Apple has reportedly removed the Bitcoin White Paper in the latest beta version for the Mac operating system
A security guard stands outside a newly opened Apple store in New Delhi. Kabir Jhangiani—NurPhoto/Getty Images
Three weeks ago, Andy Baio, a technologist and former CTO of Kickstarter, found the Bitcoin white paper hidden in a nest of folders on his MacBook.
Now, Apple has reportedly removed the white paper from its latest beta for the Mac operating system, according to 9to5mac. Developers have reportedly confirmed the removal of the nine-page PDF file outlining the design of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency after the third beta for macOS 13.4 Ventura was released on Tuesday.
An Apple spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brandon Butch, a popular social media personality who reviews and explores Apple products, confirmed Fortune that the white paper was removed when he opened the beta.
Previously, the PDF was available on all Mac operating systems after 2018, according to Baio. “I’ve asked over a dozen Mac-using friends to confirm, and it was there for every one of them,” he wrote in a blog post detailing his discovery. He stumbled upon the white paper, written by Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious and anonymous founder of Bitcoin, when he tried to scan documents from a combination printer-scanner into his computer.
Baio wrote a shortcut in Terminal, or a program for exploring a Mac’s file system using text commands, to pull up the white paper. The task is also available via the Finder, a Mac’s file management system. Fortune was able to independently confirm the location of a recently released MacBook Pro.
While it is unclear why Apple removed the white paper, which some crypto enthusiasts see as a quasi-religious screed, Baio has previously speculated that Fortune that its inclusion on Mac operating systems was the work of an engineer.
“In its early history, Apple developers used to hide Easter eggs in the operating system,” he previously said Fortune. “But I get the impression that this was not something management would have approved – basically the decision of a single engineer.”
An anonymous source told Baio that someone at Apple flagged the existence of Nakamoto’s manifest on Mac operating systems, but that the same engineer who allegedly placed it was tasked with removing it.
With its reported removal from the latest beta version of the Mac operating system, perhaps the media storm that accompanied the discovery of the white paper finally moved Apple higher up to delete it from all Macs.
Update 26 April 2023: This article has been updated with confirmation from Brandon Butch that the Bitcoin White paper was not on the Mac operating system’s latest beta when it was accessed.
