Satoshi Nakamoto’s biggest argument for the existence of Bitcoin is going viral as the crypto king takes another shot at this year’s high.
The Reddit user slywalkers posted a screenshot of one of Nakamoto’s early emails to a cryptography mailing list, which shows why the mysterious Bitcoin creator believed the peer-to-peer electronic cash system can be revolutionary on a global political scale.
The post quickly surged and earned the top spot on the subreddit r/CryptoCurrency. At time of writing, the post has garnered 1,507 points and 131 comments.
In a subsequent email, the Bitcoin creator explains that he had to first complete the BTC code and make sure that it would work before he wrote the white paper.
“I appreciate your questions. I actually did this kind of backwards. I had to write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper. I think I will be able to release the code sooner than I could write a detailed spec.”
Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper is free of politics, but indicates that he created the top cryptocurrency to remedy flaws in the traditional banking system.
“Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust-based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for nonreversible services…
What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. Transactions that are computationally impractical to reverse would protect sellers from fraud, and routine escrow mechanisms could easily be implemented to protect buyers.”