Both. Elements of Bitcoin, like PoW, are so fundamental that an alien race would probably have invented it too. However the ideosyncracies of exactly how Bitcoin works, like the details of the scripting system, are so specific if you don't call them "inventions", then nothing is an invention.

Of course an invention.

I think of inventions as relatively improbable discoveries which might explain why questions like this are weird to answer - it's both.

I think it is an invention.

btc is an invention. while encryption and cryptocurrencies existed before satoshi nakamoto.

his innovation was solving the double spending problem on a decentralized network

I think it is the most significant invention of recent times... ⚡🍊

The word invent means to create something that didn't exist before.

But you can't really have invention without discovery. So it's actually both.

It depends how you look at it. Bitcoin is timeless in nature and that's why I look at it as a discovery

For those saying that Satoshi invented bitcoin, he didn't, bitcoin is a group of technologies that already existed; he didn't invented anything. For example, he didn't invented timestamp (aka blockchain), it was already invented, he discovered a new way to group certain projects (hashcash, blind signatures, timestamp, pgp) and make it work.

discovery, like solving math problems - the solution was always there.

What matters more is this: were aliens involved?

I fall on the max keiser way of thinking here : it’s discovery is a gift to humanity, the timing, the anonymity and selflessness of satoshi and the tying together of all the values that Bitcoin represents.

We all know invention

Well, since I started my journey in Bitcoin, I have known that it comes from cryptography, which is a study from a long time ago and that the person or people who invented it based themselves on that, looking for what was called a new digital currency or digital money.

Probably every invention was a discovery.

Any invention can be NP reduced to a discovery.

Inventions are recursively enumerable. Any paper corresponds to a natural number, including Satoshi's. He discovered a good one.