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COMPUTERS

Nobody knows who invented Bitcoin.

In 2008 someone called "Satoshi Nakamoto" published the design online, then vanished - and their identity is still a mystery.

2 min read
Nobody knows who invented Bitcoin.
THE FULL STORY

In October 2008, someone using the name “Satoshi Nakamoto” posted a nine-page paper online describing a totally new kind of digital money called Bitcoin. There were no banks, no governments and no physical coins - just a clever system of computers all over the world agreeing on who owns what. A few months later they switched on the first version.

For about two years Satoshi chatted with other early users by email and on forums. Then in April 2011 they sent a final message - “I’ve moved on to other things” - and never spoke publicly again. Despite years of detective work by reporters, fans and the FBI, nobody has ever proved who Satoshi really is.

Here is the wild part: every Bitcoin transaction ever made is recorded forever in a public ledger called the blockchain. The wallets believed to belong to Satoshi hold around a million Bitcoin. None of it has ever been spent. That’s a fortune just sitting there, untouched, waiting for a person who may never come back.

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