The approach of Satoshi Nakamoto is not the way typical cryptographers would create cryptocurrencies. See gwern's article Bitcoin is Worse Is Better http://www

The approach of Satoshi Nakamoto is not the way typical cryptographers would create cryptocurrencies. See gwern's article Bitcoin is Worse Is Better http://www.gwern.net/Bitcoin%20is%20Worse%20is%20Better http://www.gwern.net/Bitcoin%20is%20Worse%20is%20Better Satoshi's genius is the ability to combine several well known technologies and figure out the right kind of tradeoffs that would make bitcoin works. Yes, bitcoin sucks in many way such as not being able to do anonymous trade offline, being forced to store a blockchain, needing enough computation power to counter evil miners, needing the social cooperation of miners and users, and so on. But you have to admit, it works.