Five years, that’s how long the Bitcoin whitepaper has been hiding in plain site, within every release of MacOS since Mojave in 2018. If you’re wondering what the Bitcoin whitepaper is, it’s the original thesis that laid out a very basic structure for the Bitcoin network back in 2008.
Over time, the document has been looked upon as a seminal moment in the world of crypto, but the bigger question is, why can it be found randomly in MacOS and who put it there?
Naturally, the crypto scene has already laid claim that this could be an agenda by Apple or an individual within the company but the truth is we don’t have a clue why this has happened. Waxy first reported the discovery of the Bitcoin whitepaper after stumbling upon it when founder Andy Baio was trying to fix their printer.
Finding the Bitcoin whitepaper document requires opening the Terminal and typing a set command. Alternatively you can navigate your way there through the file library. Exact commands can be found in the original post from Waxy.
In an update to the post, information was anonymously passed on to Baio stating that the document was discovered internally almost a year ago! Despite the issue being flagged, it was reportedly assigned to the same Apple engineer who made the decision to include it in the first place, thus leaving them with the dilemma of whether or not they remove the file. As we sit here all this time later, finally learning of it’s existence, it’s clear which path was taken.
This entire situation leaves us wondering if there are any other hidden easter eggs deep in the MacOS nucleus. Perhaps a playable version of Galaga somewhere in the terminal would be cool. Alas, we sit and wait with anticipation of the next major discovery.