On 31 October 2008 a person called Satoshi Nakamoto sent a short text to a mailing list about cryptography. Its title: “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This nine-page document is the Bitcoin whitepaper. The basic idea in one sentence Satoshi wanted to create a system with which people can pay online without needing a bank or any other trusted third party. The problem: double spending Digital things can be copied at will: a photo, a file, a piece of music. With money that would be fatal: you could spend the same digital coin twice. Until then this “double-spending problem” …
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