The history of Bitcoin is usually told as a modern cryptographic fairy tale. One person—or a group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto—publishes a white paper, releases the code, disappears, and the world receives decentralized money.
But if we strip away the romance, another, far less comfortable question emerges: what if Bitcoin is not a rebellion against the system, but one of the system’s most elegant projects?
This idea sounds heretical—right up until we remember the history of TOR.
The TOR lesson the crypto community prefers not to learn
For decades, TOR was seen as a symbol of resistance to the state. Only later did it become common knowledge:
its architecture was born inside the US Naval Research Laboratory, with funding from DARPA.
And here is the key point that is often missed:
TOR did not “leak” from the state.
It was designed from the outset to remain useful to the state even after losing formal control.
The mass civilian use of TOR:
- did not weaken its value for intelligence,
- but strengthened it by creating noise behind which truly interesting targets can hide.
This pattern—state technology → open source → ideological mask → strategic advantage—already existed.
That is why the “Bitcoin as an analogue of TOR” theory is not marginal, but historically grounded.
Bitcoin as a perfect dystopia for financial intelligence
In the public narrative, Bitcoin is described as:
- anonymous,
- uncontrollable,
- anti-state.
But at a technical level, it is the opposite of cash.
Bitcoin:
- records every transaction forever;
- does not allow data to be “forgotten”;
- enables retrospective analysis decades later.
From the perspective of financial intelligence, this is not a nightmare—it is a dream.
No banking log:
- lives that long,
- remains that intact,
- is that resistant to destruction.
Bitcoin is a global financial archive, voluntarily filled by its users.
The question that is rarely asked out loud:
who benefits most from the existence of an eternal, public ledger of value movements?
An architecture that does not rush—and is therefore convenient
If we assume Satoshi was a radical libertarian, his technical choices look strange.
Why:
- ten minutes per block?
- a rigid block size?
- no privacy by default?
These decisions have been criticized by developers for decades, but if Bitcoin is viewed as an observable system, everything falls into place.
A slow network:
- simplifies event correlation;
- makes network analysis easier;
- lowers the requirements for monitoring infrastructure.
This is not the design of “digital cash.”
It is the design of a financial telegraph, where every message is visible to everyone.
Cryptography without magic: the power lies not in algorithms, but in metadata
A common argument in debates is:
“But Bitcoin’s cryptography is strong, so intelligence agencies have nothing to do with it.”
This is a logical error.
Modern intelligence:
- does not break SHA-256,
- does not crack ECDSA.
It works with:
- time,
- network topology,
- recurring behavioral patterns,
- user mistakes.
That is why:
- a transparent blockchain is more dangerous than a closed one;
- pseudonymity is worse than anonymity.
TOR is relevant here again:
it is rarely broken cryptographically—it is analyzed statistically.
Satoshi’s disappearance as an institutional trace
In the history of technology, disappearances of this magnitude are almost unheard of.
The creators of:
- PGP,
- TOR,
- BitTorrent,
- WikiLeaks
either became public figures or made mistakes.
Satoshi:
- made not a single leak;
- showed no emotional attachment to the project;
- made use of neither power nor wealth.
For an individual, this is an anomaly.
For a group operating by procedures, it is the norm.
This is where the intelligence-agency version becomes not proven, but remarkably plausible.
“But Bitcoin hurts the state”—does it really?
This argument is common, but superficial.
The state:
- does not destroy Bitcoin;
- does not ban it outright;
- does not shut down the infrastructure.
Instead:
- it regulates entry and exit points;
- builds analytics companies;
- uses blockchain data in court.
This is not the behavior of an enemy.
It is the behavior of a beneficiary who waited for the tool to mature.
The most uncomfortable question
If Bitcoin is an absolute threat to the state, why:
- did it survive its early period of vulnerability?
- did no one attempt to discredit Satoshi?
- did no one present proof of authorship?
- were the early coins never used?
History knows many leaks.
History does not know perfect silences—except institutional ones.
Where the theory cracks
To avoid turning the text into propaganda, let us honestly acknowledge the weaknesses:
- no archival documents;
- no whistleblowers;
- no paper trail of funding;
- too much ideological purity in the white paper itself.
These arguments are real and strong.
They prevent the theory from being asserted as fact.
But they do not destroy it either.
Instead of a conclusion
The history of Bitcoin is not a detective story with a solution.
It is a mirror reflecting our ideas about power, freedom, and control.
Was Satoshi:
- a cypherpunk idealist?
- a group of developers?
- a government contractor?
- or all of the above at once?
There is no answer.
And perhaps that was part of the design.
The beginning is here 👉 Who really created Bitcoin?
To be continued in the next article
