Updated by: May 12, 2026
The Inventors
My mum is Scottish. Which means I have a personal stake in what I’m about to tell you.
My mum’s name is Margaret. From the Greek Margarites — it means pearl. A fitting name for someone from a country that has given the world more than its size should allow.
The first thing you should know about Scotland is the thistle. It became Scotland’s national emblem in the 13th century through one of history’s great accidental moments. A Norse army crept barefoot toward a sleeping Scottish encampment under cover of night, hoping to take them by surprise. One soldier stood on a thistle. His cry of pain woke the Scots, who rose up and defeated the invaders. A weed saved a nation.
The motto of the Order of the Thistle has been the same ever since: Nemo me impune lacessit. No one provokes me with impunity.
The second thing you should know is the Heart of Midlothian. A heart-shaped mosaic set into the cobblestones of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The tradition is to spit on it. I spat on it. When in Scotland.
The third thing you should know is what this small, cold, frequently rainy country has given the world.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. John Logie Baird invented the television. James Watt didn’t invent the steam engine but he made it work — and in doing so triggered the Industrial Revolution that shaped the modern world.
Scotland has a population of around five million people. For a country that size, that is an extraordinary contribution to human civilization.
And then there is Bitcoin. The identity of its creator — Satoshi Nakamoto — remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the digital age. When Satoshi mined the very first Bitcoin block in 2009, he embedded a headline from The Times of London into it. He consistently used British English spellings throughout his writing.
I think he was a Scot. I could be wrong.
Go to Scotland. Drink some scotch in the Highlands. Spit on the heart. Watch your step.
It’s worth every rainy day.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
