Why does Wikipedia's Bitcoin entry imply Satoshi's whitepaper is from May 2009?

2

The first citation in Wikipedia's Bitcoin article is of Satoshi's original whitepaper. It is worded:

Nakamoto, Satoshi (24 May 2009). "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". Retrieved 20 December 2012.

Satoshi's whitepaper was released on 1 Nov 2008, not on 2009.

What am I missing here? Did anything relevant happen at 24 May 2009? Is this a factual error in the Wikipedia entry? (It's there for a long time, so it's not any recent vandalism).

ripper234

Posted 2013-08-19T21:12:33.790

Reputation: 25 192

Answers

3

It looks like a factual error. It was introduced in this edit. The editor should be contacted about what lead him to this information.

Also, the mailing list post was from Nov 1 and not 11 as you wrote.

Meni Rosenfeld

Posted 2013-08-19T21:12:33.790

Reputation: 18 542

1Factual errors galore :) I'll edit the article.ripper234 2013-08-20T08:27:48.717

>

  • How did you find the exact edit btw? 2. Do you think the citation should be changed to the publication in the cryptography mailing list? (It took me some digging to find it, it's perhaps a better citation and it references the whitepaper itself)
  • < – ripper234 2013-08-20T08:30:54.260

    ripper234 2013-08-20T08:32:27.533

    2@ripper234:

    1. I manually did binary search on the history. I know of no better way and was successfully nerd-sniped.
    2. The paper itself is a better citation for content. The mailing list archive is a better citation for history (e.g., "the Bitcoin whitepaper was first released on Nov 1 2008").
    3. I did.
    4. < – Meni Rosenfeld 2013-08-20T11:20:43.197

    Added a ref to the crypto mailing list.ripper234 2013-08-20T12:21:43.807

    @MeniRosenfeld In case you 2 are still interested: The user replied a year after you posed the question on their talk page.UTF-8 2017-01-08T22:39:11.440

    1@ripper234 Mentioning you, too, just to be sure, even though you should've gotten a notification anyways.UTF-8 2017-01-08T22:40:11.647

    @UTF-8: Thanks. I vaguely remember seeing that reply before, I must have stumbled upon this question and checked back in the time since.Meni Rosenfeld 2017-01-09T08:49:23.557

    Seems October 31st, 2008 (see answer below by @brianjason) is actually correct. This is the date listed in Wikipedia now.Jonathan Cross 2017-09-09T00:45:22.963

    4

    That is clearly incorrect. His whitepaper was released on October 31st, 2008 via the metzdowd mailing list

    Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper

    Satoshi Nakamoto satoshi at vistomail.com
    Fri Oct 31 14:10:00 EDT 2008

    Previous message: Fw: SHA-3 lounge Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author]

    I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.

    The paper is available at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

    The main properties: Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network. No mint or other trusted parties. Participants can be anonymous. New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work. The proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending.

    Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

    Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the burdens of going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcasted on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

    Full paper at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

    Satoshi Nakamoto

    He realeased Bitcoin v0.1 on Thu Jan 8 14:27:40 EST 2009 -- more than 2 months later. By May, he had ceased all communication on the mailing list.

    holaymolay

    Posted 2013-08-19T21:12:33.790

    Reputation: 161