Satoshi Nakamoto
In 2008, an anonymous internet user going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto posted a paper describing a new peer-to-peer electronic payment system known as Bitcoin. He remained active in the Bitcoin community until mid-2010 when he gave the mantle of lead developer to Gavin Andresen and faded from public communication.
Extremely little is known of him. The name Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to be a pseudonym for an individual or more likely, a group of people that collaborated together. Many attempts have been made to learn more and find out who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. Most notably The New Yorker and Fast Company have both investigated with no definitive conclusion.
What is Bitcoin?
Since anything digital can be copied over and over again, the hard part about implementing a digital payment system is making sure that nobody spends the same money more than once. Traditionally, this is done by having a trusted central authority (like PayPal) that verifies all of the transactions. The core innovation that makes Bitcoin special is that it uses consensus in a massive peer-to-peer network to verify transactions. This results in a system where payments are non-reversible, accounts cannot be frozen, and transaction fees are much lower.
Where do bitcoins come from?
We go more in-depth about this on the page about mining, but here’s a very simple explanation: Some users put their computers to work verifying transactions in the peer-to-peer network mentioned above. These users are rewarded with new bitcoins proportional to the amount of computing power they donate to the network.
Who controls Bitcoin?
As we mentioned above, there is no central person or central authority in charge of Bitcoin. Various programmers donate their time developing the open source Bitcoin software and can make changes subject to the approval of lead developer Gavin Andresen. The individual minersthen choose whether to install the new version of the software or stick to the old one, essentially “voting” with their processing power. It is in the miners’ best interest to only accept changes that are good for the Bitcoin currency in the long run. These checks and balances make it difficult for anyone to manipulate Bitcoin.
How to get started with Bitcoin
The best way to learn about Bitcoin is to get some and experiment. We have written articles about how to set up your own Bitcoin wallet, how to acquire bitcoins, and how to use bitcoins to help you get going. We have also written about a number of other Bitcoin topics if you prefer a hands-off approach to learning. If your questions remain unanswered, please contact us and ask us anything you like.
