Today marks the seventeenth anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto’s release of the Bitcoin Whitepaper on the cryptography mailing list in 2008. At that time, Bitcoin was merely a proposition for a new niche technology, continuing a long tradition of niche innovations established by the cypherpunks of the 1990s.
Since that pivotal day 17 years ago, Bitcoin has undergone tremendous transformations. It evolved from a niche internet collectible to a decentralized network that fueled illicit dark net markets, then transformed into a mainstream speculative investment for retail, and finally became Wall Street and governments’ go-to new asset class. We’ve all had front-row seats to this groundbreaking global technological revolution linked to the internet, and what a journey it has been.
On this anniversary, I feel it’s crucial to address a relevant concept known as POSIWID, which stands for the Purpose Of A System Is What It Does. The fundamental idea is that when considering a complex system, it’s pointless to define it based on what you want it to do; what truly matters is what the components of that system are actually doing. That is all that is significant in the end.
Once again, we find ourselves in a period where individuals refer back to the whitepaper as if it were a foundational document, definition, or blueprint. The whitepaper is none of these; it is merely a high-level abstract explanation of a Proof-of-Work blockchain designed to implement a digital currency. It’s the notion of a cart with wheels as opposed to the actual blueprint of the cart (the source code).
Bitcoin enthusiasts often fixate on the whitepaper in this way, frequently using it as a rationale to act antagonistically towards certain use cases or ideas for improving Bitcoin that they disagree with. Whether we eventually move beyond this mindset remains uncertain, but it is an unhealthy stance to adopt towards a technology as potentially impactful as Bitcoin.
People didn’t quote the writings and speeches of Alexander Graham Bell when digital modems were developed to connect the early internet across devices and facilitate the flow of digital signals. They embraced it as a significant technological advancement, whereas today, that dynamic has completely reversed. Most telephone signals are now transmitted through communication mediums specifically designed for digital communications.
Telephone networks played a crucial role in laying the groundwork for the digital medium of the modern internet, a concept that Alexander Graham Bell could have scarcely imagined, reshaping the world in ways that would have been inconceivable to his generation.
Satoshi did not provide us with a foundational document to be constrained by when he published the whitepaper; he offered us a high-level overview of the software that followed.
That is the true gift he bestowed upon us: the software. He provided it freely and as open-source, allowing us to use it as we see fit.
“BitDNS users might be completely liberal about adding any large data features since relatively few domain registrars are needed, while Bitcoin users might get increasingly tyrannical about limiting the size of the chain so it’s easy for lots of users and small devices.” -Satoshi Nakamoto, 2010
This quote often emerges in discussions concerning the blocksize limit or the diverse capabilities of Bitcoin, but what has always resonated with me is the phrase “users might get.” Ultimately, before his disappearance, Satoshi explicitly acknowledged the desires of users, particularly in the context of critical decisions like the blocksize limit.
Bitcoin no longer belongs to Satoshi; it belongs to us, and through how we choose to use our bitcoin, we determine what the purpose of the system is. It is vital to keep this in mind.
