Cover photo: RDNE Stock project (Pexels)
Bitcoin: The Currency Nobody Controls
A currency with no bank, no government, and a creator who vanished leaving billions untouched.
About
In 2008, banks collapse and trust in the financial system cracks in public. Into that climate, an anonymous creator writing under the name Satoshi Nakamoto publishes a nine-page paper describing a currency with no bank — and not long after, vanishes, leaving behind a fortune worth tens of billions of dollars that was never touched.
From the first, absurd trade of ten thousand bitcoin for two pizzas, to the hard drive lost in a Welsh landfill; from Silk Road and the collapse of Mt. Gox, to El Salvador, Wall Street's first funds, and the US strategic reserve — this audiobook follows the strangest path a currency has ever taken: from a plaything among a handful of programmers, to something that frightens and tempts governments at once.
And it closes on the same question that has never been answered: who, in the end, was the person who didn't trust the world enough to reveal even his own name?
Sources
- Bitcoin.org, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (Satoshi Nakamoto, 2008) — https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- Bitcoin Wiki, Genesis block — https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block
- NPR, After Newsweek 'Outs' Purported Bitcoin Founder, Questions Follow — https://www.npr.org/2014/03/07/287328734/after-newsweek-outs-purported-bitcoin-founder-questions-follow
- CoinDesk, Craig Wright Is Not Satoshi, Didn't Author Bitcoin Whitepaper, Judge Rules — https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/03/14/craig-wright-not-satoshi-didnt-author-bitcoin-whitepaper-judge-rules
- Wikipedia, Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_buried_in_Newport_landfill
- NPR, Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace — https://www.npr.org/2025/01/21/nx-s1-5270051/trump-pardons-dark-web-marketplace-creator-ross-ulbricht
- NPR, Mt. Gox Files For Bankruptcy; Nearly $500M Of Bitcoins Lost — https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/28/283863219/mtgox-files-for-bankruptcy-nearly-500m-of-bitcoins-lost
- CoinDesk, Bitcoin Now Legal Tender in El Salvador, Marking World First — https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/09/07/bitcoin-now-legal-tender-in-el-salvador-marking-world-first
- The White House / Federal Register, Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/11/2025-03992/establishment-of-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-and-united-states-digital-asset-stockpile
- Cambridge Judge Business School, Bitcoin electricity consumption: an improved assessment — https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2023/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/
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