Much has been said and done in the almost 13 years since the Bitcoin white paper is released. It has undergone a lot of changes that has taken away the original and true meaning of Bitcoin. In 2018, Bitcoin SV was born and it has successfully restored the original Bitcoin design, as close as possible to the Bitcoin white paper. Now, there is a need to correct the common misconceptions people have about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin creator, author of the white paper and nChain Chief Scientist Dr. Craig S. Wright and engineering head of tokenization entity smart wallet at the Bayesian Group and Money Button founder Ryan X. Charles have made a “Theory of Bitcoin” series that aims to educate the masses about the inner workings of Bitcoin. They stepped away from regular programming to focus on the Bitcoin white paper to clarify misinterpretations and define Bitcoin terms.

In the first episode, the duo explains line by line the title and abstract. An interesting part of their discussion is about one of the most commonly misinterpreted Bitcoin terms: digital signatures. This term is often misconstrued to mean that the Bitcoin network can hide users’ identities and create untraceable transactions. This misunderstanding has given Bitcoin a reputation for being a haven for illegal activities such as money laundering and drug trafficking. However, this is so far from what Dr. Wright intended when he wrote the white paper.

“Digital signatures require identity. It doesn’t need to be public, that’s what people misunderstand. You don’t need to publicly attest, you need to attest before you use any of these things—and only from that point forward…. You can’t have a signature without an identity. The meaning of the word doesn’t allow that,” Dr. Wright clarifies.

Dr. Wright further explains that it is an anarchist view to think that encrypted digital signatures can be created without having a real world identity because people do not want to leave a trace of themselves for governments to use against them.

"When people talk about using cryptographic keys to digitally sign, it’s [still] ‘digitally sign.’ So, you’re creating a signature. You can’t take that word out of isolation and say that means other things. You don’t sign as nobody. You sign as somebody,” Dr Wright explains.

According to Dr. Wright, it is the same as saying you can buy a house and sign “nobody” on the deed of sale, and no law will recognize this type of contract. Digital signature is used in the Bitcoin white paper in a legal sense and not as a computer science term.

“You don’t need to give away your full identity, you can remain pseudonymous. I’ve talked about this in the past. But you still have a legal identity. So, the law recognizes partial identity. It has in Britain for hundreds of years now. We have a thing like pseudonymous author payments. But notice when I say, “pseudonymous,” not “anonymous.” As an author using a pen name, you can still get paid for your copyright. And no one knows who you are,” Dr. Wright further clarifies.

Again, the Bitcoin network does not give users anonymity and Bitcoin transactions are definitely not untraceable. It cannot be a haven for criminal activity.

To learn more about Bitcoin terms, subscribe to the Theory of Bitcoin YouTube channel here.