𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗕𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗶𝗻’𝘀 𝗢𝗹𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘴𝘩𝘪 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.

𝟭𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆, Satoshi Nakamoto responded to James A. Donald, who was the first to reply to Satoshi’s announcement of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, 2 days after it was posted. James agreed that something like Bitcoin was needed, but didn’t see how it could scale to billions of users:

“𝘞𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺, 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘐 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭, 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘦.”

On 3 November 2008, Satoshi replied by explaining that long before the network would get too large, users could use Simplified Payment Verification to check the block headers and ensure there wasn’t any double spending. And this wouldn’t require much space on a computer.

Satoshi went on to say: "𝘖𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘯𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘴.” Back then, mining and running a validating node were essentially the same thing, and were simply referred to as “nodes”. They have since come to mean separate things, with many users running nodes on small computers, but not mining.

But then Satoshi said something that we have since learned would not have been good for Bitcoin: “𝘈𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵, 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘯𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙚.”

Bitcoiners now understand that this would have had a centralizing effect on the network. It’s imperative that the barrier remains low for running a full copy of Bitcoin’s protocol and blockchain, so as many people as possible can run nodes and keep the network decentralized.

Fortunately, hardware has improved and its price has fallen enough to allow many users to run their own full nodes. As long as storage capacity and hardware price stay ahead of the total blockchain size, there will never be a need for Bitcoin to be run by a handful of of “specialists with server farms”.

It’s clear from the rest of Satoshi’s message, however, that he anticipated improved bandwidth between connected nodes in the future. So it seems he understood 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 of the ways that technology would likely improve over the next several years, but he didn’t understand everything.

Which is just one example of how Satoshi was a fallible human being. It can be fun to speculate on him being something fantastic, like a time traveler or an alien, but it’s important that we don’t deify him as something more than what he was: a 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 smart person that could be mistaken once in a while. Just like you.

We owe Satoshi a debt of gratitude for designing Bitcoin, and for thinking ahead about how it might scale, but he wasn’t perfect. And now that the protocol is 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗦𝗮𝘁𝗼𝘀𝗵𝗶, so you have to learn for yourself which scaling solutions work and which don’t.

And I’m here to help you with that.