The Bitcoin Origin Story

Any names used in this story are not the real names of the people involved. The identities have been kept a secret to protect them and the people and any animals around them.

It was early in the morning on August 18, 2008. Thomas had just taken his dog for a walk before heading back home to make some of his favorite breakfast items. He wanted to try something new, but he did not know what. He opened the door and let the dog go. The dog moved slowly through the house, heading towards the water bowl near the kitchen entrance.

Ring. Ring. He shook his head. There went the phone again. His best friend would not stop calling him, telling him he should do something with his coin collection. The problem was he did not want to do anything with it. He had been working on it since he was five years old. The first coin he had gotten that had started the collection was the one that was most precious to him. His father had found it for him when he had gone off on a business trip in Japan. Unlike the rest of the coins in his collection, this one did not even look like it was real. There was no way it could be real. It was gold with a letter he could not make out on it.

Ring. Ring. Thomas sighed. He would not stop calling him. He always had to try to talk to him about it first thing in the morning every day.

"Hello, Simon. What do you need? I need to make breakfast. You know my routine starts later than it used to. Bosco and I are just not the same anymore… I know. I know." He took a deep breath. "What do you want to do with the coins? What? That does not make any sense. I do not need any more money. I have all the money one guy can need. I do not want any more…. Okay. Okay. Please think of the people and what can make their lives easier…. I will, but I cannot promise you anything." He set down the phone and looked at Bosco. "I have got to come up with something. I need to get him off my back about this."

Thomas headed into the kitchen and looked around at the ingredients he needed to make his favorite oatmeal. He did not have time for anything else anymore. He had to start working on this idea that Simon was bugging him about it.

After sitting down at his desk, Thomas carefully looked at each of his coins to choose which one to pick. It had to be the one that would catch everyone's attention. He smiled. There was no other coin to decide. It had to be the one his father had gotten him. It was the one that would stand out the most. With the coin selected, he scanned over each detail of it and smiled. There was only one thing he could do. He could use it to create a way to help people. He sighed. He also needed to choose a letter to put on the coin, but he had no idea what letter to choose.

He smiled and picked up the phone. "Simon, I have an idea, but I need your computer help and some other help as well. I want to create an online cash system using my father's coin as the logo for it… I will tell you more about it when you get over here. Do not tell anyone. I do not want anyone to know about this."

Thirty minutes later, he walked over to the door and smiled at the younger man who stood across from him. He had met Simon when he was teaching at Stanford University. Simon was one of his best students, and he was a visionary when it came to creating new systems, but he would never tell anyone about what he was inventing not even him.

"Come in. We can talk more once you are inside."

"Okay. Thomas." He walked past him and into the apartment. He walked over to the desk and sat down on a nearby chair. "Now, let me hear what you have come up with."

Thomas smiled and handed him the coin he had chosen. "I still do not want to lose any of my coins, but I have realized that was never the idea you had in mind. We can help people with an online cash system. This coin could be the logo. I do not know what letter to put on the coin."

"That is easy. We can put a B on it and two vertical lines on top and bottom of it to represent the lines that go through the S of a dollar sign."

"Why a B?"

Simon laughed and pointed at the old dog lying not far away from them. "Him. He has been with you for a long time, and it will be a nice way to remember him."

He smiled. "That is perfect. Time to get started."

The two men looked over every detail of the cash system before deciding that they had what they wanted to go with.

*

Two years later, Thomas left the apartment he had moved in after he finished teaching and decided to move out of the country. He could no longer stay in the apartment. It did not matter how much money he had gotten from the company, Bitcoin, that he and Simon had created that one day in August. None of it helped him to try and save Bosco, his loyal old dog. After retrieving the dog's ashes from the veterinary hospital, he placed them in a jar and taped the ancient coin on top. People may wonder where the creators had gone, but all that mattered to him, he was finding out where he belonged now without his old dog by his side.