Bitcoin White Paper Turns 18 as Wall Street Embraces the Asset

Bitcoin’s white paper reaches its 18th anniversary Saturday as the asset’s growing role in exchange-traded funds, corporate balance sheets and other financial products contrasts with its original aim of bypassing banks. Published Oct. 31, 2008, the document proposed a peer-to-peer electronic payment system. It described users making payments directly, without banks or a central authority. That design put payment activity outside the usual institutional structure. Over the years, Bitcoin moved from a marginal experiment associated with online forums and the dark web to an asset embraced by Wall Street and institutional investors.