A blockchain developer claims to have found the oldest, unaltered copy of the first version of Bitcoin's code, v0.1. According to the developer, this version contains the original files and pure personal data of Satoshi Nakamoto himself, the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin.
The history of Bitcoin, the world's most important and powerful cryptocurrency, holds its own mysteries. One of them is the identity of its creator, the entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto, whose face is still unknown. In addition, it is not clear whether Satoshi was just one person or a group of people who worked together to create this powerful cryptocurrency.
But the truth is that Satoshi Nakamoto first spoke about the existence of Bitcoin in October 2008, publishing its whitepaper on the 31st of that month. Later, in January 2009, it extracted the first block of the network and the protocol it had designed, calling it “genesis block” to the first block that started Bitcoin, on January 3rd.
Almost a week after the network was launched, On Thursday, January 08, 2009, Satoshi shared the first version v0.1 of the Bitcoin softwareThe payload for this particular first version was believed to be lost since at least 2012.
However, blockchain developer Jim Blasko recently published a post on his Facebook account reporting that he had found the official, unaltered copy of this first version of the Bitcoin code.
Blasko says he found this copy of the blockchain network code after doing some research and “a bit of browser hacking,” which led him to the whereabouts of the original version of the Bitcoin code, the oldest and cleanest copy on record so far, along with Satoshi’s lost data and files.
The original, unaltered Bitcoin code, v0.1
The first version of the Bitcoin software was initially uploaded by Satoshi Nakamoto on Source Forge, an open source software development platform.
Later, in August 2009, when Bitcoin had been shared only with a small group of cypherpunks, also Bitcoin developer Martti Malmi, one of the first to support the cryptocurrency, uploaded the original Bitcoin code, the raw v0.1 version, to the Source Forge platformMalmi is known by his nickname “sirius-m” or “sirius” on BitcoinTalk.
However, Blasko said that since 2012, Bitcoin's raw code and Satoshi's files have been thought to have disappeared, because for some reason the Source Forge platform had extracted them from the search engine.
According to his assessment, Bitcoin's original code was removed to protect the young blockchain network, which at that time had just been born.
“It was better to hide in a new version and not show the code changes (a smart move since Bitcoin was super young at the time)”, Blasko wrote in his post.
A code lost since 2012
Hal Finney, the first to execute Bitcoin code after Satoshi, was going to share the original Bitcoin code with a few people in 2012, via his email. However, according to Blasko, it is not known whether Finney, who was going through a delicate moment due to his deteriorating health due to ALS, managed to send the emails and share the original Bitcoin code.
Finney was the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction, on January 12, 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Finney that day to test the network.
“I know that many users have been looking for the original v0.1 code for a long time and Hal Finney was planning to email it to some people in 2012, but his health was poor and, in his own words, he didn't log on much to respond.”, Blasko wrote in his post. “So it is with great pleasure that I proudly present to you again the oldest known official uploaded copy of Satoshi’s Bitcoin v0.1, believed to have been missing for 10 years.”.
The version found by Blasko corresponds to the one uploaded by Malmi on Source Forge in August 2009The blockchain developer claims this is the cleanest, most unaltered original version of the Bitcoin code known so far.
What does v0.1 of the Bitcoin code contain?
The original version of the Bitcoin code found by Blasko contains pure original data and files from Satoshi Nakamoto, such as his personal notes.
These data, according to the links Blasko provided in his post, contain answers as to why Satoshi used base58 encoding for the creation of Bitcoin. The opcodes or the original operating codes of the Bitcoin protocol along with its functionalities, among other things.
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