Bitcoin Basics Quiz
- Who invented Bitcoin?
- Q 1
In 2008, an unknown person(s) published a whitepaper that described “Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system”. To the untrained eye, this might not have seemed like anything significant at the time, but Satoshi Nakamoto was about to start a revolution.
Satoshi Nakamoto
Satoshi Nakamoto is the unidentified person(s) who founded, wrote the white paper, and developed Bitcoin’s original implementation. The name ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ is thought to be a pseudonym so that Satoshi’s real identity is never revealed.
Satoshi will be referred to as ‘he’ for the remainder of the article, for ease of reading.
As stated on his P2P Foundation profile, Satoshi is a male, born on 5th April 1975 in Japan. Although chances are, this is a red herring, designed to throw off the scent when looking for his real identity.
A popular theory behind choosing 5th April 1975 as his birthday has been pinned for two reasons. Firstly, 5th April is the date of the signing of Executive Order 6102 by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Which forbids any United States citizen to hoard gold. Secondly, the year 1975 is closely related to the above reason, in that it was the year gold was legalized again in the United States.
Many argue this theory is likely, given Satoshi’s link to hiding easter eggs and his obsession with staying anonymous. We’ve already talked about his hiding of the Times headline in the Genesis block.