Satoshi quotes

[s-tikhomirov]

On universality of programming language (use in Ethereum chapter, lol):

The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime. Because of that, I wanted to design it to support every possible transaction type I could think of. The problem was, each thing required special support code and data fields whether it was used or not, and only covered one special case at a time. It would have been an explosion of special cases. The solution was script, which generalizes the problem so transacting parties can describe their transaction as a predicate that the node network evaluates. The nodes only need to understand the transaction to the extent of evaluating whether the sender's conditions are met.

How long have you been working on this design Satoshi? It seems very well thought out, not the kind of thing you just sit down and code up without doing a lot of brainstorming and discussion on it first. Everyone has the obvious questions looking for holes in it but it is holding up well Smiley
Since 2007. At some point I became convinced there was a way to do this without any trust required at all and couldn't resist to keep thinking about it.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/127/

If a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU proof-of-worker than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth.
https://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/ (from the whitepaper really?)

It has the potential for a positive feedback loop; as users increase, the value goes up, which could attract more users to take advantage of the increasing value.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/p2pfoundation/3/

I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/57/

Gold mining is a waste, but that waste is far less than the utility of having gold available as a medium of exchange. I think the case will be the same for Bitcoin. The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used. Therefore, not having Bitcoin would be the net waste.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/327/

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/4/

On (pre-)ASICS:

We should have a gentleman's agreement to postpone the GPU arms race as long as we can for the good of the network. It's much easer to get new users up to speed if they don't have to worry about GPU drivers and compatibility. It's nice how anyone with just a CPU can compete fairly equally right now.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/20/

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. [question: You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.]
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/4/

The only way to confirm the absence of a transaction is to be aware of all transactions.
https://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/

On privacy:

The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of individual trades, the "tape", is made public, but without telling who the parties were.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/privacy/

The proof-of-work chain is the solution to the synchronisation problem, and to knowing what the globally shared view is without having to trust anyone.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/8/

As you figured out, the root problem is we shouldn't be counting or spending transactions until they have at least 1 confirmation. 0/unconfirmed transactions are very much second class citizens. At most, they are advice that something has been received, but counting them as balance or spending them is premature.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/464/