Bitcoin Whitepaper Turns 14! Interesting Detail: The terms "Bitcoin" and "Blockchain" do not appear in the entire text, took two years to code.

It has been 14 years since Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin whitepaper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" on October 31, 2008. As is customary in the crypto space, this time of year is marked by commemorations of this monumental work by the still-anonymous figure, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin Magazine editor RIZZO also highlights lesser-known details from the Bitcoin whitepaper.

1. Word Count

The Bitcoin whitepaper consists of 2,736 words, which is shorter compared to the Magna Carta with 3,550 words, the US Constitution with 3,550 words, and the US Infrastructure Bill with 2,700 pages.

Typically, the average word count for a book ranges from 70,000 to 120,000 words.

2. Sparking Much Discussion in Cryptography

Upon its release, the whitepaper sparked numerous discussions, with even moderators from the cypherpunk community intervening and requesting Satoshi Nakamoto to move his thoughts and endless discussions elsewhere.

3. First Supporter of Bitcoin

The late cryptographer Hal Finney was the first prominent figure to publicly support Bitcoin, although he responded more than a week after the whitepaper was published.

During this period, Satoshi Nakamoto faced many critics!

Note: Hal Finney mentioned that Bitcoin seemed like a promising idea to him, and he liked the security assumption that honest participants would outnumber malicious actors in terms of computational power.

4. Naming Bitcoin Not Satoshi's Favorite?

The word "Bitcoin" appears only twice in the entire whitepaper, both times in the title.

It is widely believed that Satoshi Nakamoto named it Bitcoin quite late in the process, with evidence suggesting that he wanted to name it "Electronic Cash" or "Netcoin."

5. Two Years Spent on Bitcoin Code

Satoshi Nakamoto mentioned in posts after the launch of Bitcoin that he had been contemplating Bitcoin for two years before the whitepaper was published.

6. "Blockchain" Coined by Later Generations

The whitepaper does not contain the word "blockchain."

Satoshi Nakamoto referred to the blockchain of Bitcoin as a "Timestamp Server" and explained its function of maintaining network time, aiming to replace central servers.

7. Bitcoin: A Refined Version of Existing Digital Cash

DigiCash developed by David Chaum was one of the old digital cash systems that Bitcoin referenced, but it was not a peer-to-peer transaction system; rather, it was a dual-layer network involving banks and users.

8. Frequent Mention of "Block"

The term "Block" is mentioned a total of 48 times in the whitepaper.

9. Solely Mentioned Industry Figure

The whitepaper cites eight previous digital cash projects, such as Wei Dei's "B-money" and Adam Back's "Hashcash."

Among them, Adam Back is the only one mentioned in the whitepaper and remains a cryptographer contributing to the encryption field to this day.

10. Absence of Mention of "Mining"

The whitepaper indicates that CPU processing power is used for "generating Bitcoin blocks," highlighting how the landscape has significantly changed 14 years later.

Two notable differences are that mining may seem more intuitive to most and that most computations are now carried out by ASIC specialized mining machines.

11. Developers No Longer Relying on the Whitepaper for Updates

Satoshi Nakamoto mentioned a scaling solution called Simplified Payment Verification in the whitepaper, which is now deprecated.

12. Copyright Disputes Lead to Spontaneous Hosting of the Whitepaper

Following copyright disputes initiated by Craig Wright, the founder of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Satoshi Vision BSV, requesting specific websites to take down the whitepaper, various entities, including the crypto community and even the Miami government, have hosted the whitepaper on their official websites.

13. Details in the Whitepaper Differ

Bitcoin developers have preserved the whitepaper on GitHub to this day, with discrepancies between its contents and the real-world situation, known issues, and changes in terminology.

14. Multiple Language Versions Available

As the first hosted on Bitcoin.org, the whitepaper is still hosted on the website with versions available in over 40 languages for download.