BTC, the flagship cryptocurrency, has been around since 2009 and has become a huge success worldwide.
However, the origins of this cryptocurrency, who created it and how long they worked on it before launch remain shrouded in mystery.
However, very recently, during the trial of Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist and businessman who claims to be Bitcoin's legendary creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, these mysteries may now have explanations.
A massive tranche of emails written by Nakamoto have surfaced, shedding some light on who Satoshi Nakamoto might have been, as well as his vision for what would later become the most valuable and most popular cryptocurrency on the planet.
Here are some of these insights
These aforementioned emails are believed to be from Nakamoto and were sent to Martti Malmi, one of the cryptocurrency's early collaborators.
Martti Malmi shared these emails on Twitter, which have turned out to be a goldmine of early Bitcoin lore.
The Emails speaks are of about 120 pages long and date back to 2009.
These emails revealed that Nakamoto had bulletproof confidence in Bitcoin's future.
Satoshi, in one of the emails, noted that "there is only one global chain".
By this, Satoshi meant that BTC would turn out to be the dominant and universal form of digital money.
Nakamoto compared Bitcoin's ability to handle transactions to that of Visa.
If you're unaware, Visa is one of the leading credit card networks, which had a processing power of more than 10 million transactions as of 2009.
According to Rain, VISA could reportedly process up to 1,700 transactions per second.
Nakamoto mentioned that BTC had the potential to beat Visa's TPS speeds, with the existing hardware, at a much cheaper rate.
Further down the line, Bitcoin's creator argued that the network would face what is called a "scalability limit".
He cited Moore's Law, which predicts that the speed of modern computers would roughly double every two years.
Nakamoto believed that even with the massive adoption of the network, BTC transactions would never be "too much for available computers to handle".
Another key aspect of BTC that Nakamoto focused on was the issue of decentralization, anonymity and security.
Nakamoto had a vision for a system where nodes wouldn't need fees to run the Bitcoin network.
If this ever happened, the BTC network would become entirely market-driven, without relying on any central authority or intermediary.
Nakamoto also highlighted the advantages of using BTC, in terms of security.
He noted that the security of the network would increase as the network grows, increasing the value of the network, and making it resistant to attack.
Nakamoto also conceded that in Bitcoin's early years, the network wouldn't have been big enough to be invulnerable.
However, at the same time, the incentive to attack the network would have been small, compared to what it is now.
Nakamoto's emails showed that he understood the challenges that come with an anonymous system of money.
He advised Malmi not to capitalize so much on the anonymity of BTC, warning that using BTC addresses instead of IP addresses does not guarantee anonymity. He also expected that auditors and blockchain forensics would become "a thing", exposing the identities of malicious actors and tracking theft.
As with the issue of power consumption, recall that one of the issues that sparked the 2021/2022 bear market was the issue of Bitcoin's energy consumption.
Nakamoto, however, defended BTC arguing that the network would still be way more efficient than the traditional banking system.
He estimated that Bitcoin would eventually consume only a fraction of the energy spent on running traditional banking infrastructure.
Overall, the emails are too many to number.
However, the few details that have been gleaned from the 120-page document offer a rare glimpse into how Satoshi Nakamoto's mind worked.
None of these emails show any definitive proof of who Nakamoto was (or wasn't).
Regardless of who Nakamoto is, however, his/her/their creation has revolutionized the world's monetary system and beyond.
BTC has laid the foundation of secure monetary systems for thousands of other blockchain projects, each with its own features and goals.
Bitcoin is still evolving and facing many obstacles but has proven its resilience many times over.
As of February 2024, BTC has a market cap of over $1 trillion and currently trades at around $51,000.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.