It’s been a mystery ever since the concept of bitcoin appeared in a white paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. The white paper, which proposed a solution to the double-spending problem, turned the financial world upside down and introduced cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
However, the elusive writer of the white paper is still unknown. Who exactly is Satoshi Nakamoto, is the question many tried to answer, but it all remains speculation.
We don’t know whether it’s one man or a group of people, is he really Japanese, or American?
Moreover, the Internet is flooded with people, known as Faketoshis, claiming that they created bitcoin. Most of the claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto turn out to be false.
Every time the media marks someone to be the famous bitcoin inventor, we get a denial in return.
To this day, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains the largest crypto mystery.
Still, some facts about Nakamoto are confirmed. Let’s find out more about it.
What do we know about Satoshi Nakamoto?
Despite the riddle surrounding Nakamoto, there are some things we know for sure. Firstly, on his online profiles, Nakamoto claimed to be a 37-year-old male who lived in Japan. However, researchers claim that Nakamoto’s native language is English.
Secondly, Satoshi Nakamoto is a billionaire. He owns 1 million BTC along with Bitcoin Cash and other forked coins.
At bitcoin’s peak in December 2017, his coins were worth over $19 billion. This makes Nakamoto one of the richest people in the world.
Over the years, several people were suspected as potential Nakamoto candidates. So, let’s find out more about them.
Who are the alleged bitcoin creators?
Hal Finney – cryptography genius
Hall Finney was a developer for PGP Corporation. He worked with Nakamoto during the early days of bitcoin development. Allegedly, Finney is the first person to run the original bitcoin protocol.
The theory that Hal Finney is Satoshi Nakamoto came into the spotlight after a writing-analysis agency Juola & Associates published that Nakamoto’s and Finney’s writings had a high resemblance.
But Finney denied that he’s Satoshi Nakamoto.
Nick Szabo – almost identical writing style
Computer scientist, Nick Szabo, was also suspected of being Nakamoto.
A blogger, Skye Grey used an analysis method called stylometry to link the writing style from bitcoin’s white paper to Szabo’s writings.
However, Nick Szabo denied these claims in an email to financial author Dominic Frisby.
Craig Wright – a member of the Satoshi Nakamoto group?
In December 2015, Wired published two articles claiming that Wright and his partner David Kleiman are part of Nakamoto group. According to Wired, a hacker stole Wright’s emails that show his relation to bitcoin and Nakamoto.
As a result, Wright deleted his online accounts without commenting on the claims. Then, in 2016, he reappeared, confirming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, and even showing cryptographic proof for his assertions.
His claims, however, weren’t greeted well in the crypto community, and some researchers discredited them.
Hunting for the real Satoshi Nakamoto
Various people and organizations used the writing analysis method called stylometry in their quest for Nakamoto’s true identity.
According to Alexander Muse, an entrepreneur and writer at CryptoMuse, the National Security Agency (NSA) is one of them.
The agency used stylometry and its database with trillions of writing samples from people around the world to examine Nakamoto’s writing.
However, if the NSA managed to find out who Nakamoto is, they didn’t reveal that to the public.
Many media publications joined the bandwagon, and tried to discover Nakamoto’s identity. For example, in 2014, Newsweek published an article called The Face Behind Bitcoin, naming Dorian Nakamoto as bitcoin’s creator, which he denied.
But the Newsweek isn’t the only one. Wired, Gizmodo, BBC, New York Times, Bloomberg, and many other news outlets tried to solve the puzzle.
Not to mention all individuals stepping out with clues, evidences, and conspiracy theories.
All these attempts, however, didn’t come up with a definitive answer.
Conclusion
It’s been eleven years since Nakamoto published the famous white paper. Eleven years of mystery and speculations.
Who is the writer behind the white paper that reinvented money? Who is the man that brought blockchain technology that continues to transform our world?
The real question is, does it really matter who Satoshi Nakamoto is? Isn’t what he created more important? And he created a revolutionary technology.
Will your opinion about bitcoin and blockchain change depending on who Nakamoto is? I hope not.
So, no matter of his true identity, we should simply thank Satoshi Nakamoto for developing a technology that is free of politics, trusting third parties, and human error.
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