2020 Articles

Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies in Design

Scherling, Laura

Over a decade has passed since the paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was published to a cryptography mailing list by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. In the 8-page white paper Nakamoto proposed a decentralized currency, Bitcoin, built on “a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions.” Each transaction would originate with a time stamp server, next hashing these transactions “into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed.” In theory this democratized system would lower double-spending and foster greater trust among users through disintermediation — eliminating corporate oversight, gatekeepers, or a central authority. In practice, Bitcoin and the blockchain technology it is built on (the framework which verifies transactions in a peer-to-peer hashed network) has been exciting, controversial, and at times puzzling in its capabilities, for users and non-users alike.