Distributed trust · 2008 · Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Compose signatures, hashes, Merkle trees, proof of work, incentives, and a heaviest-history rule to address double spending without a central mint.
The central move
Compose signatures, hashes, Merkle trees, proof of work, incentives, and a heaviest-history rule to address double spending without a central mint.
Why it had to exist
Digital signatures establish who authorized a transfer but do not prevent the same digital value being spent twice. Existing systems relied on a trusted central ledger.
Where it leads
Byzantine reasoning plus public-key cryptography → permissionless ledger → modern consensus and digital-asset systems.