Before entering the mysterious figure of someone known as Satoshi Nakamoto and the creation of the blockchain , we must talk about digital money and its relationship with cryptography as a precedent of cryptocoins,on the one hand,its necessary mention the figure and work of David Chaum,considered the father of cryptography and the inventor of digital money.
This American cryptographer, mathematician, computer scientist, and theorist,born in 1955 received his doctorate in Computer Science and Business Administration by the University of Berkeley, California,and organized the first world conferences on cryptography, known as CRYPTO.
In them he would present essential works, such as his article by 1981 “Hidden trace email, return addresses and digital pseudonyms ”, which laid the foundations for the anonymity of communications between users or “Established computer systems, maintain held and trusted by mutually suspicious groups", the first known precedent of some of the blockchain principles ,this would allow progress with the creation of a digital payment system which, among other innovations, would include the idea of a blind signature.
in 1990, David created the electronic payments company "Unique DigiCash", which included the application of their previous work and research,which would materialize in the eCash solution,in 1994 he demonstrated that the payment system it had developed allowed money transactions between networked computers in an automated way. It was undoubtedly one of the great precedents of cryptocurrencies as we know them today.
David continued to develop brilliant projects based on blockchain that, above all, have the privacy of the individual as the cornerstone of their ideological trend, the cypherpunk,this fact make he works with another of the figures who preceded Satoshi Nakamoto and who are fundamental to understanding Bitcoin : Timothy May,an American born in 1951, was another brilliant computer engineer, thinker, writer and ideologist, well known activist of the cypherpunk movement and creator of cryptanarchism as a fundamental current preceding the blockchain,his first professional experience led him to work at Intel for almost a decade, where he made great discoveries to increase the efficiency of the electronic circuits produced by Intel,but he took his starring role in 1988, by publishing "The crypto anarchist Manifesto",considered a cover document on cryptography and privacy.
In this manifesto he defends the right to anonymity and calls into question the regulatory role of governments and institutions around the world.
During the following years Timothy would continue to launch publications of vital importance to understand the birth and maturity of crypto thought,where he it included ideas such as the need for cryptographic systems, communities and virtual networks and anonymous communications.
The crypto anarchism defends anarchy trough computer technology to ensure confidentiality and security when sending and receiving information over computer networks, in an effort to protect privacy, freedom of expression and economic freedom using a software based on communication peer-to-peer, the association between the identity of a particular user or organization and the pseudonym is difficult to trace unless the user reveals that association.
So the blockchain technology,Bitcoin and everything that comes from behind, its the crossroads of a technological trend and an ideological,both are essential pillars to understand cryptoeconomics.
October thirty-first, 2008 signed with the name Satoshi Nakamoto, a document called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” is published on a crypto mailing list,the groundbreaking document was not limited to describing the creation of a cryptocurrency,bitcoin,also detailed the technology it was going to use to operate and a protocol with a policy to regulate the creation and distribution of that currency...in other words, the document was practically designing its own monetary policy.
In January 2009, just two months after publishing the first document,Nakamoto uploaded the first version of Bitcoin's software,days later Hal Finney, the first user of the network with a known identity and one of the most closely related people with Satoshi Nakamoto, received 10 bitcoins, confirming the first bitcoin transaction in history.
In November of that same year, Nakamoto posted a message on the Bitcoin-talk forum, openly welcoming new users, thereby opening the project to the world community,since then the network has gradually grown and more users were added to the platform by downloading the software. This fact allowed the emergence of new nodes to save copies of the transaction log,it also caused the mining work necessary to validate transactions and generate new currencies to become popular, almost in the same way as with traditional mining, in which precious metals are extracted.
After a few months supporting the progressive adoption of Bitcoin, in late 2010 Satoshi Nakamoto published an update with the latest version of the Bitcoin software,in addition, he took the opportunity to emphasize that his identity would remain anonymous, reaffirming the value of his work as an open source project developed by the community and free to use for the entire world,since then, the mystery of who is behind the name of Satoshi Nakamoto remains to be solved.
The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is undoubtedly one of the great mysteries of our time,in the last decade several have been considered names, such as Wei Dai, creator of b-money and the Cypto++,Nick Szabo, who developed the Bit Gold concept,Adam Back,cryptographer who developed Hashcash,Craig Wright, Australian computer scientist who proclaimed himself inventor of Bitcoin or Hal Finney, first user of the Bitcoin network,although many press media e investigators have tried to reveal his identity it has never been come to a conclusion,it seems that it will continue to be one of the big unknowns of humanity.
