I've been reading and trying to understand the various aspects of Bitcoin in the last few weeks.
Though I had seen the original whitepaper when I started down the rabbithole, I saw Satoshi's own short summary for the earliest newsgroups today. (source
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/)
It could be helpful to beginners as a good TL:DR
I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
The main properties:
Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network.
No mint or other trusted parties.
Participants can be anonymous.
New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work.
The proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending.
Next is the Abstract which fleshes out more technical details and finally the link to whitepaper:
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the burdens of going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcasted on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
Full paper at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Satoshi Nakamoto
Guy was a very clear thinker and writer
For a newcomer as me and new to crypto, reading is all what I can do at the moment.
Luckily my new job/role gave me this opportunity of learning. Before, I didn't know there are so many ppl out there know these two words, Satoshi and bitcoin, but that is all.
I'm glad my limited knowledge now can explain better and help others to understand better.
Thanks for sharing!
