Satoshi had come back one last time to clarify his intentions. But he didn't. And here we are, arguing about what he/she/they intended for Bitcoin to be, Look at the clues Satoshi left behind and decide for yourself. To me, Satoshi's intentions are abundantly clear.

So what do you guys think...?

I have not read bitcoin white paper before because I do not need to read it after knowing what it is already. But are you sure the 21 million supply is not on the white paper?

Well, here is the PDF version of the bitcoin whitepaper hosted by Bitcoin.org, you can just scan through it and see if you find any where 21 million total supply of bitcoin is mentioned.

Though I read it myself and sure didn't understand most part of the document, but I also didn't see anywhere 21 million is mentioned as the total supply of bitcoin, except I missed it, which I stand to be corrected.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

I have not read bitcoin white paper before because I do not need to read it after knowing what it is already. But are you sure the 21 million supply is not on the white paper?

Well, here is the PDF version of the bitcoin whitepaper hosted by Bitcoin.org, you can just scan through it and see if you find any where 21 million total supply of bitcoin is mentioned.

Though I read it myself and sure didn't understand most part of the document, but I also didn't see anywhere 21 million is mentioned as the total supply of bitcoin, except I missed it, which I stand to be corrected.

The total supply of Bitcoin is in its open source code.

How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?.

The figure, 21 million, is the rounded figure for more easily remembered. The exact figure for Bitcoin total supply is 20999999.9769 satoshis. Need some tiny satoshis to make it exactly 21 million but it's not a big issue.
It is presented in Controlled supply (Bitcoin Wiki)

He also describes Bitcoin as a commodity multiple times in his communications -

“Bitcoin [is] more like a collectible or commodity.” - Satoshi

So far, in the USA., Bitcoin is a safest cryptocurrency in regulation and it is considered as a commodity, not as a security. It does not have big risk to be considered and regulated as security like Ethereum and shitcoins.

CFTC's break down on Bitcoin

Bitcoin is considered a commodity and is the underlying asset in bitcoin futures contracts.

Both the CFTC and SEC view bitcoin as a commodity for now

[bitmover]

I have not read bitcoin white paper before because I do not need to read it after knowing what it is already. But are you sure the 21 million supply is not on the white paper?

Of course you should read it. It might surprise you. It is a great document.
https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper

He explains proof of work , blockchain , incentives, how to keep nodes honest and so on...

And no, it doesn't mention 21 million or even a limited supply.

So what do you guys think...?

I think satoshi expected bitcoin to be used as a store of value (commodity) and as a payment method. However,  is what Satoshi think really relevant?

Bitcoin is bigger than him already

It is not a problem to find other use Cases for it.

[Poker Player]

Very interesting OP, I remember reading the white paper in and didn't remember anything relating to store of value, now I see why. As of today bitcoin succeeds more as a store of value than as a currency and I see he took that into account as well.

Bitcoin is bigger than him already

It is not a problem to find other use Cases for it.

I repeat that a lot in threads about Satoshi, although not in those words. As time goes by, and even more so with the amount of time since he disappeared, the idea of him is less and less important, and I say that without taking away any merit from him. His creation can go far beyond what he thought.

[tranthidung]

I repeat that a lot in threads about Satoshi, although not in those words. As time goes by, and even more so with the amount of time since he disappeared, the idea of him is less and less important, and I say that without taking away any merit from him. His creation can go far beyond what he thought.

Some technical opinion like about Escrow is outdated but generally, Satoshi Nakamoto has very great and far vision.

I can not tell about technical things because I am not a programmer and can not understand code, but reading his posts about his vision for Bitcoin, I never stop surprised. He set up a great product and design it very opened at beginning like total supply, halving period, that is his vision which still works nowadays.

[albert0bsd]

So what exactly is or was Satoshi's true intention or vision when he created Bitcoin?

The main goal according to the paper it a solution to the double-spending problem

We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network

[pooya87]

I believe the best way to describe Satoshi's intention for bitcoin is to say he wanted to create "money". Of course we have to know the fine line between money and currency. To put simply, money is a currency that is also store of value. In this world we have no money, everything we have like fiat is a currency.
Bitcoin comes close because of its finite supply but it is still too volatile to be counted as money. But it definitely has the potential to become money.

So, the white paper was marketing. The important info that reveals Satoshi's intentions was in the source code. The white paper didn't mention the 21m hard cap, the 10 minute block times, or the 1mb block caps either, but these details were included in the original source code and reveal a great deal about what Bitcoin was intended to be, and what problem it was intended to solve. 

To be fair you should try to keep such papers as short as possible. It's just a very short abstract trying to introduce the main idea behind Bitcoin. Including details such as time between blocks being 10 min on average is too much information whereas pointing out PoW and the general idea behind it is enough.

[DooMAD]

However,  is what Satoshi think really relevant?

Bitcoin is bigger than him already

It is not a problem to find other use Cases for it.

This.  Bitcoin belongs to everyone now.  It's too simplistic to argue that Bitcoin "should be" a form of cash/asset/investment/etc when the situation is clearly more nuanced.  Every user decides for themselves what their primary usage is.  That usage may change over time.  Some people will even have multiple concurrent uses.

[tabas]

Thanks OP. You'll see arguments that they're not liking the use of Bitcoin as an investment and as a store of value. But if satoshi has already foresee that someday it will be like that, there's no need for argument about that. Since the important thing here is that Bitcoin is for everybody and we're all free to use whatever we want on it. But those people that argues that it should used more with as a payment, ask them not to hold their Bitcoins and sell or use it for payments, they won't accept that or if they do, they won't do it wholly and will still end up holding it as a store of value or an asset/investment. Like fiat, a medium of payment but also a medium for buying assets.

[Captain Corporate]

The sheer amount of times he used "trust" is the most vital part of his vision and ideology and yet we never fully grasp that. I mean if we did, do you think that people would be funding shittokens for millions of dollars at shitty launchpads all the time? Obviously not. The powerful side of bitcoin was the decentralization and the trustless system that provided us so much. I believe he was wrong on the currency side though, he created something so great that it became an asset, but also the fee structure is so expensive that if you wanted to spend it everywhere, in a dreamy world where bitcoin is accepted at any place, you would have to wait 30 minutes for payment that you paid +50$ as a fee to. That part needs to improve.

[SamReomo]

I have not read bitcoin white paper before because I do not need to read it after knowing what it is already. But are you sure the 21 million supply is not on the white paper?

You should read the whitepaper it's just 9 pages paper that simplifies Bitcoin's concept, and when it comes to white paper then the 21 million supply isn't mentioned anywhere in the white paper of Bitcoin. Like everyone else described the total supply is present in the source code of Bitcoin and that's more than enough for us to know about the total supply of Bitcoin.

The white paper didn't mention the 21m hard cap, the 10 minute block times, or the 1mb block caps either 

I think some information about 10 minute block time is mentioned in the white paper. But we learn further about it via source-code.

If we suppose blocks are generated every 10 minutes, 80 bytes * 6 * 24 * 365 = 4.2MB per year. _{Page no 4 white paper}

[Accardo]

From the Linked thread, I think the Op focused more on the P2P aspect of bitcoin. And his thread also centered on the today usage of bitcoin as B2P transactions. While questioning what Satoshi's reaction would be regarding the diverse usage of bitcoin. In your thread Op, we can see a detailed quotes of Satoshi's intentions in the past, and the usage of bitcoin as a commodity too, yet it doesn't answer the question of the previous thread, which has a guess answer. Because we don't know Satoshi's recent thoughts. And can't rely on the responses he made more than 10 years ago, as what he thinks of the use of bitcoin today. He made it open source and decentralized so that anybody can make out of bitcoin what they could. In my response, bitcoin belongs to the community; developers, miners, users and investors. We all contributed to the growth of bitcoin, publicity and otherwise. So, Satoshi as the inventor may have little or no reaction to what bitcoin is today. Similar to many other inventions, cars, electricity etc, the inventor's initial thought of providing cars, may not be how cars are used today, I mean we have electric cars. Hence, bitcoin is being innovated, yet it doesn't change the background of bitcoin. It's now a thing of choice for individual users and developers to fit into the innovation as they will. Satoshi is not expected to be bothered about the use of centralized exchanges to trade bitcoin. And also the fact that people now store their funds on CEX. It's no longer under his jurisdiction as the inventor of bitcoin. What matters is that bitcoin is in order and the network works like he left it. Today we have LN and other projects on layer 2 to fasten the use of bitcoin. We forget that the B2P and other added usage of bitcoin boils down to Satoshi's explanation of bitcoin as a positive and negative feedback loop. Since he wanted people to use bitcoin, many ideas will be created to help achieve his goals. The centralized wallets, exchanges, defi, etc all have contributed to the growth and fall of bitcoin price one way or another. In a nutshell, it's important to note that, many more innovations will come through Bitcoin and Satoshi may not have thought of it in the initial stage of developing bitcoin.

[GbitG]

So what exactly is or was Satoshi's true intention or vision when he created Bitcoin?

In accordance with my idealogy, I can assume that Satoshi Nakamoto's intention towards Bitcoin was tied to a few key objectives. From Satoshi's whitepaper, it can be estimated that one of his primary goals was to address the most significant issue in finance, which is double-spending, by transforming it from a commodity into a solution. Secondly, Satoshi Nakamoto aimed to bring financial freedom to humanity through Bitcoin. Financial freedom, from Satoshi's perspective, means establishing a decentralized system where every individual can engage in peer-to-peer digital cash transactions multiple times according to their own discretion within the blockchain ecosystem. However, keeping all this evidence in mind, I would like to assert that Satoshi's vision for Bitcoin was also to create a more honest monetary system, one that is better than the existing financial status quo. In this system, every participant can easily monitor their valid transaction data through the blockchain.

We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network

[hatshepsut93]

Satoshi vision this, Satoshi vision that. Bitcoin belongs to us all now, because Satoshi entrusted it to us - the community. We can decide what it should be, and those who don't agree can make a fork. In some way we are all Satoshi. Even people who use it only as an investment are Satoshi.

[legendbtc]

Satoshi vision this, Satoshi vision that. Bitcoin belongs to us all now, because Satoshi entrusted it to us - the community. We can decide what it should be, and those who don't agree can make a fork. In some way we are all Satoshi. Even people who use it only as an investment are Satoshi.

I also get tired of people arguing fiercely about whether bitcoin is a currency or a commodity, a store of value. I don't see any benefit from this controversy, it only makes the bitcoin community more and more divided. Meanwhile, as you said, bitcoins belong to all of us and it is up to each of us what we use them for. No one is wrong in using it as an investment and no one is wrong in using it as a currency. Because no matter what we use them for, we still call it BITCOIN.

[Helena Yu]

After all it's really up to each user to use Bitcoin for what, as long as you have Bitcoin, you're become a part of Bitcoin community.

I think if people are saying Bitcoin should be used as a currency, they need to give a proof whether they've made Bitcoin transaction everyday. Of course a proof in non custodial wallet or send to other site, not the trading history in centralized exchange.

[Webetcoins]

Whatever his intention was, he gave us something that we might didn't expect but we needed it very badly and sometimes we only realized how much we needed something after we got it. Some people argue that Satoshi didn't want Bitcoin to be used as an investment asset but that's not true, he always knew that Bitcoin would also be used this way and that is the reason why he made it scarce and he said it himself that he could do it that way but he wanted the value to increase as the users increase.

So, even if there are multiple use cases for Bitcoin and different people use it for different purposes, that doesn't matter. What matters is we have Bitcoin and we have all the use cases, it's up to us whether we buy or sell it for profit, use it to store our wealth, or use it as a payment method to pay for items that we buy.

[kingvirtus09]

I believe Satoshi Nakamoto is pleased with how Bitcoin has turned out so far since, in addition to the many people who supported him and his work, he also gave a lot of people the chance to save money for the future without having to deposit it in a bank.

The good news is that other nations are progressively coming to accept it, and some, like El Salvador and others, have even made it a legal tender currency. The blockchain technology that Nakamoto invented is what has allowed him to accomplish as much as he has globally.