Bitcoin’s culture today emphasizes “don’t trust, verify.”
When Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin v0.1.0 on SourceForge in January 2009, the software already included cryptography, networking, a wallet, mining, and even a GUI.
My question is:
Did Satoshi write all of this from scratch in C++, or did he trust external libraries for certain components?
For example: OpenSSL (crypto), Berkeley DB (storage), wxWidgets (GUI), Winsock (networking).
If he did rely on external libraries, was that an intentional case of “trust but verify” — using proven code where possible, while implementing consensus rules himself?
What risks or trade-offs came from this approach?
In short: how much of Bitcoin v0.1 was original Satoshi code, and how much depended on trusted third-party libraries?











