Category Archives: Satoshi Nakamoto
Explained | Mystery surrounding the identity of Bitcoin founder. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? – WION
While the world of crypto currencies continues to puzzle many, the kind of impact it has had on the financial systems across the world is noteworthy. But mysteries seem to be a running theme and given its origins, it is spot on. Over a decade ago, the world witnessed a cryptic milestone when Satoshi Nakamoto developed Bitcoin, the worlds first cryptocurrency. But who is this mastermind? No one knows for sure.
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Nakamoto is said to be a pseudonym for the person or people who helped create Bitcoinbut the real identity of who he, she or they might be,continues to remain one of the biggest mysteries of the 21st century. The mysterious individual or group was the author of a 2008 white paper which outlined the theory and operating structure of the Bitcoin payment system.
Nakamotos identity continues to remain shrouded in mystery due to the lack of personal or background details about the person who would only communicate via email. One of the biggest indications that Nakamoto created Bitcoin was the famous white paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
The elusive mastermind behind the now largest cryptocurrency in the world was said to be working on the first version of the software back in 2007. Around two years later, Nakamoto created the first-ever online message board post which was dedicated to cryptocurrency, on the P2P Foundation forum.
Ive developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. Its completely decentralised, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper, said Nakamoto, on the forum, as per Forbes.
However, in 2010, his involvement with Bitcoin ended but the cryptocurrency did not. As of 2021, at least one million Bitcoin miners were verifying the data that make up the Bitcoin blockchain and the cryptocurrency continues to remain one of the worlds largest by market cap.
It is worth noting that while the idea of digital currency was not new at the time, as reports suggest, there had been few attempts to create it. However, Nakamoto managed to solve a fundamental problem with digital currency, duplication. Unlike tangible currency like coins or paper money which could only be present at one place at a time, cryptocurrency could be duplicated which is also known as double-spending.
Since digital currency does not exist in physical space, the transaction of said currency would not be in a single persons possession. As a result, digital currency could be spent more than once. In order to overcome this issue, Nakamoto created a blockchain system of verification.
Initially, one of the solutions to circumvent this problem would be third-party intermediaries like banks which would verify if the currency has already been used by its holder. However, given the additional costs and the risk of fraud of the trust-based model, Nakamoto decided to remove the human factor altogether and proposed a decentralised approach for transactions using ledgers.
This is where the blockchain comes into play. This system adds timestamps to transaction information, and cryptographic techniques are used to encrypt the data which cannot be changed and must be validated. Subsequently, the network is required to verify the authenticity of the transactions based on a majority consensus mechanism called proof-of-work.
We know so little about the so-called father of cryptocurrency that many have questioned if Satoshi Nakamoto really does exist. However, given what is known about the mastermind behind this system, there seems to be at least one person, if not people behind it. Case in point, somebody would have to write a source code for Bitcoin, publish the white paper which began it all, send emails and even create a forum to talk about the cryptocurrency.
Several reports have quoted Nakamotos last email written on 24 April 2011 which was a short statement to another developer where the creator of Bitcoin said Ive moved on to other things and that the project was in good hands. In December 2010 following the creation and initial implementation of Bitcoin, the creator seemingly vanished from the public eye.
It was in 2014 when a final forum post credited to Nakamoto simply said, I am not Dorian Nakamoto. This came after a Newsweek magazine article published in March of that year claimed that a 64-year-old Japanese-American physicist was the creator of Bitcoin.
The report said, The trail followed by Newsweek led to a 64-year-old Japanese-American man whose name really is Satoshi Nakamoto. Although it could be said that Nakamoto did not necessarily disappear considering his identity was never revealed and anonymity would likely be his only choice to avoid public scrutiny.
There have been speculations about Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk being Satoshi Nakamoto after a former intern for Musks SpaceX company Sahil Gupta, in a blog post on the website Medium suggested so. He cited the billionaires knowledge and interests which could have led him to develop a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
However, Musk has since denied this claim. In 2021, during a podcast by AI researcher Lex Fridman, the Tesla CEO said that he believes that the person behind the Nakamoto pseudonym is none other than cryptographic expert Nick Szabo.
He seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind Bitcoin than anyone else. He claims not to be Nakamoto, but I'm not sure that's neither here nor there, said Musk, as quoted by CNBC. However, Szabo had also previously denied this claim.
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Explained | Mystery surrounding the identity of Bitcoin founder. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? - WION
Bitcoin is terrible for the environment can it ever go green? – The Guardian
Bitcoin
Cryptocurrency mining uses huge amounts of energy, but activists are urging for a change in its code to reduce its environmental impact
Wed 26 Apr 2023 05.00 EDT
On the corner of New Yorks Park Avenue and 52nd Street, curious onlookers recently stopped in front of a giant green skull sitting in the bed of a truck parked outside the office of Fidelity Investments, the global financial management company.
The Skull of Satoshi, named after the pseudonymous bitcoin developer Satoshi Nakamoto, is composed almost entirely of computer circuit boards and fitted with tall smokestacks usually found atop coal power plants.
The artifact is a project of artist Benjamin Von Wong and is a reference to the massive amounts of carbon emitted from mining the cryptocurrency bitcoin, an endeavor Fidelity is now pursuing.
Bitcoin is chiefly known as a wild investment vehicle that along with many other cryptocurrencies can seemingly make or lose fortunes overnight in a market where values go up and down quickly and by large margins.
But what worries environmentalists and others is the huge amount of electricity used in generating bitcoin and other such currencies energy that often traces back to fossil fuels and so has a corresponding impact on the climate crisis.
As major financial brands speculate in the cryptocurrency world, environmental campaigners want to make sure they know that they are not just taking a financial gamble; there is also an environmental risk.
Some are hoping that they can persuade those institutions to try to lessen the impact of crypto-mining. Its a big step for a financial institution like Fidelity to launch their own crypto platform. So now more than ever, we need their help, said Rolf Skar, campaign director at Greenpeace USA, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization.
It is a complex situation. But here is a guide to the key issues.
Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency, a decentralized form of currency that is strictly digital rather than physical unlike dollars, pounds or euros. It is managed and traded on a public, open ledger known as a blockchain that records all bitcoin transactions. Though not commonly done, bitcoin can be used to buy material goods.
Because cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are not centralized, there is no singular authority or body to verify transactions. Instead, participants in the bitcoin network mine, or compete to solve cryptographic puzzles to generate more of the currency. Whoever solves the puzzle the fastest gets to verify transactions for the chance to add the newest batch of them to the blockchain.
The winner is financially rewarded with new cryptocurrency in this process, referred to as proof of work (Pow) the culprit for greenhouse gas emissions.
The Pow consensus algorithm used to verify transactions requires large amounts of electricity which is often produced by burning fossil fuels, emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.
A 2022 report, titled Revisiting Bitcoins Carbon Footprint, conducted by climate and economics researchers across Europe estimates that Bitcoin mining may be responsible for 65.4 megatonnes of CO2 per year which is comparable to country-level emissions in Greece (56.6 megatonnes in 2019).
There is a recent push by some environmentalists to reduce the environmental impact of bitcoin by changing the way it is produced.
So groups like Greenpeace are calling out Fidelity and other financial management and payment process companies that have ventured into bitcoin mining. Hence the recent targeting of Fidelity. Skar said that although Fidelity responded to Greenpeace when the group reached out, the response was lackluster.
[Fidelity] seem not to want to talk about the issue. They declined [our request to speak] so far, but its an invitation for them and others to step up and put resources towards solutions to deal with the problem of bitcoin mining globally. We think it can be done, Skar said.
The solution, Greenpeace argues, is simple: change the computer code that produces bitcoin in order to consume less electricity and reduce its carbon footprint.
This code is open-source, meaning it is publicly accessible to anyone who wants to see or use it.
Rather than a Pow verification process, which requires vast amounts of energy, climate activists are arguing for a less energy-intensive verification process that isnt reliant on speed, such as proof of stake (Pos), used by ethereum another cryptocurrency.
Since bitcoin is decentralized, it has no owner and no one to hold to account for problems the cryptocurrency creates, like wreaking havoc on the environment.
The activists advocating for a code change to bitcoin argue that popular financial services corporations like Fidelity have the clout to incentivize such a change, which would be environmentally transformative.
[Fidelity] doesnt have a climate commitment like other asset managers. Fidelity is the focus because they have been one of the biggest traditional financial players involved in the bitcoin space and they refuse to acknowledge that they have a responsibility and the ability to help fix the problem that bitcoin mining is having on the climate. So this is actually an invitation for them, Skar said.
He called the code change a win for bitcoin and for climate and for communities.
Prominent voices in the bitcoin community and some scholars on the topic dont buy into this solution.
Dr Hanna Halaburda is an associate professor of technology, operations and statistics at NYUs Stern School of Business. Among the classes she teaches are Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies and Foundations of Fintech.
In reference to a hypothetical bitcoin protocol change, Halaburda said: I dont think its going to work. Everybody recognizes [bitcoin] is environmentally unhealthy, but any big changes to bitcoin protocol have been very unsuccessful because you need to get all the miners to agree on that.
Any miners that dont agree with the protocol change can simply reject the new code and continue running the original code that relies on the energy-intensive Pow.
Halaburda said there might be another solution: renewable energy.
A lot of [bitcoin] mining companies have set up their contracts with renewable energy companies. The argument is that having these mining facilities as clients means that when theres an oversupply of energy, it may actually make it more profitable for the renewable energy plants, she said.
This means that these energy companies can mine bitcoin during periods of excess production and oversupply. So instead of letting energy go to waste, money can be made and the wealth can be shared between the cryptocurrency mining facilities and the renewable energy companies with which they have a contract.
Fidelity did not respond to the Guardians request for comment.
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Bitcoin is terrible for the environment can it ever go green? - The Guardian
Who am I? How Bitcoin and banks live with the problems of identity – CoinGeek
There were many fields of knowledge on which the complex design of Bitcoin could have tripped up: Computer Science (obviously), Economics, Law. You might not have put Philosophy on the list. But at the intersection of Bitcoin and life, it turns out that an important issue for digital money is identityjust as it is for other kinds of money.
Defining personal identity isnt as straightforward as you might have thought. Who am I? is a question that most of us brushed aside once wed passed our teenage years. But Bitcoin forces us to think again: how can I prove who I am?
In almost all ways, the Bitcoin system is a thing of beauty. Its like a work of art in that what has been created through the design of code perfectly mirrors human actions and motivations. The genius is that it is self-regulating. Instead of central bankers or politicians deciding whether to allow more money to be created, the supply of Bitcoin is pre-programmed and therefore entirely predictable.
And instead of needing commercial institutions to facilitate dealings between users, Bitcoin creates a support networkthe mining nodesto monitor and record transactions. Its creator worked out what the miners and the users would want to do and made those actions, such as joining or leaving the network, supportive of the system design.
The only wrinkle lies on the border between Bitcoin-land and the rest of the world. Because although for all practical purposes the system works fine, theres no customer service in Bitcoin. In the unlikely event of something going wrong not so much in the software but in the human behaviour around itwhat can you do?
Well, in the White Paper, Satoshi Nakamoto pretty much says bad luck, theres nothing you can do; and goes on to tout that as one of the selling points. A problem of the conventional finance system, the White Paper claims, is that completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible. In a non-reversible transaction, once money has been spent, its spent.
This was new thinking: most people with conventional bank accounts and credit cards assume that, in the end, mistakes are reversible, even if you can only get the problem dealt with after sitting on the phone for hours and telling someone the name of your first pet. One persons fear of reversible transactions is another persons confidence that nothing can go too far wrong.
Banks invite us to set up accounts with passwords, codes, PINs and many other systems that demonstrate to the institution that we are who we say we are and not somebody else trying to get their hands on our account. When we first register an account we have to ground the arrangements in a legally-required KYC (know your customer) process by producing copies of our drivers licence or passport, and maybe a letter from a utility company showing where we live. We have to give the bank confidence that theres a solid connection between our online identity and the physical world.
But in Bitcoin identity is firewalled from the transactions themselves. Who you are isnt Bitcoins problem, in the way that the banks and payment services have accepted that it is their problem. Bitcoin provides a robust mechanism for owning and transmitting money through private and public key pairs but the question of who is behind those private keys isnt part of the system design.
In a thoughtful post on Medium recently, Simon Bettison examined the various ways in which the connection between identity and ownership has been demonstrated over the years. He points out that when someone signs a document by hand, it doesnt matter that their signature is different every time: it is not the form of the signature, nor its accuracy that matters, but the identity of the person that is producing the signature.
In the digital world, things are both worse you can even sign using standard fontsand betterthere is more associated evidence around online signing than is carried on a piece of paper.
Similarly, in Bitcoin, the signature is only valid when it is made by the rightful owner of the coins in question; otherwise it is part of a fraud. Commenting on Bettisons post, Dr Craig Wright mentions the historic importance of witnesses to signatures. They are people who, in theory, would be willing to attest to the correct identity of the person signing, reinforcing the idea that its not by examining the physical signature itself that the declarations it makes can be confirmed.
For both Bitcoin and conventional money then, validating identity is personal rather than physical (in pre-digital days) or technological (today). For all their elaborate checks and balances, even for banks, identity is a bit fuzzy round the edges. If I have forgotten my passwords, special numbers or whatever, then Ill probably end up having to remember my volunteered factsgrandmothers maiden name etc. But what if I cant remember them either? The process doesnt just shut down at that point, but it would become more and more demanding, ending up in court.
The British government has a helpful page on its business website about how to prove identity. It offers this definition: an identity is a combination of attributes (characteristics) that belong to a person. A single attribute is not usually enough to tell one person apart from another, but a combination of attributes might be. It makes the point that knowing someones identity is not binary; its about levels of confidence.
Even the most process-driven organisations have to live with this kind of vagueness. I recently spoke to my broadband provider and wasnt able to let them check my identity by giving them the figure for my latest bill (because I was calling to tell them the broadband was broken) and I had forgotten my memorable word. In the end, they accepted who I was because I could tell them my bank account number, but that only seemed to be at the discretion of the person I was talking to, who happened to be in a good mood.
When you sign up to a Bitcoin wallet, you are urged to write down your twelve seed words, and to make sure not to lose them. That all-or-nothing warning has led people to conclude that if you lose those words, or access to whatever other system more user-friendly wallets may offer, then you have lost your money. And for most practical purposes, thats true.
But those twelve words are just Bitcoins version of quill-pen signatures. They attest to ownership and are the practical means by which the rights of ownership are exercised, but they are not in themselves ownership. A crook may have found your piece of paper with the twelve words on it.
At this point in the argument, its usual to bring out the car keys analogy: just because I have the keys to a car, it doesnt mean I own it. Which is fair enough, but let me put the counter-argument, which is often forgotten but also true and is relevant to the question of identity.
If I am walking down the street with a friend and they claim that a fancy-looking parked car is theirs, if they bring a key out of their pocket, open the door of the car, invite me to get in and drive us away, Id be 99 percent sure that it was their car. If instead of that, they claimed it was theirs but walked past and then got someone on the phone to assure me that they had witnessed my friend buying the car, Id be less convinced. Most people are honest and so possession is a pretty good, albeit not infallible, proof of ownership.
Bitcoin was designed to solve the problem of making, as it says in the opening paragraph of the White Paper, small, casual transactions. Why not big ones? Well, you can use it for big ones, but then the question of who you are dealing with and what you can do if something goes wrong becomes more important. If I buy something for a couple of pounds in a car boot sale, I dont mind never being able to find who I bought it from. But I wouldnt buy a car that way. This was the great insight of Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay: most people are honest. If the idea of sending money to someone you cant trace and hoping they will send back what you have bought from them seems crazy, he said, well, try it and youll find it almost always works.
In the Bitcoin world its the same. Those carefully-guarded private keys or wallet passwords will, except in edge cases, quite satisfactorily indicate the owner of the coins, just as, for the purposes of ordinary business, my bank believes that if someone logs on with my passwords, then its me. Identity is laborious to prove and if we had to do it all the time, ordinary life would grind to a halt. But fortunately criminals are the exception, not the rule.
Dr. Craig Wright on CoinGeek Conversations: On the very start of Bitcoin
New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.
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Who am I? How Bitcoin and banks live with the problems of identity - CoinGeek
Bitcoin whitepaper is gone from Apple’s latest macOS beta – AOL
Apple Bitcoin
Apple may have fallen out of love with Bitcoin.
In April, an unusual bit of news made the rounds: Someone had hidden a copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper in Apple's macOS, and it remained there for years and through multiple major versions of the OS.
It probably ends now, however. According to 9to5Mac, the latest beta version of macOS Ventura doesn't contain the file anymore.
SEE ALSO: Tesla sold most of its Bitcoin, but none of its Dogecoin
The file, which was hidden inside a tool called "VirtualScanner.app" is nowhere to be found, and the entire VirtualScanner.app itself was removed, too. Besides the copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper, the file also contained a mysterious image, likely taken on Treasure Island in San Francisco, along with a few other files.
Bitcoin whitepaper
Sorry, you'll have to procure your copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper elsewhere. Credit: Satoshi Nakamoto/Apple
The Bitcoin whitepaper was originally published by Bitcoin's mysterious founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, in 2008. It contains a technical overview of the Bitcoin protocol.
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We may never find out why the Bitcoin whitepaper was hidden inside macOS in the first place. Given that it was fairly quickly expunged from the OS, it's likely that an Apple engineer thought it would be a cool idea, but Apple decided they don't want to be associated with Bitcoin in this way.
Originally published April 26, 2023 at 9:21 AM
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Bitcoin whitepaper is gone from Apple's latest macOS beta - AOL
Computer Whiz Mined Bitcoin Worth $1.5 Billion Today – BeInCrypto
Computer scientist Martti Malmi is one of the first supportersof Bitcoin.He was also one of the most active miners in the network in 2009-2010.However, by 2012, he had sold most of his coins.
The Bitcoin pioneer admitted on his Twitter account that he could have become a billionaire.Had he kept all his coins to this day, they would be worth $1.5 billion.
Malmi, a Finnish software developer colloquially known as sirius-m, was one of the most active and first-ever miners in the early days of Bitcoin.
While studying computer science at Aalto University, he helped Bitcoins pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto release the second version of Bitcoin software supporting Linux. Nakamoto developed the original Bitcoin software for Windows computers.
Between 2009 and 2011, Malmi mined 55,000 BTC, representing 0.25% of the assets 21 million supply, with a laptop.Today, he would be one of the 15 richest Bitcoin billionaires (including exchanges and large corporations).
He later left the project after Nakamoto disappeared but continued work on decentralized technologies.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is estimated to be the highest BTC holder whose identity is known, holding $65 billion in crypto. Twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss reportedly hold about $4 billion in BTC each.
Despite being sold very early, the Bitcoin mined still earned the computer scientist quite a bit of money in 2012.He gradually sold off a large portion of his coins at prices ranging from $15 to $30.
Its a big deal that at the age of 22 you earned your own house.
Marttis comment comes nine years after his decision to sell more than 10,000 Bitcoins to buy his own home.He kept some of his coins after 2012 and is still an active HODLer.
Having founded the first Bitcoin community forum, which later became BitcoinTalk, the former miner now belongs to the 9,000-member Bitcoin group on LinkedIn. His last known post on BitcoinTalk was in 2012.
For Be[In]Cryptos latestBitcoin(BTC) analysis,click here.
In adherence to the Trust Project guidelines, BeInCrypto is committed to unbiased, transparent reporting. This news article aims to provide accurate, timely information. However, readers are advised to verify facts independently and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.
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Computer Whiz Mined Bitcoin Worth $1.5 Billion Today - BeInCrypto
Satoshi’s Math: How Bitcoin’s Use of Mathematical Tools Ensures … – Bitcoin News
Over 14 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto unveiled the Bitcoin network to the world, creating the very first triple-entry bookkeeping system known to mankind. This technological wonder, with a current market value of $540 billion, ingeniously integrates encryption and mathematical formulas to fortify its security. In this exploration, we delve into two of the mathematical choices that underpin Bitcoins complex architecture, determining block rewards, transaction inputs and outputs, and mining difficulty adjustments, while also regulating the pace at which new blocks are discovered.
Bitcoin was created using a variety of encryption processes and mathematical formulas, each with a specific purpose. One design element incorporated into Bitcoin is the use of integers, or whole numbers and their negative counterparts.
The Bitcoin network utilizes integer math to prevent potential disagreements that could arise if decimal or fractional numbers were used. The use of whole numbers and their negative counterparts ensures that all computational devices can synchronize more effectively and agree on specific network changes.
The use of integers to maintain Bitcoins ruleset includes block rewards and halvings that occur at specific block heights divisible by 210,000. Bitcoins mining difficulty also utilizes integers to adjust the difficulty every 2,016 blocks. Integers, a type of numerical data frequently used in computational software, are also employed in Bitcoin transaction inputs and outputs.
Furthermore, integer calculations are generally faster and less prone to error than floating-point numbers. If Bitcoin were to use floating-point numbers, it could introduce rounding errors, leading to inconsistencies and disagreements between different nodes on the network.
Since Bitcoin uses integers, the block reward from a future halving will eventually be truncated or rounded down to the nearest whole number using bit-shift operators or a bitwise operation. Because the smallest unit of Bitcoin is a satoshi, it makes it impossible to halve. As a result, Bitcoins much-discussed capped supply of bitcoin will actually be less than 21 million.
In addition to integers, Bitcoin employs a Poisson distribution-like mathematical formula to regulate block time consistency. The Poisson distribution model was developed in 1837 by French mathematician Simeon Denis Poisson. Using this model, Bitcoins design ensures that blocks are discovered every 10 minutes or so.
The actual time it takes to mine a block can vary due to the probabilistic nature of the mining process, but blocks are typically found within the range of 8 to 12 minutes. Satoshi incorporated a difficulty setting every 2,016 blocks using the formula to maintain the rough average of 10-minute block intervals.
Both integer math and Poisson distribution are essential mathematical tools in Bitcoin, providing a consistent framework for performing calculations and modeling various aspects of the system.
Bitcoin employs numerous other mathematical mechanisms and encryption schemes to ensure accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of the system as a whole. These include concepts and formulas such as proof-of-work (PoW), Merkle trees, elliptic curve cryptography, cryptographic hash functions, and finite fields, among others.
What do you think about the mathematical schemes used by the Bitcoin network? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 7,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Chart by Suhail Saqan, Integer photo by Bitcoin Design
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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Satoshi's Math: How Bitcoin's Use of Mathematical Tools Ensures ... - Bitcoin News
Here are Bitcoin’s biggest contributors and their impact on the 2023 … – Cryptopolitan
Bitcoin, the worlds first cryptocurrency, has revolutionized the financial industry and the way we perceive and use money. Since its inception in 2009, it has gained immense popularity and now boasts a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.
This success is not just due to the technology behind BTC but also to the people and organizations who have contributed to its growth and development. This piece will take a closer look at some of the biggest contributors to the BTC ecosystem and their impact on the crypto industry.
Since its inception, many individuals and organizations have contributed to the success of Bitcoin and the crypto industry as a whole. These contributions have come in various forms, including developing the underlying technology, investing in the currency, advocating for its adoption, and educating people on its potential.
The mysterious creator of BTC, known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, is undoubtedly the most significant contributor to the crypto industry. The white paper that introduced BTC to the world was published under Nakamotos name in 2008. The paper outlined the basic principles behind BTC, including its decentralized and open-source nature, as well as its proof-of-work consensus algorithm.
Satoshi Nakamoto also wrote the original Bitcoin code, which formed the basis for the cryptocurrencys development. Although Nakamotos true identity remains unknown, Satoshis impact on the crypto industry cannot be overstated.
Hal Finney was an early adopter and supporter of BTC. He was the first person to receive a BTC transaction from Nakamoto and played a crucial role in the development of the BTC network. Finney was a developer and helped to improve the BTC software, as well as running the first-ever BTC node.
He also created the first-ever reusable proof-of-work system, which is now a fundamental component of the BTC network. Finney passed away in 2014, but his contributions to the crypto industry will always be remembered.
Gavin Andresen was appointed by Nakamoto as the lead developer of the BTC project in 2010. Andresen worked on the BTC software and was responsible for implementing new features and improvements to the network. He also created the Bitcoin Faucet, which was a website that gave away free BTC to new users. This helped to increase the adoption of BTC in its early days. Andresen is still involved in the crypto industry today and is a vocal advocate for BTC.
Roger Ver, also known as the Bitcoin Jesus, is one of the most prominent figures in the crypto industry. He was an early investor in BTC and has been a vocal advocate for the cryptocurrency since its inception. Ver is the CEO of Bitcoin.com, a company that provides BTC-related products and services and has invested in several BTC-related startups.
He has also been a proponent of Bitcoin Cash, a fork of the BTC network that aims to improve its scalability and transaction speed.
The Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, are famous for their legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over the ownership of Facebook. However, they have also made a significant impact on the crypto industry. In 2013, the twins invested $11 million in BTC and became some of the earliest and most high-profile BTC investors.
They also founded Gemini, a crypto exchange that is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. The Winklevoss twins are now billionaires thanks to their BTC investments, and they continue to be strong advocates for the cryptocurrency.
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square, has been a vocal supporter of Bitcoin for several years. In 2018, Square launched Bitcoin trading on its Cash App, allowing users to buy and sell Bitcoin directly from the app.
Dorsey has also been a proponent of the Lightning Network, a layer-two scaling solution for the Bitcoin network that aims to improve its transaction speed and reduce fees. Dorsey has said that he believes Bitcoin will become the single currency of the internet in the future
A well-known Bitcoin evangelist, Andreas Antonopoulos is a speaker, author, and educator who has dedicated his career to promoting Bitcoins potential as a transformative technology. He has written several books on the subject, including Mastering Bitcoin and The Internet of Money.
While not a traditional contributor, Elon Musk has had a significant impact on Bitcoins price and adoption. His company, Tesla, invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in 2021, causing the currencys value to soar. Musk has also tweeted about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, causing fluctuations in their prices.
These contributors have helped shape the crypto industry and paved the way for the adoption of digital currencies. Their impact has been felt through their contributions to the development, promotion, and investment in Bitcoin, as well as their influence on public perception and awareness of the technology.
As the crypto industry continues to grow and evolve, its likely that we will see the contributions of many more individuals and organizations in the future.
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Here are Bitcoin's biggest contributors and their impact on the 2023 ... - Cryptopolitan
Investing in Bitcoin – Cryptocurrency – Analytics Insight
You would have to live under a rock to have never heard of Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency giant is the unquestioned leader in an industry that has grown to unthought of popularity and financial viability. It has led to millions already invested with millions more hoping to do the same.
Tracking the price of Bitcoin can be simple with the help of Bitcoin live chart, it helps to know how to get started. Before long, you can start following trends and put yourself in the best position to rise along with the price of Bitcoin.
Before you can begin investing in Bitcoin, it first helps to know about what you are getting involved in. Bitcoin is the godfather of cryptocurrency, created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto (though that identity has never been confirmed thanks to the anonymity of the blockchain technology). The goal became to create a decentralized banking method where users could conduct transactions securely and without the need for central banking or governments.
Since its creation, it has also become one of the most volatile investment avenues there is. In November 2021, the price of Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $64,000 but has since come back to earth, trading at roughly half that price now ($30,135).
Before you begin investing, it is important to know just what you are stepping into. We have all heard about people getting rich on Bitcoin but that is the anomaly. The reality is closer to that of the great crashes that Bitcoin has had in the past where many lost thousands.
It is one of the most volatile investments there is. For those who dont enjoy getting into the riskier areas of investment, cryptocurrency in general is probably not the best option. Be prepared for price swings and have a long-term strategy before getting involved.
Since cryptocurrencies are digital assets, you need to have a place where you can safely store them. It is important that any option you choose has an encryption to keep your coins protected. There are two main ways to do that: the hot or cold storage wallet.
Hot wallets mean that they are online at all times. These are generally available from software providers and crypto exchanges. These provide greater convenience when it comes to buying, selling, or trading your cryptocurrencies. That said, if the software or exchange is compromised, your information and coins could be compromised as well.
Cold wallets, meanwhile, are totally offline. While it may be a bit more difficult to make transactions using your coins, you can ensure that they are a lot safer. They stay out of the reach of hackers but beware, physically losing them can prove catastrophic.
Approaching cryptocurrency investing depends on what your goals are. Do you want to make a little money in the short-term or hope for bigger growth in the long-term? That strategy can be a difference-maker when it comes to investing in not only Bitcoin but cryptocurrencies in general.
Crypto has shown a penchant for rising and falling. If you have skill and experience as a day-trader, it may be possible to ride those waves and make some money in the short-term. The preferred method is to hold in the long-term and identify a time to sell while things are on the higher end of the spectrum.
With a sound strategy and the utmost patience, you too can get involved in the world of cryptocurrency. Know your risk level and have a plan and you can avoid the pitfalls of fly-by-night investors.
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Bitcoin supply is dwindling, yet volatility will be the biggest benefactor – CoinJournal
Key Takeaways
A lot is made of the demand for Bitcoin. Are institutions giving up on it following a disastrous 2022 that saw the entire crypto sector go up in flames? Is the market moving back in now that interest rate forecasts have softened following the relentless rate hikes over the past year?
But rather than the demand, it is the supply of Bitcoin that is often the more intriguing to look at. Famously sporting a fixed cap of 21 million coins, Bitcoins supply schedule is coded into the underlying blockchain. This quality has given rise to a million different theories around the future place and price of Bitcoin in the world.
But there is another interesting analytical angle to Bitcoin: before the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin in 2009, the world never had an asset that provided so much visibility over the supply distribution. The nature of the blockchain is that, while the individual holders are anonymous, the distribution of all coins is available for the world to see at all times. So, lets have a look.
Central to many Bitcoin bulls long-term thesis is the idea that long-term holders will suck up supply, leading to an inexorable price rise.
Looking at current holdings, two-thirds of the supply has not moved in a year. That is certainly a large number, and we will get into what that means in the next paragraph. Pushing the timeline further out, over half the supply (53.6%) has been stagnant for over two years, 39.7% has not moved in 3+ years, and 28.6% has been idle for 5 years or longer.
These are large numbers by any stretch. It is impossible to compare them to other asset classes, given that none are trackable on a ledger like the blockchain. Perhaps only commodities such as precious metals can compete with the above numbers, yet that is only speculation.
But what does it mean? Is this a bullish sign? Well, yes and no. The immediate conclusion is that less supply means less demand is needed to push the price up, and the cap at 21 million Bitcoins certainly means if that demand keeps rising, the price has nowhere to go but up.
However, there are mitigating factors here. The first is the reality that some of the above long-term holders are in fact just lost coins, be it through people who have passed away, forgotten about their coins or lost access to their wallets.
Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is one of those, the mysterious enigma holding approximately 1.1 million bitcoins, equivalent to a mammoth 5.2% of the supply. None of his/her/their coins have moved since they were mined back in the first eighteen months of Bitcoins existence.
Not to get too tangential, but below is the value of Nakamotos holdings over the last 13 years, assuming a stash of 1.1 million Bitcoin from mid-2010. That is a lotof capital that holders must surely hope never floods the market.
Regarding the impact of these large stashes of Bitcoin which are removed from circulation, the greatest impact for now, at least may be on the volatility rather than price.
In the following chart, I have plotted the amount of Bitcoin sitting on exchanges, currently at a 5-year low.
Not only is the amount of Bitcoin on exchanges dwindling, but stablecoins are doing the same. Over half of the balance of stablecoins have flooded out of exchanges since December.
This means liquidity on both the demand and supply side of Bitcoin is thin and the same conclusion will be reached if an order book is downloaded from an exchange. Liquidity has dried up hugely, especially since FTX went under in November.
This lack of liquidity only serves to jack up the already sky-high volatility in the Bitcoin market, exacerbating moves to both the upside and the downside. This is part of the reason why volatility recently spiked to its highest level since mid-2022, and also a factor in Bitcoins massive run-up this year.
By definition, it takes less to move a thin market, and with forecasts around the future path of monetary policy shifting to a more optimistic stance in recent months, Bitcoin has moved up with minimal resistance in its path.
While the supply-side dry-up is intriguing in the long-term, looking into that with regard to Bitcoins future performance is a different discussion entirely. In the short-term, capital has fled crypto markets at an unprecedented pace, and we are now in a spot where the market is primed for violent moves in either direction. Like always in crypto, the short-term is difficult to predict, however, and the risk remains extreme perhaps even more so currently than normal.
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Bitcoin supply is dwindling, yet volatility will be the biggest benefactor - CoinJournal
BTC/USD: Bitcoin Bulls Meet Resistance near $31000, Long … – TradingView
Key points:
After a bullish rally since the start of the year, BTC has met significant resistance at the $31,000 mark, and fell under $28,000 before the weekend. As well as Bitcoin, Ethereum also faced major resistance at around the $2,100 mark falling by more than 12% last week. It seems that the bull run of 2023 might have some obstacles to overcome if it is to continue.
Aside from the two largest cryptocurrencies facing headwinds, the total market cap of the crypto space has fallen to under $1.15tn, despite having peaked at around $1.26tn
total market cap this month. In a single day last week, $253m worth of long positions were liquidated as crypto values plummeted. Analysts are also noting that crypto trading volumes are decreasing with April exchange volumes expected to come in substantially lower than the $984bn recorded in March.
Whats causing the Bitcoin sell off?
One of the main causes of the sell off is the policy of the federal reserve. At their most recent meeting, officials hinted at the likelihood of another quarter basis point interest rate hike in May. Without a turnaround soon, April will become the first month of 2023 over which BTC logged a net drop in price.
The other factor is the fact that 2023s rally across the crypto space is being viewed by some as premature and is being tested by those with more pessimistic outlooks for the market. The release of the UK inflation report, which showed it to be remaining extremely high, also seems to correlate to the timing of the start of the sell off. So far however, 2023 is looking more promising for the crypto market than the end of 2022.
(About Bitcoin)
Bitcoin is the original decentralized digital currency that was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It operates on a decentralized peer-to-peer network, meaning that transactions can occur directly between users without the need for intermediaries like banks. Bitcoin uses cryptography to secure transactions and to control the creation of new units of the currency. Transactions are recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, which allows anyone to verify the validity of a transaction and the ownership of bitcoins.The total supply of bitcoins is limited to 21 million, which is expected to be reached around the year 2140. Bitcoin's price is highly volatile, and it has experienced numerous boom and bust cycles over the years.
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BTC/USD: Bitcoin Bulls Meet Resistance near $31000, Long ... - TradingView