Bitcoin is a Technological Invention of the Fifth Degree

Viesturs Tamužs

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The primary condition for society's existence is its members' mutual trust. Money is the materialized form of this trust. A perfect money item must meet eight requirements. It should: 1) quickly and conveniently transfer value in space; 2) securely transfer value in time; 3) serve as a measure of value; 4) be long-term; 5) be divisible; 6) enjoy the trust of users; 7) be unfalsifiable; 8) be independent of central authority. In the three thousand years since people have been using money, it has not been possible to create a monetary item that meets all the requirements because there are intractable contradictions between several of them. Of all monetary items, the most suitable for all requirements is gold. However, gold also has its drawbacks; for example, it can be counterfeited, so its safe use requires a central authority.

All the requirements for a perfect money item have been realized by creating a new money item - Bitcoin. We don't know if the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, was a TRIZ practitioner. Still, by reconstructing his thought process, we can see that he could identify all the internal contradictions of the perfect monetary object and solve them with TRIZ-specific techniques.

The central contradiction that Satoshi Nakamoto resolved was the contradiction of central authority. A monetary item must be independent of a central authority, but a central authority ensures both users' trust in the monetary item and prevents money counterfeiting. The creator of Bitcoin solved this contradiction by eliminating the central authority as a system and dividing its functions into subsystems - the nodes of the Bitcoin network.

Analyzing Bitcoin technology reveals several more characteristics of TRIZ technological solutions. For example, the operation of the Bitcoin system is maintained with the help of its internal resources because the work done to preserve and develop the system is rewarded with a product created by the system itself—newly issued bitcoins.

Viesturs Tamuzs

Master of Chemistry, Bachelor of Philosophy, AI TRIZ Practitioner, Member of AI (Altshuller Institute) Board of Directors

Mr. Viesturs Tamuzs is an active promoter and educator of Bitcoin.  For more than thirty years, Mr. Viesturs Tamuzs has been an active venture capitalist; in recent years, his interest has been in cryptocurrency companies. He holds a master’s degree in chemistry from the Chemistry Faculty of the University of Latvia, where he also pursued academic work as a researcher and faculty member. In 2020, he obtained a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the Open University (UK). He is the author of three scientific works related to TRIZ.