Seeing the recent push in the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in countries like El Salvador, more and more nations are hopping onto the crypto bandwagon, relaxing rules and framing regulations to aid its propagation in the mainstream financial scenario. With so much happening in the crypto space, it is not odd to wonder who started Bitcoin or who the founder of Bitcoin was. 

While the exact identity of the founder of Bitcoin is unknown, the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto is often used to refer to the person or persons who developed Bitcoin, authored the Bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed the first blockchain in the world. The name is used to refer to the developers of Bitcoin, who are believed to have been working actively for its creation up until December 2010.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? 

Satoshi Nakamoto is not the name of the person who invented Bitcoin. Instead, it is the name used to refer to the anonymous identity of a person or a group of people behind its development. While many people claim to be Nakamoto, there has never been enough proof or verification to pinpoint the identity to any single person.

•     Some reports claim that Satoshi Nakamoto is a 37-year old male who lived in Japan
•     Others have also considered Nakamoto to be a team of people. Security researchers around the world claim that the code for Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology is too well-designed to be written by one single person
•     Many have noticed that the use of British English in source code comments and forum postings could also mean that Nakamoto was based out of one of the Commonwealth countries

Satoshi Nakamoto stated that the writing of code for Bitcoin started way back in 2007 itself. That was when they registered the domain name bitcoin.org and created a website on that address. Nakamoto is also said to have published a white paper on Bitcoin titled, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.

History of Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have been the mastermind behind cryptocurrencies. They were responsible for authoring the Bitcoin white paper and developing the source code behind the first cryptocurrency and the first blockchain network. Nakamoto is said to have been involved in developing the digital currency up until the release of its first version, 0.1. This version, released on SourceForge, awarded a reward of 50 bitcoins for solving and defining Block number 0.

That’s where the entire thing started. Up until 2010, Satoshi – who created Bitcoin –  was involved in developing the technology himself, making tweaks and minor changes to the source code all the time. Over time, he transferred control of the source code repository to Gavin Andresen and transferred several important related domains of the code to significant members of the Bitcoin community. Following this, he is said to have renounced his involvement in the project entirely.

From then until now, the prices of the coin have gone up by more than 1000%. Consequently, it is believed that the number of bitcoins under Nakamoto’s control – which is thought to be about 1 million in number – may exceed $50 billion in value overall. This implies that Satoshi themselves command more than 5% of the total amount of bitcoins in circulation in the market, which is considerable leverage to have in 2021, where the price of one Bitcoin is $43500 (as of 30 September 2021).

Why did Satoshi Nakamoto create Bitcoin?

Back when the father of cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin – Satoshi Nakamoto – created the technology by publishing the first white paper on the subject, he described the currency as one that would allow secure, peer-to-peer transactions without the involvement of any intermediaries. These could be the government, financial systems, or even a company. He clarified that the technology would run on a new concept called the blockchain, a ledger-like entity that any financial institution could use. This ledger would be used by and distributed to the entire network, with duplicates held by every computer on the network.

It is said that Nakamoto created the currency to take control of the financial economy from elites and put the control back into the hands of the commoner. Since Bitcoin is open-source, the code used to design it is available to anyone who wants to have a look at it. As Satoshi developed the technology in the early 2009-10 period, more and more developers joined the ranks and in the end, it became a collaborative effort.

The advantages that cryptocurrencies bring over fiat currencies today are enough of a testament to the motivations Nakamoto had for the development of Bitcoin. Due to its decentralized nature and the absence of intermediaries, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could become the legal tender of the future, making transactions easier, faster, and cheaper.