The printing press led to the scientific revolution, the discovery of electricity brought light to the world, radio waves changed the way information was delivered to the masses, and the internet completely overhauled the way we communicate and interact with information.
In the same vein, over the short space of a decade, Bitcoin has had a similarly disruptive and innovative effect on the financial world and the technology underpinning cryptocurrency has gone on to influence a number of sectors in the global economy.
October 31 marks the 10 year anniversary of the release of Bitcoin’s whitepaper, which described the way in which the Bitcoin protocol would work.
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was published on a cryptography mailing list in November 2008 following the initial publication of the work. It was written by Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin whose identity could be that of a single person or a group of people.
The whitepaper proposed a system that replaces the need for central authorities like banks and financial institutions to facilitate transactions:
“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.”
With that being said, the Bitcoin protocol could not have been developed without the foundations laid by previous electronic systems that pioneered decentralized, peer to peer networks using cryptography.
One need look no further than the reference list in the Bitcoin whitepaper to identify the main influences that led to the development of the protocol.
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