To this day, the true identity of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery. The few clues about him: emails and forum posts that he wrote before his disappearance in 2011. One that emerged recently e-mail now reveals more about the previously little-known origins of Bitcoin. It is the oldest known document from the Bitcoin founder. A message dated August 22, 2008 to Wei Dai.
For his part, Dai had been working on a digital cash system called “b-money” since 1998. Apparently Satoshi was inspired by this, which the email also confirms. In this, the Bitcoin founder asks for the publication date of the b-money page so that he can quote it in his soon-to-be published work. A few months later, on October 31, 2008, he published the Bitcoin white paper. He added a first draft of it to the email to Dai.
Similarities to b-money
Hashcash founder Adam Back had recognized similarities in the work of Satoshi and Dai. And brought the Bitcoin founder to b-money, as the email says. Satoshi was “very interested” in Dai’s project and said he was about to publish “a white paper that [Dais] “Expands ideas and transforms them into a functioning system”. The title of his publication would be: “Electronic money, without a trusted third party”.
The following introduction remained until the final version Bitcoin white papers even. Dai’s work is also the first-named source in the bibliography (which Satoshi did not sort alphabetically as is usual academically). The email shows that the Bitcoin founder apparently learned a lot from his colleagues and continued to find inspiration in the work of other cryptographers until the end.
He in turn encouraged Dai to download an early version of his white paper, which is a testament to the open source credo. Accordingly, everyone “who might still be interested” should know about the idea and be able to contribute. While Bitcoin itself might be the idea of one person, the concept behind it is collective progress.
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