Bitcoin White Paper Discovered on Modern Apple’s Mac Devices

Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper has been discovered to be hidden in modern iterations of the operating systems in Apple’s Mac computers.

American Technologist, Andy Baio explained that he accidentally found a PDF copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper called “Virtual Scanner II” while trying to repair his printer and scan a document with a wireless scanner. 

Following the discovery, Baio said he called some of his friends using Mac to confirm, and it was present for each of them. The PDF file was found to be present in all macOS versions from Mojave (10.14.0) to the most recent version, Ventura (13.3), but not in High Sierra (10.13) or earlier.

Why Apple chose to conceal the file on Mac computers has been the subject of numerous inquiries. Although Apple has not yet commented on the discovery, Baio suggested that the installation of the file may have been done for convenience or testing purposes due to its small size of 184KB.

It seems that Baio is not the only one to find the whitepaper. A Twitter user and designer named Joshua Dickens provided hints regarding the file in 2020. At the time, Dickens said he saw an image-capture device called “Virtual Scanner II” on his Mac but didn’t have a clue what it meant.

The Vision of the Bitcoin Whitepaper

The Bitcoin whitepaper was written in 2008 by the pseudonymous person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto. It describes how the Bitcoin network works by combining cryptography and peer-to-peer networking, allowing users to securely send and receive Bitcoin without the need for a third party.

Additionally, it explains how transactions are verified and recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, and how new bitcoins are created through a process known as mining.

Ultimately, the whitepaper presents a vision of a digital currency that is secure, decentralized, and independent of governments and financial institutions. 

While the creator of Bitcoin is yet to be known, an Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur, Craig Wright has claimed to be the inventor of the stellar coin. However, his claim has been widely disputed by the crypto community, and he has been embroiled in a number of legal battles and controversies over his claim to be Nakamoto.