Planting Bitcoin  Part Three: Soil

Dan Held is the founder of crypto portfolio service Picks & Shovels. He previously founded data service ZeroBlock, which sold to Blockchain, and served as VP of product at ChangeTip. 

This exclusive opinion piece is part of CoinDesk’s “Bitcoin at 10: The Satoshi White Paper” series.

In my last article, “Seasons,” I covered the precise moment in which Satoshi planted Bitcoin, the 2008 Financial Crisis. In this article, I cover the Cypherpunks or the “Soil” in which he planted the Bitcoin seed giving it the best chance for success.

 (I’ve paired this song to “Soil” because I think it fits the feel of the piece and adds additional depth. If you enjoy listening to this, please follow my playlist on Spotify.)

Cypherpunks

Sending the Bitcoin white paper to the cryptography mailing list on October 31, 2008 was the obvious choice.

This was the right group to gather feedback from, the right channel to engage with. The list was predominately populated by the Cypherpunks* who were…