Apple Inc., the world’s largest tech company, recently removed the Bitcoin white paper from the latest beta version of its operating system upgrade. According to 9to5Mac, this was accomplished by taking out a test scanner app called ‘Virtual Scanner II’ in the new MacOS Ventura 13.4 beta. As a result, all references to the Bitcoin white paper have been wiped away.
On April 5, Andy Baio published a blog post that uncovered that a PDF copy of the Bitcoin white paper from Satoshi Nakamoto had come inside every MacOS over the past five years as part of Virtual Scanner II. Though nothing definitive has been concluded, speculation suggests it might be a “joke among Apple engineers,” according to Cointelegraph’s report on the matter.
Media outlets have suggested that prominent figures such as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs were the influential mind behind Bitcoin, commonly referred to as Satoshi Nakamoto, according to Apple Insider. Such conspiracies remain largely unfounded.
Apple found the document inappropriate and has removed it from the latest version of their Mac operating system. The white paper was contained within a folder located in the Image Capture app. This folder contained PDFs, images, and various other files. 9to5Mac commented on this finding:
“This pretty much confirms our original theory that both the Bitcoin white paper and the internal tool were never meant to be found by regular users.”
In a California court appearance recently, Apple was found to be in violation of state laws regarding fair competition. The tech giant had been attempting to mandate that developers use its payments platform when selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and were charging an exorbitant 30% commission for each transaction made through the platform.
