Could Bitcoin have been called something else? A clue suggests that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the cryptocurrency, might have balked with another name for the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin may be the most famous cryptocurrency in the world, but we still know very little about Satoshi Nakamoto, its creator. Likewise, it’s unclear what prompted Satoshi to choose the name Bitcoin over another for his project — although the meaning of the name “bitcoin” is interesting.
But that might not have been the only name considered for the cryptocurrency. The bitcoin specialist Gold Weinberger made an intriguing discovery on September 23, 2022, which may suggest that Satoshi Nakamoto was hesitating with another name: Netcoin.
Was bitcoin almost called Netcoin?
But Weinberger made his discovery by tracing the archives of AnonymousSpeech, a Japanese domain name sales service that allows acquisitions to be made anonymously, explains Cointelegraph. This is the site that was used to purchase the “bitcoin.org” domain name on August 18, 2008.
However, the researcher realized that a day before, on August 17, 2008, another very similar domain name had been purchased: “netcoin.org”. For Or Weinberger, that’s for sure: it looks like Satoshi hesitated between the two names, and ended up abandoning netcoin.org “.
Using Waybackmachine, an archive of websites, Or Weinberger realized that nothing was ever published on netcoin.org until the domain name was bought out in 2010. It’s really amazing to always find new information on a subject that is so studied”he enthused on Twitter after his discovery.
The discovery, which was made by chance, does not change much of Bitcoin as we know it today. Moreover, nothing confirms that it was Satoshi Nakamoto who registered “netcoin.org”. But it is interesting to imagine that Satoshi Nakamoto may have hesitated between two names, which is once again proof that bitcoin is the fruit of many years of research and work. It is also proof that the first ideas are not always the right ones.