Is Apple secretly supporting Bitcoin or are employees doing it on their own? The Bitcoin community is asking this question after independent blogger Andy Baio wrote in his blog that the Bitcoin technical document was found on all recent versions of macOS.
Baio says the technical document has been part of the software since version 10.14.0 and has not been removed since. It has been present in every version of macOS starting with Mojave (10.14.0) in September 2018, but was absent in High Sierra (10.13) or previous versions.
The blogger stumbled upon the Bitcoin Whitepaper by accident. “Today, while trying to fix my printer, I discovered a PDF copy of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin technical description,” Baio said, explaining that this file is used in the Image Capture utility as a sample document for a device called Virtual Scanner II, which is either hidden or not installed by default for all users.
The Bitcoin technical document will immediately open in preview mode if the user’s macOS version is 10.14 or higher. Bayo noted that users who are not familiar with the command line can use Finder and navigate by clicking with the mouse.
Select Macintosh HD, then go to SystemLibraryImage CaptureDevices. Click VirtualScanner.app while holding the Control key and select “Show Package Contents.” Then open the ContentsResources folder and find the simpledoc.pdf file inside.
Why is the Bitcoin technical document hidden in macOS? Bayo adds that he does not know why the BTC technical document was chosen out of all the other materials.
“Is there a secret Bitcoin maximalist working at Apple? Or was this a directive from the top? There is practically nothing on the internet about this,” says the blogger, adding:
“The file name ‘simpledoc.pdf’ and its size of only 184 KB. Maybe it was just a convenient, lightweight multi-page PDF file for testing purposes that was never intended for end users to view.”
Bayo received a tip from an anonymous employee who said that this issue was raised within Apple about a year ago. Interestingly, the same engineer who originally placed the PDF file there was notified of the problem but has since done nothing and said nothing.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said he likes Bitcoin in November 2021. When asked if he owns Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH), the CEO of the world’s second-largest company answered in the affirmative. He said he has invested in cryptocurrencies. He also stated that it makes sense to have a diversified portfolio. But he ruled out the possibility of Apple, like Tesla and MicroStrategy, investing in BTC in the future.