Cryptocurrency: BitcoinPreludeThere are many ways to make money: you can earn it, find it or counterfeit it. Or, if you're Satoshi Nakamoto, you can create it. In November 2008, a mysterious entity posing as "Satoshi Nakamoto" published a research paper describing his design for a new digital currency he called Bitcoin. None of the veterans had heard of him, and what little information could be gleaned was murky and contradictory. On his online profile, he stated that he was from Japan. His email address came from a German service, and Google searches on his name revealed no relevant information; it was clearly a pseudonym. But while Nakamoto himself may have been a headache, his creation solved a problem that had stumped cryptographers for decades. without centralized control by banks or governments, and it allows anonymous transactions that are not linked to a real identity. The problem with purely digital currencies is that of double spending, and the usual solution is to appoint a trusted intermediary. Visa, MasterCard and all other banks and payment processors guarantee that you cannot 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 design of Bitcoin. His idea was to use cryptography to create verifiable records of transactions without needing to trust anyone but your own calculations, safe from central bankers happy to print money and hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. How...... middle of paper .... ....s, Nathan. “Bitcoin: virtual money created by processor cycles.” Welcome to LWN.net. November 10, 2010. The web. November 28, 2011. Wolf, Brett. "Bitcoin exchanges offer help against money laundering | Reuters." Latest News, Business News, Financial & Investment News and More | Reuters.co.uk. June 15, 2011. the web. November 28, 2011. “Virtual currency: Bits and Bob | The Economist. » The Economist - Global news, politics, economics, business and finance. June 13, 2011. the 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. the web. November 28. 2011. .