The Bitcoin Whitepaper is the first technical document released by an anonymous author, under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”, that presents a novel solution to the “double-spend” problem faced by digital currencies. The problem exists because, like with digital files, it is easy to make copies of digital tokens. How do we prevent someone from spending the same token twice without a central authority that can decide which spend-transaction is the valid one? Satoshi proposed a system that relies on “Proof of Work” (mining) that can validate transactions in a decentralized manner, without a central authority or a trusted third party. Because of this, it is possible for anyone to download and install a Bitcoin wallet and start receiving and sending Bitcoin straight away. We call this “Permissionless Innovation” and believe it is a step towards the development of open-source money for the Internet era. To this day, the identity of Satoshi remains unknown.

You can find the Whitepaper below or at https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper. African language translations are also available! Take a look at https://exonumia.africa/ for a high-quality collection of translated material.