On October 31st, 28, that is, nine years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper on Bitcoin:

"This paper proposes an electronic cash system that is completely realized through peer-to-peer technology, which enables online payment to 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 double payment, then this 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 merges them into an ever-expanding chain of workload proofs based on random hashing as transaction records. Unless all workload proofs are re-completed, the formed transaction records will not be changed. "

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 alive, I actually mean that if Satoshi Nakamoto himself is still paying attention to Bitcoin, a great peer-to-peer cash system invented by him, an asset with a market value of more than 1 billion dollars, I wonder what kind of expression and opinion he will have in front of the computer screen.

This should be a more unsolved question than "How will Bitcoin develop in the future".

Satoshi Nakamoto-Bitcoin cannot be compared

The white paper on Bitcoin was released on October 31st, 28, but Bitcoin was released only in January, 29. Since then, the decentralized network has slowly begun to change the public's views on 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 ordinary listeners, and there is nothing to compare with it, so that people can understand it more easily. "

In fact, until today, 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 cryptography, hash values, and blocks ... I'm afraid it will take a few days to make a beautiful PPT.

In fact, people are even less curious about what Bitcoin is than about Satoshi Nakamoto (or the team).

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 drama Criminal Psychology, you can wait until there is a way to visualize a person you have never seen before, even more deeply than meeting him. This method is applied to 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 really is according to these "traces" left by Chongben Cong.

when 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".

from the perspective of academic papers, it is impossible to publish the bitcoin white paper, because almost all the parts in it are ready-made things-electronic money, cryptography, PoW, hash values 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 say it clearly, nor did it prove it. It proved 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 it does now.

Portrait of Satoshi Nakamoto

Age: According to the gender and age composition of C++ developers, Satoshi Nakamoto is most likely to be a middle-aged man. It is estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto should be 5-65 years old this year.

nationality: the name is the most controversial. After all, the name is just a code name. Most people agree that Satoshi Nakamoto is an American. His English writing habit is somewhat 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. It is not easy to disguise this rule, and it is not necessary at the stage when Bitcoin is still a toy in a small circle.

occupation: I was engaged in IT work in a large enterprise, and my entry time was from the second half of 199s to the beginning of 2th century. According to some technical problems of Bitcoin, the features are more in line with the cognitive level of an older generation of programmers who joined in the 199s.

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

There are also some information about Satoshi Nakamoto inferred by other scholars who study Bitcoin according to various aspects of the white paper:

1. He has a background in science and engineering; Because he is interested in encryption technology and can program, but his understanding of economics is 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 and grasp the essence, and he knows the basic working principle and implementation method of cryptography very well. Then, he can put these things together 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 humble and can accept other people's suggestions with an open mind; He is smart, but he is not as smart as many geniuses, such as vitalik buterin. He may never be considered the best person in life, so he knows his own 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 on studying what you love, knowing how to listen to and accept other people's opinions, being cautious and meticulous, and keeping a low profile-these qualities are not shared by the founders of BAT and more business leaders.

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

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

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

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