A Letter to Pop: The Origins of Bitcoin

Dated: August 2nd, 2008

To: Fisher Retirement Community.

ATTN: Letter for Mr. Nakamoto.

***

Dear Dad,

Hi Pop. It's Sato-chan. I'm your daughter. Sorry it's been awhile since I've been able to visit. I'm actually still trying to fix my wristwatch but it's tough trying to find a specialist in my neighborhood that can repair it. It's... beat up pretty bad.

I didn't think you still had such an arm on you but I don't want you to worry about that.

I asked your nice nurse, Rita, to look over your medication and to maybe up the dosage of the Razadyne and Aricept to help with the mood swings. If you've been feeling better, I'll try to come by when I have a moment free. I should never doubt your strength, Pop.

I'm doing well. I don't want to take up too much of your time but I wanted to let you know about something my friends and I have been busy working on that I think you'll find pretty interesting.

To the nurse who's most likely reading this: apologies if this bores you! I'll make sure to bring by a Starbucks gift card next visit.

So Pop, listen to this: remember when you'd come home from work and you'd wrap me in your special blue blazer that "Mr. Charles R. Flint himself would be jealous of" and I would ask you what you worked on that day? You always looked at me directly in the eyes and said "the future, my darling. Your future."

Guess what, Pop? I'm also working on the future - just like you.

It's an ongoing process but we've come up with this kind of virtual currency we can envision potentially overtaking what we know as money itself. I know what you might be thinking: "virtual currency? How will that possibly work? There'll be hacks, encryption errors, a million other factors you're not considering that will make it go wrong!"

But hasn't this been the cynicism of every innovation in the history of... the universe? Remember what every industry expert first thought of eBay? PayPal? Amazon's growth is consistent; I actually think we should look into buying a few shares of it if that's alright with you. We can also talk about that whenever I visit.

We're currently writing up a paper illustrating how this peer-to-peer electronic cash system will (hopefully) work. It's not too complicated really, in layman's terms I'd describe it as digital cash you can use for electronic purchases without the need for a middleman like a bank or other intermediary.

I know you're probably concerned with me spending my time and money on this but I promise we're considering everything, Pop. You inspired me every day of my life and I want to make you proud. I really hope this works... I know it will work.

I know this was a lot to take in and I don't want to overwhelm you so I guess I'll say my goodbyes.

One last thing I wanted to bring up: I'm thinking of incorporating the nickname you’d call me when I was growing up into the name of the currency.

Do you remember what it was?

You’d say “my sweet, although there is an infinite amount of gigabits available within the vast World Wide Web we will never be able to fully appreciate... there is only one Bit I can call my daughter.”

We're planning on registering the domain name within the next few weeks. I'm going to suggest The Bit Coin. Think it sounds alright?

I'll try to come up soon and hopefully show off my refurbished watch. I can't lose the last gift you gave me before you left.

I love you, Pop.

Yours always,

Bit.