Who Controls Bitcoin and Who Invented It?

Introduction to Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a digital currency that was designed to challenge historical norms regarding the way money is issued and the means by which transactions are conducted online. The core principle that makes Bitcoin so revolutionary is its embrace of decentralization — on both the technical and operational level. Bitcoin does not have a CEO or a central banker at its helm and, in fact, is not controlled by any single person or entity. Nonetheless, Bitcoin was created by someone and is governed by a variety of community stakeholders through a system that is referred to as rough consensus.

Who Invented Bitcoin and Why?

Bitcoin was invented by a person or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Nakamoto, whose real identity has never been uncovered, announced that they were working on a “new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party” on The Cryptography Mailing List in October 2008.

Nakamoto’s decision to reveal Bitcoin to this mailing list suggests something important about the project’s origins — many of the cryptographers on the list had previously discussed a form of electronic money that was private, secured by cryptography, and not controlled by a centralized entity. However, previous attempts to create such a currency were thwarted by a common obstacle known as the double-spending problem: the challenge of ensuring that digital coins could not be spent twice without relying on a trusted intermediary.

Physical cash is difficult to spend twice, because using it to purchase goods requires handing it over to the merchant. Likewise, governments heavily police counterfeiting operations. Digital files, however, are easily copied. So the cryptographers were stumped — how can you prevent the copying of digital coins without a bank, company, or government acting as the counterfeit police? Instead of a trusted third party, cypherpunk Satoshi Nakamoto solved this problem by creating a decentralized system that relies on cryptography to produce proof that coins have only been spent once. In other words, Satoshi’s attempt at electronic cash wasn’t the first digital currency project — and the Bitcoin whitepaper notes his indebtedness to cryptographers such as Wei Dai and Adam Back — but it was the first and most successful decentralized example.

What Happened to Bitcoin Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto?

Satoshi withdrew from Bitcoin in 2010, telling former contributing developer Gavin Andresen that they had “moved on to other projects,” and was never heard from again. The mystery surrounding their identity has inspired many journalists and amateur sleuths to try to uncover their identity. Many have analyzed linguistic tendencies, scoured forum posts, pored over code releases to determine time zones, and scrutinized messages for hints about this mysterious character’s life. Some researchers concluded that Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto was almost certainly a pseudonym, and that their use of British English likely made them British or a citizen of a British Commonwealth nation.

Who Controls Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is not controlled by any single group or person. Instead, it is governed by multiple stakeholders — including developers, miners, and users. Developers write the code that makes Bitcoin run; miners validate transactions; and users put the software to work by trading, transacting, holding, and more. These stakeholders collectively govern Bitcoin through a process called rough consensus. Rough consensus means that discussion about the development of Bitcoin takes place informally at conferences and meetups and in mailing lists, forums, and social media platforms, and that anyone can participate.

Eventually, changes are proposed as software updates, written by developers. Bitcoin development is done collaboratively and openly, and any developer can contribute. When software updates are released, those running the Bitcoin software can choose whether to accept the change and update their software, or to reject it and continue running their current version. Bitcoin developers strive to make software updates “backwards compatible,” meaning that the software will continue to work even if users do not update to the latest version.

In the instance that there is widespread disagreement on the adoption of new proposals, Bitcoin has been known to fork. A fork is when the nodes that support a blockchain network split into two different networks with two separate native digital assets. The creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in 2017 is perhaps the most notable example of this phenomenon.