Is it fair for Bill Gates that Satoshi Nakamoto has become the richest man in the world with Bitcoin?

Nine years ago, on June 365438+1October 3 1 day, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper on bitcoin:

"This paper proposes an electronic cash system that is completely realized through peer-to-peer technology, so that online payment can be directly initiated by one party and paid to the other party without going through any financial institution. Although digital signature partially solves this problem, if the support of the third party is still needed to prevent repeated payment, then the system will lose its value. We propose a solution here to make the cash system run in a peer-to-peer environment and prevent double payment. The network timestamps all transactions through random hashing, and combines them into an expanding workload proof chain based on random hashing as transaction records. The formed transaction record will not be changed unless all the workload certificates are re-completed. "

Since then, the genius peer-to-peer electronic cash system was born.

This white paper sent to subscribers of encrypted mailing lists describes a revolutionary technology to users, thus creating the world's first real, peer-to-peer and decentralized monetary system.

The title says that if Satoshi Nakamoto is still around, I actually mean that if Satoshi Nakamoto himself is still paying attention to Bitcoin, a great peer-to-peer cash system with a market value of more than 654.38 billion US dollars, I wonder what kind of expression and opinion he will have in front of the computer screen.

This should be a more unresolved issue than "how to develop Bitcoin in the future".

Satoshi Nakamoto—Bitcoin is incomparable.

Bitcoin's white paper was released on June 3, 2008 1 day, but Bitcoin was released on June 3, 20091day. Since then, the decentralized network has gradually begun to change the public's view of money and the entire financial system.

Satoshi Nakamoto once said, "I'm sorry, I'm a wet blanket. It is very difficult to describe Bitcoin to an ordinary audience, and nothing can be compared with it to make it easier for people to understand. "

In fact, until nine years later, there is still no analogy with Bitcoin. The embarrassing dilemma we often experience is to explain to ordinary people "what is decentralization" and "peer-to-peer", and then tell everyone that it is virtual currency. As for encryption, hash value and block ... it may take several days to make a beautiful PPT.

In fact, people are less curious about what Bitcoin is than Satoshi Nakamoto.

Why don't we profile the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto on the 9th anniversary and the special day when Bitcoin opens a new milestone?

Satoshi Nakamoto is probably such a person.

If you have watched the American TV series Criminal Psychology, you can wait until there is a way to visualize a person you have never seen before, even more deeply than seeing him. This method is suitable for finding criminals-profiling.

A person's age, personality, living environment and occupation can be profiled according to his traces, so we can infer what kind of person he is according to these "traces" left by Chong Bencong.

Since it comes to "traces", the most personal information is the Bitcoin white paper.

Christians who deify Satoshi Nakamoto may be disappointed. First of all, Satoshi Nakamoto is definitely not a god, but a person who "gathers the strengths of many families".

Bitcoin white paper is impossible to publish from the perspective of academic papers, because almost all parts of it are ready-made things-electronic money, cryptography, PoW, hash value and so on.

The greatness and success of Bitcoin is actually due to Satoshi Nakamoto's introduction of game theory into Byzantine fault-tolerant formula algorithm, which is very innovative and unprecedented. However, the white paper did not make it clear and did not prove it. It proves that later researchers slowly made up for the success of Bitcoin. It can be inferred that he is not a team, and the team will expose much more traces than now.

Portrait of Satoshi Nakamoto

Age: According to the gender and age composition of C++ developers, Satoshi Nakamoto is most likely a middle-aged man. It is estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto should be 50-65 years old this year.

Nationality: The name is the most controversial. After all, the name is just a code name. Most people think that Satoshi Nakamoto is an American. His English writing habits are deliberate, so it is difficult to comment on the authenticity. However, his active time on the Internet conforms to the routine of an American office worker. This rule is not easy to disguise, and it is not necessary when Bitcoin is still a toy in a small circle.

Occupation: I worked in IT in a large enterprise, and my entry time was from the late 1990s to the early 20th century. According to some technical problems of Bitcoin, its features are more in line with the cognitive level of the older generation of programmers who joined in the 1990s.

Have a family and have a certain financial ability: there is no direct evidence, but it conforms to some details, such as hiding the identity so thoroughly, probably to protect family members; To spend a lot of time and energy on the creation of bitcoin, we must ensure economic ability.

Scholars who study Bitcoin infer other information about Satoshi Nakamoto from various aspects of the white paper:

1. He has a background in science and engineering; Because he has a high interest in encryption technology and can program, but his understanding of economics is very superficial. Bitcoin hardly uses any economic principles, and its reward mechanism is based on technology rather than economics.

2. He is smart and thoughtful; At the same time, he has a strong interest in encryption and information security technology. He can understand the Byzantine fault-tolerance problem, grasp the essence, and know the basic working principle and implementation method of cryptography like the back of his hand. Then, he can combine these things in the simplest way, and abandon all functions that may cause security risks when realizing basic functions, which shows that his thinking is very theoretical, meticulous and logical.

3. He is modest and can accept other people's suggestions with an open mind; He is clever, but not as clever as many geniuses, such as Vitalik Butrin. He may never be considered as the best person in life, so he knows his shortcomings and even knows that he may make mistakes. Therefore, from the germination to the birth of Bitcoin, he has been absorbing other people's suggestions and new knowledge without reservation, which is one of the important reasons why Bitcoin can appear and even succeed.

Being able to firmly put your ideals into action, spending time and energy to study what you love, knowing how to listen and accept other people's opinions, thinking carefully and keeping a low profile-these qualities are not shared by the founders of BAT today, but also by more business leaders.

Unsuccessful people have their own shortcomings, while successful people always have the same advantages.

The ninth anniversary of Bitcoin White Paper, I wish Satoshi Nakamoto's expectations for it come true:

"What we need is an electronic payment system based on password proof rather than trust, which allows any two parties who want to trade directly without a trusted third party." Documents from Satoshi Nakamoto.

* This article was originally written by Future Finance, and it is forbidden to reprint without permission.