According to the oldest entries on the P2P Foundation website, Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, selected April 5, 1975, as “his” birthday for profile purposes, meaning that Nakamoto turned 50 years old this weekend.
Several niche digital asset publications as well as Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, joined in noting the occasion, as did many prominent bitcoiners.
Bitcoin Wiki’s list of “bitcoin holidays” marks April 5 as “Satoshi’s Birthday” and encourages bitcoiners to make contributions to free open-source software (FOSS) projects on this day.
Speaking editorially however, perhaps more than a hat tip is also due towards marking the importance of self-custody of one’s bitcoin in personal offline cold storage on this day.
Why?
Not unlike January 3’s “Proof of Keys,” observance, bitcoiners might want to claim this date to make themselves, and others, more aware of the significance of April 5 — particularly, April 5, 1933.
Like all things bitcoin, there are many layers and “Easter eggs” for one to discover, the further down the bitcoin rabbit hole one travels.
According to prominent bitcoin mining company, exchange and educational platform, River, the date is indeed symbolic.
So why did Nakamoto choose this date as his alleged birthday in the first place? Writing as far back as 2016, The Guardian stated,
“Nakamoto had a habit of leaving little Easter eggs. My favourite was the birthdate he left on his registration form at the P2P Foundation – 5 April 1975.
“… the date President Roosevelt signed executive order 6102, which made it illegal for Americans to own gold. But Nakamoto gave the year of his birth as 1975 – the year it became legal for Americans to own gold again.
“If that all sounds too tenuous to be credible, you don’t know Nakamoto.”
Further, general AI consensus, while sometimes unreliable, agrees with existing sources, summing up the presumed symbolism of the date succinctly, saying that Nakamoto’s choice of birthday,
“is believed to be a symbolic reference to … when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 …”
Like bitcoin today, in the 1930s gold had achieved the status of being both a worldwide long-term store of value and currency for daily transactions.
Executive Order 6102, however, literally required all Americans to turn in most of their gold to the U.S. government, or risk fines of possibly $10,000 (then; estimated $2-300,000 in today’s value) and imprisonment of up to 10 years.
The advent of bitcoin, however, meant for the first time in history, a store of value had been created that could not be seized, frozen or stolen by a government, except by a physical in-person act of violence or threat of harm – but not stolen overnight by thieves breaking in while the owner is away, or by the “flick” of a central bank’s “switch.”
Nakamoto’s choice of this particular date has long been established as not an accident, and agreed upon by the industry as a whole to be a nod to OG bitcoiner cypherpunk ethos, and the fact that bitcoin was invented in part to reverse a governing entity’s ability to control their citizens’ finances.
Speaking of hidden “Easter eggs,” those familiar with “bitcoin twitter’s” recent Pi Day “prophecy fulfillment” will remember that patterns in bitcoin’s design are allegedly reminiscent of Nikola Tesla’s discoveries and philosophies – such as his “3, 6, 9” fractal view of the cosmos.
These bitcoin design patterns were said to have been evident in and crucial to trader Josh Mandell’s recently realized successful 100+-day advance price forecast.
For greater context however, notice of such inspiration, joking or no, being behind bitcoin’s design goes back over 10 years, as on display still in an old Reddit thread:
Curiously, the same thread also points out further possible eggs, that April 5 is the end of UK’s tax year, as well as another user’s response:
“The birth dates coupled with the insertion of a link buried within the genesis block to a London Times article entitled ‘Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks’, make it clear Satoshi Nakamoto was politically motivated and displayed such through (thorough) easter eggs hidden within their work.”
So, is there any chance this is all coincidence?
Requoting The Guardian from above,
“If that all sounds too tenuous to be credible, you don’t know Nakamoto.“