Chapter 1About Bitcoin
Computer engineer Wei Dai first described the cryptocurrency concept on the Cypherpunks mailing list in 1998. He envisioned a new form of money using cryptography, rather than a central issuing authority, to control its creation and transactions.
In 2003, Turkish‐American Emin Gun Sirer, CEO of AvaLabs, professor at Cornell University, and co‐director of Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts (IC3), designed the first cryptocurrency, “Karma,” based on a proof‐of‐work protocol six years earlier than the launch of Bitcoin. Since 2019 he has also developed Avalanche, an ecofriendly blockchain platform with smart contract capabilities which is one of the most promising blockchain platforms given the focus on environment and social governance investing, according to cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman‐Fried.1
In 2008, a programmer (or group of programmers) using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and purporting to be from Japan published a paper on the Bitcoin concept to launch in 2009 as a decentralized, unlicensed, worldwide cryptocurrency transfer system based on a proof‐of‐work protocol that allowed anyone with an internet connection to participate.
Bitcoin (BTC) is a blockchain‐based peer‐to‐peer (P2P) system for online transactions, and, when paired with third‐party services, allows users to mine, buy, sell, or accept cryptocurrencies transnationally via the internet without being tied to a particular country's identity, capital controls, ...
Get Sustainably Investing in Digital Assets Globally now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
