Satoshi Nakamoto was likely a big fan of Neal Stephenson’s 1999 novel Cryptonomicon. Here’s why:
Bitcoin | Cryptonomicon |
Bitcoin White Paper’s Release October 31 |
Neal Stephenson’s birthday October 31 |
10 minute bitcoin block times | In the span of 10 minutes, the world holds its breath to determine if fiat can still be exchanged for gold and silver.
“The millions of promises printed on those slips of bumwad will all be kept or broken in the next ten minutes” – Cryptonomicon |
Genesis block hidden message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” |
Failing banks print money on old newspapers.
“It must be a cutthroat business because [banks] slash costs by printing it on old newspapers.” – Cryptonomicon |
The address Satoshi used to conduct the first bitcoin transaction with Hal Finney 12cbQLTFMXRnSzktFkuoG3eHoMeFtpTu3S |
“Another thing he did this morning was to download the current version of the Cryptonomicon from the ftp server where it lives in San Francisco” – Cryptonomicon |