What did Satoshi Nakamoto publish on 31 October 2008?
Which of these describes what Bitcoin is not?
How many bitcoin will ever exist, in millions?
Then prove it: a 3-question quiz · a challenge. The lesson marks itself complete at 100%.
After this lesson you can: describe Bitcoin in two sentences a friend would understand.
On 31 October 2008 a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto published a nine-page paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". On 3 January 2009 the first block of the network was created. In May 2010 someone paid 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas, one of the first known purchases with it.
What Bitcoin is
No head office: thousands of computers hold the same record and check each other.
A digital money that exists as entries on a shared record called the blockchain.
Run by a network of computers around the world, not by a company.
Limited to 21 million units, a rule built into the software.
Open to anyone: you can run the software and check the rules yourself.
What it is not
The first sentence of the whitepaper, October 2008.
It is not a company, a stock or a promise from a bank. There is no customer support line inside the protocol, which is both its appeal and its risk.
One thing to remember
Bitcoin tries to be money that nobody controls and everybody can verify. The next lesson shows how a shared record can work without a boss.
01Thousands of independent computers following the same rulesSatoshi left in 2011. The network kept running because no one person was ever needed.
02A nine-page paper describing a peer-to-peer electronic cash systemThe whitepaper came first; the software followed in January 2009.
03A company with shares, or a promise from a bank to pay you laterBitcoin has no issuer, no shares and no earnings; it is a network and a money, not a firm.
