Who is Satoshi Nakamoto (best article)

Satoshi Nakamoto created the cryptocoin Bitcoin in the year of 2008 and put it into circulation in 2009. But nobody knows who is behind that name.

( If you want to learn more about Bitcoin, read the article: What is Bitcoin )

Satoshi Nakamoto's communication with other people was always made through emails and forums on the Internet, so it was never possible to know his real identity. Even for those who participated in the Bitcoin project.

In 2008 an individual who participated in a discussions group on the Internet called "Cryptography Mailing" presented his idea of creating a cryptocurrency that would revolutionize the world. It was called Bitcoin.

This individual presented himself with the name of Satoshi Nakamoto and claimed to be a 37-year old man who lived in Japan.

There were no photos, videos or any other details of Nakamoto's profile. Communication with the group went that way.

The communication of Satoshi Nakamoto with the group was always in English and totally focused on technical subjects related to Bitcoin.

Some people in the group were anonymous while others identified themselves revealing their real names to the teammates.

On some occasions some group members asked more personal questions in email communications, but Nakamoto never answered any of them, only answered questions from the Bitcoin project.

The relationship with the group then remained strictly professional from 2008 to 2010 when it began to decrease the frequency of communication and passed the control of the source files of the Bitcoin code to Gavin Andresen.

In the same year Nakamoto also passed the control of the registered domains like bitcoin.org and others more to the members of the community.

In 2010 Bitcoin was already fully operational, fully documented and the project could already continue in progress through community members, so Satoshi Nakamoto simply stopped communicating and disappeared.

At the time was in the media the case of WeekLeaks with information leaking secrets from governments and institutions, the WeekLeaks site was blocked and could no longer receive money through PayPal, Visa or MasterCard.

Then came the idea of using Bitcoin to make donations to WeekLeaks, but Satoshi Nakamoto did not support the idea at the time as this could have negative impacts on the cryptocurrency that was still in its infancy.

Nakamoto then stopped communicating on the forum and by email apparently the Wekleaks affair influenced his decision to disappear altogether.

Satoshi Nakamoto's initial statement about his identity did not convince many people for some obvious reasons:

The way he wrote and his perfect English did not quite match the profile of a Japanese man. His style was more like that of a Briton.

The suspicious arose mainly because of phrases and expressions used by Nakamoto that did not fit with a traditional English learned in schools.

Another suspicious fact was that there was never any reference to the documentation of the Bitcoin code in Japan. To have no record of such a project in his own country was something that aroused suspicion.

The design of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is certainly very complex, and the code was very good, which raised suspicions about the development having been carried out by a single person. Maybe it was the work of a team.

Although it is possible for a person to develop complex code, it is more likely that several programmers have performed this task.

Over the course of a decade there has been much speculation about Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. People all over the world have different theories about who would be the genius behind the creation of the cryptocurrency that would change the world.

Let's see a list of the biggest suspects of being Satoshi Nakamoto

Szabo has a lot of interest in cryptocoins and in 2008 wrote an article about "bit gold" with a concept very similar to Bitcoin.

The suspicion lies on Szabo because of his academic background and interest in cryptography, and research on digital contracts and cryptocurrency. In addition to the fact that in the 90's he used pseudonyms on the Internet in place of his real name.

A British writer named Dominic Frisby, author of the book "Bitcoin, the future of money?" wrote an article on The Guardian website about evidence that Szabo may be Satoshi Nakamoto, but Szabo denied the fact.

In addition to the suspicions of Dominic Frisby, also a 2013 article in Tech Crunch magazine interview with a blogger named Skye Gray who says there is strong evidence that Nick Szabo is Satoshi Nakamoto.

In a 2014 article published on the website of News Week the writer Leah McGrath Goodman claims to have discovered the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.

According to the writer, a 64-year-old Japanese immigrant living in the state of California in the United States, would be the sought after creator of the most well-known cryptocurrency,  his name Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto.

There are many people called Satoshi Nakamoto in various places in the world, including the United States. But investigative writer and reporter Goodman had a strong suspicion that this would be the Nakamoto that everyone is looking for.

Dorian denied the allegations that he would be the creator of Bitcoin but had many problems with the pursuit of reporters interested in the case.

During the time he lives in the United States, Dorian already had problems with layoffs and unemployment, going through very tough times, the confusion with the creator of Bitcoin further aggravated his situation.

The claim that the genius Satoshi Nakamoto would have been found drew attention to that many reporters who proceeded to pursue Dorian.

Dorian came to a point where he should decide whether to file a lawsuit against New Week, because of the headache that the story caused.

Soon after the news about the probable identity of the creator of Bitcoin, being posted on the Internet, a message from the supposed real Satoshi Nakamoto was sent to the discussion group that he participated in 2009.

The message said: "I am not Dorian Nakamoto".

It is not possible to know with certainty if the message sent is really from the same person named Satoshi Nakamoto that was in the group in 2009.

There is however a survey conducted by Tech Crunch magazine with a confirmation from the group leader Josef Coates saying that the same email of 2009 was used to send the message of the alleged Nakamoto.

The suspicion that Finney could have been the real Satoshi Nakamoto is due to the fact that he was the first person to make a transaction with Bitcoins and also because he lived in the same city as Dorian Nakamoto.

Regarding the Bitcoins transaction, there are people who are based on a theory that Finney would have simulated a person (Nakamoto) with whom he would have made the transaction, he allegedly sent Bitcoins to himself.

As for living in the same city as Dorian, a theory was created that Finney would be behind the creation of Bitcoin and would have used Dorian to communicate and present the work through the fictional Satoshi Nakamoto.

Finney confirmed that he communicated with Satoshi Nakamoto by emails but always denied that it was any character that represented Nakamoto.

Finney was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), a disease that over time could cause paralysis of his body.

In 2013 Finney posted on the Bitcoin Talk forum that he was sick and paralyzed but would continue to work as a programmer until the day he died.

He died in August 2014 in the city of Phoenix, Arizona.

The possibility of Wright being the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto came to the fore in an article published in 2015 by Wired magazine claiming to have evidence like hacked emails indicating that Wright could be Nakamoto.

Just after the Gizmodo magazine also claims to have evidence on the case of Wright and that would be in a parallel investigation to the magazine Wired, in order to unravel the secret of who was the creator of Bitcoin.

After this publication, a lot of people got interested in Wright's case, after all this was a bombastic revelation that everyone in the press wanted to explore.

In 2016 in an interview with BBC News, Wright claims to have the public key associated with the first transaction with Bitcon and that this first transaction would be associated with the nickname of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Source: BBC News

Wright said he would be revealing the story about Nakamoto's identity to prevent speculation and protect the people who were attached to him.

Basically what Wright says is that by having this public key he has proof that he made the first transaction with Bitcoin and would be Satoshi Nakamoto.

After claiming to be Nakamoto, Craig Wright practically painted a target on his back and everyone began to question him about his claim.

You can clearly notice Wright's discomfort in several videos where there is somebody questioning about his claim.

On some occasions Wright loses his temper and responds sharply to people who ask questions about his claim to be Nakamoto.

Source: London Review of Books

Despite being supported by a part of the Bitcoin community and by people involved in the project like Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen, Craig Wright was not taken seriously by several other members of the community.

Some time later he decided to stop the attempt to prove the allegations, moved away from the community and removed the articles from his blog.

When we talk about genius and ability to execute projects, Musk does not need presentations, after all he always participates in challenging projects like the manufacture of electric cars and rockets to go to Mars.

Unsurprisingly, his name has appeared on a list of suspects in the creation of Bitcoin, after all his involvement with electronic transactions comes from the time that he created PayPal when he was very young.

The theory that Musk could be behind the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto comes from an article posted by former employee Sahil Gupta who worked as a software engineer at the company Space X between May to August 2015.

The article actually is more of a Gupta idea that claims that due to Musk's knowledge he would have the ability to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

To create Bitcoin it was necessary to have knowledge of economy, encryption and C ++ programming language which coincides with the Musk profile.

When asked about it, Elon Musk answers in his Tweeter saying that the claim is not true. He also states that a friend sent a portion of a Bitcoin years ago but he does not know where it is.

After the simple and direct denial of Musk there was no further speculation.

Bitcoin is something created by a genius or a group of high-skilled people.

Either Satoshi Nakamoto exists and prefers to be an anonymous person, or there is a group of developers and economists hiding behind his name.

Anyway, there's no proof about who is the real Satoshi Nakamoto, but my personal opinion is that Nick Szabo is the best bet.

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