Apple removed the Bitcoin whitepaper

Apple quietly removed the Virtual Scanner II app and, with it, the Bitcoin whitepaper in the latest macOS Ventura 13.4 beta.

There are numerous Easter eggs and hidden files in macOS that won't appear without some kind of specific user action. Earlier in April, Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin whitepaper was located within a test scanner app in macOS, and no one knew why it was there.

Users running the macOS Ventura 13.4 beta 3 have discovered that the Bitcoin whitepaper and the Virtual Scanner II app have been removed. This removal has been confirmed by 9to5Mac.

The existence of the whitepaper can be easily explained, as it may have been used as a simple test file that is a conveniently small size. The developer building the test app may have been a Bitcoin investor or inserted it as a joke.

However, as things seem to do on the internet, people began to speculate wild theories. One theory that's spread quickly in the back alleys of Bitcoin Twitter — Steve Jobs is actually Satoshi Nakamoto.

Of course, this theory is absurd. A man who claims to be the true inventor of Bitcoin even suggested he would sue Apple for breach of copyright law.

The whitepaper could be found with a Terminal command, which will no longer work when MacOS Ventura 13.4 is release:

open /System/Library/Image\ Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf

Apple removed the file and Virtual Scanner II app since they likely appeared by mistake in the first place. It was a tool that normal users are not meant to find or use.

Wesley Hilliard

Wesley Hilliard served 10 years in the US Navy as a Nuclear Power Electrician. He jumped careers based on his love for technology and has been working for AppleInsider since 2019. Today he is an Assistant Editor, Writer, Podcast Cohost, SEO Specialist, and Social Media Manager for the company.