Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto?
When it comes to big names in the cryptosphere, there are few more prominent than those of Bitcoin, the world’s first ever (and most valuable) cryptocurrency, and its mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
The first time the world had heard the name of Satoshi Nakamoto was way back in 2007 when Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin code. By November 2008, he managed to finish and publish the now famous whitepaper of Bitcoin, which laid the groundwork for everything the Bitcoin protocol represents.
Satoshi Nakamoto was heavily involved in his brainchild project and with the Bitcoin community in the project’s early days. After two years of involvement and hard work, Nakamoto decided to hand the project to Gavin Andresen and seized all bonds with the Bitcoin project in December 2010. Gavin proved itself to be a worthy successor to the legendary Satoshi and has since become one of the most influential developers within the cryptosphere.
After this happened, Nakamoto briefly returned to leave a final message to the community, stating that he had “moved on to other things,” and that Bitcoin was “in good hands with Gavin and everyone.” Officially, that are the last words the world heard about the elusive and secretive Bitcoin creator.
As Bitcoin’s fame grew even bigger over the following years, curiously, so did the mystery behind Nakamoto’s true identity. Over the years, the Bitcoin and crypto communities have been actively speculating in regards to who Satoshi Nakamoto might actually be. The quest of discovering who the real Satoshi Nakamoto is has seen an army of amateur detectives hard at work on the matter but, sadly, without much success.
Even though there is little to go on, one thing is quite clear: Satoshi Nakamoto is an example of privacy protection done right. So much so, that he even used Tor to register the Bitcoin.org website. What’s probably even more impressive is the fact that, to this day, it’s still unknown whether Satoshi is male or female, or whether “he” is even a single person or a group of individuals.
Nevertheless, this “army” of detectives and other enthusiasts from trying to dig up facts from Satoshi’s background, from drawing various conclusions, as well as to turn up various candidates or suspect lists to fill in the blanks.
Other Interesting Clues/Facts about Satoshi Nakamoto
Before we roll out the so-called suspect list, there’s another very interesting fact about Satoshi that should be known. According to various reports, the wallets linked to Satoshi’s account for almost 1 million BTC mined. This means that, if Satoshi is indeed a single individual, this fact would make him one of the top 50 richest people in the world right now. One million BTC account for approximately 5% of the world’s Bitcoin supply.
Almost everything about Bitcoin’s legendary creator is shrouded in speculation. However, there are some clues that are nothing short of interesting. For example, a specific message was discovered encoded into the very first block to be mined in the Bitcoin network. The message read: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” This might be a clue to Satoshi’s identity, but more importantly, it points out that Satoshi might have been a regular reader of The Times newspaper.
Furthermore, in spite of its Asian name, no part of the Bitcoin project or the whitepaper was written in another language other than perfect British English. This has led many to speculate that Satoshi might be British or Australian, or at least a native British English speaker. A Swiss coder and active member in the Bitcoin community has also graphed time stamps of Nakamoto’s early 500 posts. The results found that Satoshi was absent between 0:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. Greenwich Time.
Possible Candidates
Craig Wright
Craig Wright is the name associated with one of the most convincing theories about Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity. Wright publicly claimed that he is the real Bitcoin creator based on his involvement in the development in the early days. Major publications such as Wired, BBC, and The Economist were all a bit too quick to suggest that the proof provided by Wright was conclusive. The proof was based around him sending messages with a cryptographic signature that only Satoshi would have access to.
After this event, his home was raided by Australian tax authorities which led Wright to delete his Internet presence, before returning on “the stage” on May 2016, when he once more claimed to be the “real” Satoshi and that he had solid proof. Wright retracted his statement soon after stating that he does “not have the courage” to prove that he is the real Satoshi.
Nick Szabo
Another figure to has been named Satoshi Nakamoto on multiple occasions is Nick Szabo, a decentralized crypto enthusiast who published a paper on “bit gold.” Skye Grey, an Internet researcher, performed a reverse textual analysis and found various unique phrases that linked Szabo’s writing style to that of the original Bitcoin whitepaper. However, Szabo has repeatedly denied that he is the creator of Bitcoin.
Hal Finney
Hal Finney is yet another potential candidate to be Bitcoin’s father. Without a doubt, Finney has a lot of history with the Bitcoin project, as he was the second person after Nakamoto himself to use the software, file development reports, and even suggest improvements. What’s more, he also stated that “he was the first recipient of the first Bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent ten coins to him as a test.” Finney died on August 28, 2014, leaving the world with only poor evidence that pointed him as being the original creator of Bitcoin.
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto is yet another candidate for the title. His name started making headlines in March 2014 when a Newsweek article described him as a potential candidate. This article led to a flurry of media interest at the time. Later on, the American-Japanese physicist declared that he hadn’t even heard of Bitcoin before this event.
Other Unlikely Candidates and Theories
As funny as it may sound, the list of possible candidates goes on and on including names such as Elon Musk, the creator of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, and Dave Kleiman, Craig Wright’s best friend.
There are some Bitcoin enthusiasts who even suggest that Satoshi Nakamoto could be a group of four Asian tech giants such as “Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, and Motorola.
So, Who Is Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto?
There is no way of knowing this for certain and, considering the lack of concrete evidence, and Satoshi’s expert approach towards privacy, we may never get to the bottom of this mystery. This means that the Bitcoin community has no option but to go on and about with this enigma that is Satoshi Nakamoto.
