The Mysterious Legend of Satoshi Nakamoto Lives On
Image courtesy of George Frey via Getty Images
Satoshi Nakamoto has remained a shadowy anomaly since he or she fluttered around online in 2008 talking about a then-nascent idea for a digital currency called Bitcoin, which was free of governments, central banks, and regulations.
Nakamoto, originally believed to be a Japanese cryptographer, was a contributor to a cryptography mailing list that spread some of these ideas. No one knew who he or she (or even they) was, but Nakamoto eventually published a paper delving into the theory that would become Bitcoin and in early 2009, the first digital coins—pretty much worthless at the time—were mined and made available.
Early advocates of the cryptocurrency corresponded with Nakamoto but it wasn’t long until he disappeared online, leaving behind a legacy as Bitcoin’s creator but with no clear identity. Who was Satoshi Nakamoto? It seemed like no one would ever really know.
Since then, Bitcoin has thrived and suffered. From its valuation highs of more than a thousand dollars for one Bitcoin in late 2013 to January this year when leading developer Mike Hearn deemed the Bitcoin project a failure@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7.
While all of this was going on, internet sleuths and journalists have attempted to piece together the clumps of evidence to find out who this mysterious figure is.
In March 2014, Newsweek ran a cover story claiming to have found the man. Journalist Leah McGrath Goodman believed she had uncovered Satoshi in the form of Dorian Nakamoto, a physicist in California. The story was largely debunked and Dorian Nakamoto is now trying to sue the publication. Other speculated figures include cryptographers Hal Finney, the second ever user of Bitcoin, and Nick Szabo as well as a slew of other mathematicians and computer scientists that have been associated with the cryptocurrency.
Most of the people over the years that have been credited with, or perhaps accused of, being Satoshi Nakamoto have denied the claim. That was until this week when Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur, came forward to stake his claim to being Bitcoin’s creator. The quest was over, a myth no more.
Or was it? Wright’s name has been associated with Nakamoto before. In December of last year, Wired published what it believed to be compelling evidence that Wright was indeed the currency’s mastermind. Then by bizarre coincidence, on the same day the story was published, Wright’s home and business were raided by Australian police investigating tax affairs. The police denied any connection to the media reports but it stoked the fires of suspicion.
Now in May, Wright has emerged from silence to say that he is in fact Satoshi Nakamoto. He approached the BBC, The Economist, and GQ as the three media outlets to help him tell his story.
To make his case, Wright signed a number of messages using cryptographic keys that were first created by Nakamoto when bitcoin was originally developed. Wright was then backed up by Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation. Andresen published a blog on Monday stating he believed Wright and was present for the demonstration he did with the BBC where he signed the messages.
