Bitcoin
The Bitcoin whitepaper
Nine pages that started it all, free to read and download.
"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" was published by Satoshi Nakamoto on October 31, 2008. It describes a way for people to send money directly to each other, with no bank or payment processor in the middle, and without anyone being able to spend the same coins twice.
The paper is released under the MIT license, which allows it to be copied and shared freely. This is the same document published at bitcoin.org.
The idea in plain English
- The problem: online payments relied on trusted third parties, which adds cost and lets them reverse transactions.
- The fix: transactions are grouped into blocks, and each block is chained to the one before it using proof of work, so rewriting history would mean out-computing the honest network.
- The incentive: the people who run the network (miners) are rewarded with new coins and fees for playing by the rules.
- The limit: the paper's design leads to the fixed supply of 21 million coins that Bitcoin is known for.
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