Scholarly and professional publications such as white papers are scrutinized by experts and colleagues, so the author’s objective is to present the concept as clearly as possible. Nevertheless, over time, an original concept could be implemented in ways that deviate from how it was designed due to misunderstood ideas. Such is the case with Bitcoin.
Fourteen years since the publication of the Bitcoin white paper, Dr. Craig S. Wright, more famously known by his pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, took to releasing a blog post to take a closer look at the first sentence in the paper’s abstract and clarify what others deem as complex content.
Believing he was able to explain himself clearly in the paper, Dr. Wright states that he is surprised that there are still arguments on “the meaning I put into the document.”
Peer-to-Peer
The concept of “peer-to-peer,” for instance, is not how it was initially referred to at the inception of Bitcoin. Over the years, the meaning has become more like “Chinese whispers of the original idea,” according to Wright. He considers modern research methodology in many universities as flawed, resulting in the tainted definition of the term.
Peer-to-peer in Bitcoin is end-to-end or direct connectivity between two participating parties. The first sentence in the Bitcoin white paper states that online payments are facilitated directly, without an intermediary, like a financial institution, to complete a transaction.
In an example where Alice wants to compensate Bob for offered goods and services, Alice directly sends Bob a transaction, and Bob then registers his ownership of the transaction for validation to ensure that Alice can no longer double spend said transaction. Bob keeps the received token from Alice, and upon validating the exchange as a legitimate transaction, it is recorded on the blockchain.
Dr. Wright briefly clarified the term “peer-to-peer” at the IEEE UAE Blockchain Symposium at the University of Dubai last March. He claimed that Bitcoin is not a peer-to-peer network the way Napster and Torrents are.
“It’s an end-to-end communication platform allowing individuals, through IP-to-IP, to connect directly—not having Facebook, not having Google, not having any of these big tech giants tell you what you can and can’t do,” Dr. Wright explained.
Myth Busting
It was also during the said symposium that Wright busted a prevailing myth surrounding Bitcoin. In his keynote speech, he clarifies that, “It’s not a cryptocurrency. That’s the first myth people have got to get rid of. There is no encryption in Bitcoin, at all.”
Having multiple blockchains is another myth that Dr. Wright disproves. “You can’t have multiple blockchains,” he said. He likened having multiple blockchains to “having multiple Internets.” Having more than one ledger means having different sets of books which eliminates the means for frauds to be tracked.
Dr. Wright urges the audience to contemplate the prohibition regarding maintaining an honest record because keeping only one set of records means having honest records.
In his blog post, Dr. Wright expresses his dismay at how things progressed since the creation of Bitcoin, particularly on how “it has been twisted into a criminal money laundering system and a Ponzi scheme.”
It may take some time and effort that would involve more explanation, clarification, and busting myths surrounding Bitcoin, but Dr. Wright may someday achieve happiness over finally seeing the system being utilized just the way he intended it to be.