A decade of not knowing who created the Bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto: individual, group, dead or alive?

October 31st marks the day when the world of centralized currency was shaken by the advent of a phenomenon called ‘Bitcoin.’ But why is Bitcoin a phenomenon? Since the Bitcoin white paper was published on this day in 2008, it set the momentum for the transition to a new world economic order, and we would like to take a moment to thank its creator — Satoshi Nakamoto — for bringing the blockchain revolution to the world. Bitcoin seeded the idea of decentralisation and democratisation of power and control to the citizens of the world, and it has initiated a dialogue between innovators, people in business, regulators, foundations and the world in full.

From the year 2009 when Bitcoin’s genesis block was mined and 1 BTC valued at $0.0007, to the time when in December 2017 the value of 1 BTC went up to $19,783, we are now seeing a world that is getting tokenized with more than 2000 cryptocurrencies out there.

Well, enough about Bitcoin. The most intriguing question about the whole blockchain space is who the mysterious, controversial and enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto is? There are a lot of conspiracy theories, some going as far as to state that he was killed by his competitors after he disappeared from the public eye in 2011. If alive, Satoshi Nakamoto is one of the wealthiest people in the world as he is estimated to hold a total of 1.1 million BTC which had a value of almost $20 billion when the currency reached its peak price of nearly $20,000 that makes discovering his true identity all the more an exciting prospect.

Here are the top candidates who people think can be Satoshi Nakamoto:

Hal Finney

If you ever tried to search for the list of people who can be Satoshi, Hal Finney is without a doubt going to be the first name that pops out and rightly so, as he has one of the most compelling theories going on about him. He is a cryptographic genius from the pre-Bitcoin era and is known to be the first person other than Nakamoto to have used the software. It is also alleged that he helped Satoshi in ghostwriting the original white paper. The reason given for this allegation was further strengthened when Juola & Associates, a well-known writing analysis association detailed how their handwritings had the most significant resemblance. Even if he is not the ever elusive “Father of Bitcoin,” the significant fact is that he is a dying man who once could be compared to a far-more-brilliant Forrest Gump of cryptographic history as he has been a witness to almost all the significant happening in the secret-keeping technology of this century. From the development of the first widely used strong encryption software known as PGP to early anonymity systems, to the first Bitcoin transaction, Finney was present.

Nick Szabo

Another person alleged to be Satoshi Nakamoto due to his similar style of writing is Nick Szabo. Szabo is a renowned cryptographer known for his work in digital contracts and digital currencies. He was linked to Nakamoto through a writing analysis called stylometry. Also, in his novel titled ‘Bitcoin — The Future of Money?’, the writer Dominic Frisby had shown some evidence based on different circumstances linking the two together. The fact that further strengthens these speculations is the fact that Szabo designed the precursor to Bitcoin.

Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto

Next, we have the victim of fake news, Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto whose involvement in these speculations seems to be circumstantial at best. A series of events lead to this mix-up. With his birth name being Satoshi Nakamoto and the fact that he has strong libertarian views with a background as an engineer in the financial sector, he looked to be the perfect candidate for being Satoshi. This theory blew out of proportions when as an ‘evidence’ provided by Newsweek, Nakamoto appeared to have confirmed his identity as the Bitcoin creator stating, “I am no longer involved in that, and I cannot discuss it. It’s been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.” However, later Dorian Nakamoto had denied of all such connections and explicitly stated that he gave this statement for his work with Citibank. Fuel was also added to the fire when speculators discovered that he lived a few blocks away from Hal Finney.

Craig Wright & the Group

Craig Wright is an Australian academic who first came into the limelight due to a series of articles written by Wired and then by Gizmodo on him and his partner David Kleiman. According to the report, allegedly a hacker had stolen emails from Wright which explained that he and Kleiman were part of the Satoshi Nakamoto group and there might also be 1–2 more players involved. Numerous other articles by Motherboard Vice had worked to make the speculations get wilder leading to Wright subsequently deleting his online presence. He wasn’t heard from again until May 2, 2016.

Upon his reappearance in 2016, Wright claimed that he is Satoshi Nakamoto and Gavin Andresen and Jon Matonis supported this claim. He also showed cryptographic proofs to strengthen his claim further. However, some researchers and experts have refuted this and called it fraudulent.

The articles also state how Wright, Kleiman, and possibly others have keys to a BTC trust held in escrow in Seychelles which may unlock in 2020. This trust was named ‘ Tulip Trust’ and was supposed to give Wright 1 million BTC.

Elon Musk

Ever since a former SpaceX intern compared his writing style to Satoshi, it was alleged that Elon Musk is also a potential candidate. However, he denied that he was Nakamoto which was further strengthened by the fact that hackers had used Tesla to mine cryptocurrencies.

Is it an Anonymous group?

There has been a ton of speculation and many theories on how Satoshi is not a person but a group. There have been several reports of how different groups have claimed to be Satoshi over the last decade, however, due to lack of credible evidence, their claims have been refuted every single time. Discussions have also revolved around how the CIA/NSA, a Russian/Chinese agent or a group of companies (Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, Motorola) might be Satoshi and Bitcoin is just their weapon of choice.

The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery but ten years of his silence makes us wonder if we would ever know who is the man or the people behind the shroud. Before going silent, Satoshi communicated with a bunch of people over email, which you can read here.

Satoshi gave to the world an open trustless network for value transfer in the form of the Bitcoin blockchain. Since the release of the white paper, the blockchain and cryptocurrency universe has exploded to capture hundreds of billions dollars in worth. Whoever Satoshi is, whatever Satoshi is doing today, the world has changed because of his invention. Who do you think is the real Satoshi Nakamoto? Did we miss out on another possible candidate? Let us know in the comments section!