Bitcoin’s White Paper Turns 18: From Nine Pages to Wall Street and Washington

Bitcoin’s founding paper proposed a way to send money without a bank. Eighteen years later, its reach spans Wall Street funds, government reserves, and an unresolved question about who will pay to keep the system secure. Bitcoin was designed to let people send money without a bank. Now, 18 years later, Wall Street sells access to it, and Washington has ordered a national reserve. That contrast frames the anniversary of “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Published on Oct. 31, 2008, the nine-page paper addressed a deceptively simple problem: how to stop someone from spending the same digital money twice without a trusted institution keeping score. Oct. 31, 2026, marks 18 years since its release.

BeCrypto News shows a short excerpt and links to the publisher. The full report belongs to Bitcoin.com News.