Thread

Most people who I know that think the CIA invented bitcoin, are not very familiar with the pre-history of Bitcoin including work by Back, Szabo, Finney, etc. I'm not saying that certainly no intelligence agency created Bitcoin, but rather, I'm very skeptical of the certainty that many people have around that topic. Because, when you are somewhat familiar with that pre-history and look at it from an engineering perspective, you can clearly see the pieces gradually falling into place. In the1980s there was work by Chaum about how to build a database run by mutually suspicious entities. In the 1990s there was work by Back for proof-of-work. As things moved into the 2000s, there was Szabo's Bit Gold, which is very similar to what Bitcoin ended up being, and Finney's Reusable Proof of Work "RPOW" tokens. Finney hadn't solved the centralization issue, and Szabo hadn't solved the issue of better computation causing supply inflation over time, but they were collectively within shooting range of the solution. Others as well. Meanwhile global bandwidth was getting better, encryption in general was getting better (and there we've got an actual intelligence agency contribution), etc. And then Satoshi added to that work, including the difficulty adjustment in particular and many other details, with a full implementation. Basically, if someone thinks that Bitcoin just kind of magically came out of nowhere, then it's pretty easy to see how they'd be inclined toward a conspiratorial assumption. However, if one sees that, just like any other industry, there was a series of engineers building on each others' work until someone finally got it over the line, then it looks a lot more organic.

Replies (35)

🛡️
Bitcoin is the capstone on 4 *decades* of innovation and experimentation .. and it is the foundation for decades more that we’re already seeing start to emerge: - Liquid - Lightning - eCash - Nostr Ignorance of the history leads also to the fallacy of “version 2 will be better” which the altcoin promoters feed on Fundamentally, and i speak as someone coming from a technical background, the most important aspect to learn is that Bitcoin’s innovation is economic (verifiable absolute digital scarcity), not technical. Then technical innovation is impressive but only in so far as it enables the actual economic innovation 🤝
You weren't there. You weren't at the BBS You weren't at the IRC channels You weren't even at the forums At that time, only government related people from the west or malware writers literally from Russia had interest in crypto. So was that case with Dave Kleiman. He died worried sick that he'd be exposed, you will never understand that. How it feels to lose your career over something that was basically useless at the time and yet went against your own (gov) employer. Please stop rewriting history. You are becoming religious zealots writing fiction stories, but there are still plenty of us who were indeed there and participated on what happened.
Miyamoto Musashi Satoshi Nakamoto..... Satoshi flipped the suffix and was heavily influenced by "The Dokkodo" ... "21 precepts of life"/21 million bitcoin (not arbitrary...paid homage) "Dokkodo was largely composed on the occasion of Musashi giving away his possessions in preposition for death"..... Sound familiar ^
Correct, knowing a little about the history and early honest attempts to solve for limits on freedom and the encroachment on privacy that motivated exactly the names you mention along with others is the plausible and organic answer. Thank you. I am delighted that you are contributing so regularly to NOSTR. I met some of the devs in Prague in June and I’m trying to learn how to navigate effectively so I can ZAP a few idle SATS for their work.
The intelligence agencies didn’t invent Bitcoin. Most people believing this refer to a paper on electronic currencies from the NSA that predates Bitcoin. However, they certainly have infiltrated its community to some extent with some narratives and assets.
The following is personal opinion and backed by nothing but my personal experience. With respect to modern age/recent tech, the fed does NOT innovate, but the fed often funds those that do innovate. Did Satoshi have a day, paid job and bitcoin was his side project?! Or was bitcoin his day job and funded by "another", be it directly or indirectly. With that said, I don't think it matters bc we can't unlearn what we have all learned bc of bitcoin. #My2Sats
Hey Lyn, I just want you to know how much I appreciate your writing. I am not a great reader, however, I am able to read your work and be captivated enough to not only comprehend your message but to also be able to assimilate the information in such a way that I can explain it to others days or weeks later.. Thank you.