The cryptocurrency: BitcoinPrelude There are many ways to make money: you can earn it, find it or counterfeit it. Or, if you are Satoshi Nakamoto, you can create it. In November 2008, a mysterious entity by the name of "Satoshi Nakamoto" published a research paper outlining his design for a new digital currency that he called bitcoin. None of the veterans had heard of him, and what little information could be gleaned was obscure and contradictory. On his online profile, he said he is from Japan. His email address came from a German service, and a Google search for his name turned up no relevant information; it was clearly a pseudonym. But while Nakamoto himself may have been an enigma, his creation solved a problem that had perplexed cryptographers for decades. Introduction: What is a Bitcoin Basically, bitcoin is a decentralized protocol for online payments, such as a digital currency designed to allow people to buy and sell without centralized control by banks or governments and allows anonymous transactions not tied to a real identity. The problem with purely digital currencies is that of double spending, and the usual solution is to rely on a trusted intermediary. Visa, MasterCard and every other bank and payment processor make sure you can't spend the same dollars twice by deducting them from your account before they are added to someone else's account. However, the enigmatic creator specifically tried to avoid this centralized approach in the original bitcoin design. His idea was to use cryptography to create verifiable records of transactions without the need to trust anyone but his own calculations, immune to print-happy central bankers and Weimar Republic-style hyperinflation. Like... middle of paper... ....s, Nathan. “Bitcoin: Virtual Money Created by CPU Cycles.” Welcome to LWN.net. November 10, 2010. Web. November 28, 2011. .Lupo, Brett. “Bitcoin exchanges offer help against money laundering | Reuters.” Latest news, business news, financial and investment news and more | Reuters.co.uk. June 15, 2011. Web. November 28, 2011. "Virtual Currency: Bits and Bob | The Economist." The Economist - World news, politics, economics, business and finance. June 13, 2011. Web. November 28, 2011. .Cohn, Cindy. "EFF and Bitcoin | Electronic Frontier Foundation." Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defend your rights in the digital world. June 20, 2011. Web. November 28. 2011. .