Jack Dorsey Wrote a Fake Research Paper in 2003 And The Style Looks Familiar

In 2003, Jack Dorsey began writing a research paper about leveraging personal relationship networks for personal growth without the need for third party governance or intervention. Titled Working the World Through Local Relationships, the four-paragraph opening to the paper eventually pivots into parody and abruptly ends. The style and format up until that point, however, show another side of Jack that is absent almost everywhere else. In writing this way, Jack shows that he is indeed capable of being the author of the Bitcoin White Paper, a key puzzle piece that some feel has been left unsettled. To that end, I previously wrote that Jack Dorsey’s first real job was in coding commercial software for researchers to submit, peer review, and digitally distribute research papers, which places Jack within the ecosystem of knowing how to write and cite research papers. And here Jack flirts with writing one himself five years before the Bitcoin White Paper was ever authored.

Compared to the Bitcoin White Paper both Jack and Satoshi indent paragraphs and use two spaces after a period. The two-spaces phenomenon was a notable quirk that many have pointed out about Satoshi’s writings and it’s something that Jack has even drawn attention to about himself.

Both Jack and Satoshi like to hyphenate words with Jack hyphenating self-improvement, real-time, KARMA-like, and self-conscious.

Both Jack and Satoshi use language such as: system, network, participants, framework, customer, user, electronic, and third party.

“I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” – Satoshi Nakamoto

“I will attempt to describe how the use of a KARMA-like system may make network participants more self-conscious and responsible for their actions while erasing the need for third party governance or intervention.”
– Jack Dorsey