The Bitcoin White Paper, A Peer-to-Peer electronic cash systempublished by the mysterious and pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, turned seventeen yesterday.
Released on October 31, 2008, in the midst of the global financial crisis, the nine-page document laid the groundwork for what would become the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The white paper outlined a vision for a decentralized, peer-to-peer financial system built on cryptographic proof rather than trust in third-party intermediaries. Its goal was to eliminate the problem of double spending and enable online transactions without relying on banks or other trusted third parties. “We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust,” Satoshi wrote.
Seventeen years later, Bitcoin’s influence has reached far beyond the cypherpunk forums where it began. The anniversary comes as US spot bitcoin ETFs in less than two years of existence have seen unprecedented success, with total net inflows exceeding $62 billion and total net assets exceeding $150 billion, according to SoSoValue data.
But Bitcoin’s mainstream acceptance extends beyond Wall Street. It has now entered the highest levels of government, including the White House under the current US administration.
Some of Bitcoin’s most outspoken critics have become its biggest advocates. In 2021, former President Donald Trump dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam against the dollar.” But in the 2024 presidential election, he urged supporters to “never sell your bitcoin” and went on to sign an executive order establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve.
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, once called Bitcoin a “money laundering index.” Today, he champions it as one of his firm’s most successful ETF products and sees it as a hedge against sovereign debt instability.
Likewise, Michael Saylor, the outspoken CEO of Strategy, has become one of Bitcoin’s most persistent evangelists and continues to accumulate BTC through equity and debt offerings. Saylor himself began as a skeptic, once declaring, “Bitcoin’s days are numbered. It seems it’s only a matter of time before it suffers the same fate as online gambling.”
The last major holdout among prominent financial figures remains JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who continues to express doubts about Bitcoin’s value and sustainability. However, his bank has moved heartily into the sector, recently allowing customers to put up bitcoin as collateral.
The funding of bitcoin through ETFs and adoption by corporate finance has drawn comparisons to the mortgage securitization boom of the 1970s, an era when asset prices soared to new heights.
Still, this development has not pleased everyone. Many early Bitcoin believers argue that its very ethos, a form of money outside of government control, has been diluted by institutional adoption.
For the cypherpunk movement that gave birth to Bitcoin, the system’s embrace of Wall Street and Washington feels like a paradox: a rebellion absorbed by the establishment it once sought to disrupt.
What is Bitcoin and can it survive?
On an annual basis, the average transaction fee per bitcoin block dropped to its lowest level since 2010, raising concerns about the network’s long-term sustainability. Low fees, while attractive to users, reduce incentives for miners securing the network, especially as block rewards continue to halve every four years.
Originally envisioned as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, Bitcoin has increasingly been overshadowed by the “store of value” narrative. “Never sell your bitcoin,” is a common refrain from Michael Saylor to the Trump family and many voices in between.
At the same time, disagreement continues within the developer community, particularly between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots over whether the network should allow non-monetary data like Ordinals or enforce stricter rules to block it. Some see such restrictions as necessary to preserve the integrity of the network, while others see them as a form of censorship that changes bitcoin’s open and permissionless nature.
In addition to internal debates, the looming question of quantum computing also poses an unresolved risk. The potential for future quantum machines to break existing cryptographic standards could threaten Bitcoin’s security, with no definitive solution yet in place.
“There is no doubt that Bitcoin has arrived, accepted by Wall Street, and its sustained period above $100,000 confirms it,” Bitcoin OG Nicholas Gregory said recently. “Its transition from peer-to-peer cash to a store of value is clear,” he continued. “It remains to be seen where it will go in the long term. I think, first, the narrative of it as a medium of exchange is key to its lasting place alongside solutions to the quantum threat.”
