TOBY SHAPSHAK: Bitcoin at 10: star turn or bit player?
Is it a Ponzi scheme or the herald of a new world order? We may need another 10 years to find out
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? It’s a decade-old question that has attracted attention since this mythical figure came up with the idea for bitcoin and its underlying blockchain technology. Bitcoin, the world’s newest and most controversial currency, turned 10 this month, prompting much commentary. Nakamoto proposed the idea to a cryptography mailing list in October 2008. He released the first bitcoin software in January 2009 and mined the first block of bitcoins, called the genesis block or block number 0, in which he embedded this text: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." It refers to a headline in The Times of London that is considered not only a timestamp for bitcoin’s genesis but also a comment on the banking system the blockchain aims to disrupt. And then in 2010 Nakamoto vanished. Investigations into his identity have produced a list of likely candidates but we’re no closer to knowing who he is — except the bitcoins are worth about $6.2bn based ...
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