The post How Neal Stephenson ‘invented’ Bitcoin in the ‘90s: Author interview appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Author Neal Stephenson famously invented the term “Metaverse” with the publication of Snow Crash in 1992 — a year before the World Wide Web or Doom even launched. But for crypto fans, his fictional depictions of early versions of Bitcoin more than a decade before it was invented are even better reasons to celebrate his work. Neal Stephenson spoke with Magazine in Singapore (Fenton) In his 1995 novel The Diamond Age he described an anonymous peer-to-peer communication system that could transfer money. A short story he published in TIME that same year called The Great Simoleon Caper explored a private, cryptographic digital currency using private keys called CryptoCredits. His most in-depth work detailing a plan to set up money outside of the control of the state was the 1999 doorstopper opus Cryptonomicon, whose title was partly inspired by the Cyphernomicon FAQ. Stephenson was so influential among the cypherpunks that some believe the Bitcoin White Paper was deliberately released on his birthday, October 31, in honor of his work. Others have even suggested — only half jokingly — that he might be Satoshi himself. Reason Magazine put out an article in 2019 saying he probably wasn’t, but it wouldn’t be that surprising if he was. “It’s plausible that Neal Stephenson invented, or helped invent, Bitcoin, because that is simply the sort of thing that Neal Stephenson might do,” wrote Peter Suderman in the piece. Stephenson tells Magazine during an interview in Singapore he’s been fascinated by codes and cyphers since he was a kid in the 1960s. “I was a little code-breaking geek when I was a little boy,” he says in his thoughtful drawl.“On the dust flap of the original edition [of Cryptonomicon] there’s a picture that my Mom or Dad took for me when I was probably eight years…

---

Filed under: News - @ December 4, 2025 4:27 am