A good name is often one of the hardest decisions to make when launching a new service or business. Historical data on domain name purchases suggests that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin (BTC), had another name option that was not chosen in the white paper.
Bitcoin.org, the original bitcoin-related website domain, was founded on August 18, 2008 under AnonymousSpeech, a service that allowed users to buy domain names anonymously in Japan. A domain purchase by AnonymousSpeech on similar dates revealed the creation of Netcoin.org on August 17, 2008, a day before the creation of Bitcoin.org.
Did you know? A day before the domain https://t.co/oDfOFzFVNi was first registered, someone bought https://t.co/KLzoDxJjrz using the same registrar. Looks like Satoshi was thinking of both names and dropped it later https://t.co/KLzoDxJjrz#Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/yqwZYRefvX
— Or Weinberger (@orweinberger) September 23, 2022
Did you know? A day before the domain https://t.co/oDfOFzFVNi was first registered, someone bought https://t.co/KLzoDxJjrz using the same registrar. Satoshi seems torn between the two names and gave up https://t.co/KLzoDxJjrz#Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/yqwZYRefvX
— Or Weinberger (@orweinberger) September 23, 2022
After further research, cryptologist Or Weinberger confirmed that no content was ever present on the domain Netcoin.org “only after someone else later found it”.
The decision to stick with bitcoin may have been key to its success due to the fact that many in the crypto community have voiced their distaste for the name Netcoin, as declared one of them :
” It’s interesting. I’m glad they stuck with bitcoin, it sounds much better. »
This discovery exposes more bitcoins from people who previously claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. The Netcoin.org domain was later deleted and re-registered in the name of a subsidiary of Web.com in 2010.
Also read: El Salvador’s Decision on Bitcoin: Tracking Adoption One Year Later
Despite the mystery surrounding the creation of bitcoin, this asset still dominates the financial markets. BitPay confirms this theory, and its data shows that bitcoin is a great payment tool despite its huge price volatility.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, BitPay VP of Marketing Merrick Theobald said that sales volumes of bitcoin-based payments on BitPay were up 52% in the first quarter of 2022.
