The purpose of Bitcoin is described in its whitepaper—a short document written by a pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, published in October 2008. It describes why Bitcoin exists and how it should work. It is worth reading the whitepaper in full. It is only nine pages long and available online. The abstract says:

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double spending. We propose a solution to the double spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they’ll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

That first sentence says it all. It sets out the purpose of Bitcoin, and how Bitcoin derives both value and utility. For the first time in history, we have a system that can send value from A to B, without the physical movement of items or using specific third-party intermediaries. It is difficult to overstate how important a milestone this is in the evolution of payments. I get shivers down my spine every time I think of Bitcoin like this. As popularised by cryptocurrency industry commentator Tim Swanson, Bitcoin is designed as censorship resistant digital cash.

There is no mention of a blockchain or ‘block chain’ at all in the original Bitcoin whitepaper, even though we are constantly reminded by the media that Bitcoin is built on blockchain or that blockchain is the underlying technology of Bitcoin. A chain of blocks was not the purpose of Bitcoin, it is just the design that was developed to achieve the objective—the solution to the business problem.