Bitcoin white paper

From Satoshipedia, the Satoshi Mail encyclopedia

The Bitcoin white paper, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, proposes “a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” in which a peer-to-peer network prevents double-spending by timestamping transactions into a chain of proof-of-work.^[1] Satoshi announced it on 31 October 2008.^[2]

Drafts

In August 2008 Satoshi described the paper to Adam Back under the working title Electronic Cash Without a Trusted Third Party and offered a pre-release draft (the email). He asked Wei Dai for the date of b-money so he could cite it. nakamoto-archive keeps a version of the paper dated 3 October 2008.^[3]

Announcement

Satoshi posted to the Cryptography mailing list: “I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” He listed the main properties, starting with “Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network.” (the announcement). The first reply, from James A. Donald, questioned whether it could scale. The paper is hosted at bitcoin.org.^[1]

References

The paper cites eight works, among them Wei Dai's b-money and Adam Back's Hashcash. It does not cite Nick Szabo's bit gold.^[1] See Precursors of Bitcoin.

See also

• Precursors of Bitcoin
• Cryptography mailing list
• Genesis block

References

1. Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, bitcoin.org.
2. History of bitcoin, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
3. nakamoto-archive, “Complete archive of Satoshi Nakamoto's writings and productions”, GitHub. The README lists each source file with its origin, date and SHA-256 hash.

Primary sources

The messages and commits this article draws on, in Satoshi Mail and where they were first published.

1. Citation of your Hashcash paper, Private email with Adam Back, 20 August 2008. Original source
2. Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper, Cryptography mailing list, 31 October 2008. Original source

Published by Tyler Howell for Satoshi Mail. Written with AI assistance from the sources listed above and checked against them. Last updated 22 October 2026. Spotted an error? Email itstylerhowell@gmail.com (how articles are made).

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