Bitcoin Added to the Guinness Book of World Records

Bitcoin Added to the Guinness Book of World Records

Since 1955, Guinness World Records (GWR) has published an annual book that covers world records from extreme natural events to human achievements. Bitcoin has been added to the list of annual records this year as the world’s first and most valuable cryptocurrency network.

Bitcoin Makes the Guinness Book of World Records

Satoshi Nakamoto’s cryptocurrency and blockchain network, Bitcoin, has received several accolades over the years, and it’s been recognized by the mainstream media and traditional platforms. The word "bitcoin" was added to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary in 2016, and two years later it made it to the Scrabble lexicon. This year, Guinness World Records (GWR) has given recognition to Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention. Bitcoin is considered the "first decentralized cryptocurrency."

Guinness World Records has been officially compiling records of human achievements and extreme natural events for 67 years. Records show the first edition of Guinness World Records was the top book on the best-seller list in December 1955. The book still features a significant catalog and verification of world records tied to numerous acts and record-breaking achievements. The book of records is the brainchild of the managing director of Guinness Brewery, Sir Hugh Beaver.

A Bitcoin Achievement, but the GWR Summary Contains Errors

The summary of bitcoin featured in the latest Guinness World Records details the white paper that was published online in 2008 and explains that Bitcoin was "developed as a solution to the challenge of regulating a digital currency without any centralized organization, or ‘trusted third party,’ to oversee transactions." GWR further details that the network Satoshi Nakamoto created solved the double spending problem. The record states:

"The Bitcoin network solves the double spending problem with a "trustless" mechanism that does not require any third party to verify transactions, and it achieves that with validators such as miners. Miners are computers dedicated to the network to validate all transactions and prohibit any bad actors."

The GWR team put Bitcoin in the category of "first," as in the "first decentralized cryptocurrency." The date recorded for the record-breaking "first" is January 3, 2009, the day Bitcoin was launched. While the GWR addition is an achievement, some of the facts provided by the GWR research team are wrong.

As an example, it has recorded the wrong date of publication for the original Bitcoin white paper, which was on October 31, 2008, and it erroneously cites Satoshi Nakamoto as having 600,000 BTC in a single wallet that "has been inactive for more than a decade." The information is factually incorrect as Nakamoto’s stash does not reside in a single wallet. The BTC held by the inventor is estimated to be around 1 million BTC as opposed to the 600,000 BTC quoted by GWR.