About Bitcoin Institute

Mission

Bitcoin Institute aims to be the definitive reference for understanding Satoshi Nakamoto — primary sources from the cypherpunks era through the post-Satoshi years, and editorial readings that connect them.

Scope

Satoshi Nakamoto's writings — All emails, forum posts, and code comments
Conversations — Exchanges with Adam Back, Wei Dai, Hal Finney, James A. Donald, and others
Aftermath — Court testimonies, blog retrospectives, interviews, media reports, and key historical events in Bitcoin's early history
Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) — Key protocol specifications that shaped Bitcoin's development, including HD wallets, SegWit, Taproot, and more
Editorial readings — Curated commentary by the Bitcoin Institute on source code, primary records, and Satoshi's footprint. Clearly marked as interpretation, sourced where claims are made.

Policy

Core principles

Facts in primary entries — Primary entries (emails, forum posts, BIPs, court records) record historical facts only, with no speculation
Interpretation in editorial readings — Editorial readings are explicitly labeled as interpretation, with each claim cited to its source
Sources required — Every entry must cite its original source with a verifiable URL
Accuracy — Content is verified against original archives

Detailed rules

Content preservation — Once archived, content is permanently retained even if the original source becomes unavailable. Source URLs reflect the location at the time of archival and may no longer be accessible.
Multiple sources — Where possible, entries cite secondary sources (e.g., Satoshi Nakamoto Institute) to provide redundancy against link rot.
Timestamps — All dates and times are in UTC. Timestamps from the cryptography mailing list (displayed in EDT/EST by the Mailman archiver) have been converted to UTC. BitcoinTalk forum timestamps are UTC by default. Where only a date is known (e.g., blog posts, court proceedings), the time is recorded as 00:00:00 UTC. The Satoshi Nakamoto Institute's UTC-normalized timestamps are used as the primary reference.
Names in translation — In the Japanese edition, person names are normalized to katakana in UI and editorial text for consistency. Quotes, source titles, organization names, brand names, handles, and URLs retain their original-language forms where appropriate.
Entry granularity — Each primary source document (email, forum post, or letter) is archived as a single entry. One document equals one entry. Aftermath entries (retrospectives, media reports, court testimonies) each represent a single event or article.
Thread structure — Related messages are grouped into threads. Each message remains an individual entry, linked by a shared thread identifier. Figures listed on each entry reflect only the direct conversation partners (author and respondent), not all thread figures.
Biographies — Biographical profiles of key figures are compiled from multiple public sources and displayed on each figure's page. All facts cited in biographies are backed by verifiable source URLs listed in the entry's references.

Sources

Content is sourced from publicly available archives:

Contributing

This is an open source project. Contributions are welcome via GitHub.