The enigmatic creator of Bitcoin has become an urban legend in the blockchain community. Very little is known about Satoshi Nakamoto, including whether it’s one or more people. It could be a lone programmer; it could be a collective — no one knows.
What is known, however, is that Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the coin for Bitcoin in 2007. The official white paper for Bitcoin was released a year later, and the first Bitcoin block was mined in early 2009. Nakamoto was heavily involved in the Bitcoin community for the next two years.
Then, suddenly, Nakamoto announced that he would withdraw from the Bitcoin project in December 2010. The reins were handed over to Gavin Andresen, with whom Nakamoto had a close relationship. A few months later, in the spring of 2011, Nakamoto further stated that he had moved on to other things and would not be involved any longer.
What nationality is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Many people have speculated on the national identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. His P2P profile stated that he was a Japanese man born on April 5th, 1975. Several Bitcoin-enthusiasts, however, have claimed this to be unlikely given the fluency of Nakamoto’s English in the white paper. A silly claim that assumed no Japanese people had mastered English.
A Swiss coder by the name of Stefan Thomas went through over 500 of Nakamoto’s posts on Bitcoin. His findings revealed that Nakamoto had made none of the posts made between midnight and 6 am GMT. The lack of posts in this space could mean that Nakamoto is British. Thomas, of course, fails to account for the possibility of Nakamoto being a Japanese man living in the GMT zone.
Who are the Satoshi Nakamoto candidates?
Several prominent people in the Bitcoin space have been thought to hide behind the pseudonym.
Nick Szabo
Although he has repeatedly denied being Nakamoto, Nick Szabo is considered one of the candidates. Szabo wrote a white paper on something that resembled cryptocurrency before Bitcoin was a reality. A researcher by the name of Skye Grey linked Szabo’s writing style to that of Nakamoto.
Dorian Prentice
A Japanese-American man named Dorian Prentice living in California is another candidate. Prentice is a more likely option, given that his birth name was Satoshi Nakamoto. His background as a physicist and systems engineer also led people to believe he was the Bitcoin founder.
Hal Finney
The press found Hal Finney a few doors down from Dorian Prentice. Finney was a cryptographic pioneer, and one of the first people to use the Bitcoin software. As with Szabo, Finney’s writing style closely matched that of Nakamoto. People assumed that he used the birth name of his close neighbor as a pseudonym.
Craig Wright
People have also connected an Australian academic by the name of Craig Wright to the Bitcoin founder. Not only that, but Wright was in cahoots with several other Bitcoin personalities. These included David Kleiman, Jon Matonis, Ian Grigg, and Gavin Andresen.
Conclusion
The simple conclusion to the Satoshi Nakamoto affair is that no one knows who he is — or was. Various rumors claim that Nakamoto holds Bitcoin worth $7 billion. If that’s true, then the likelihood is that Nakamoto, whoever he is, probably doesn’t need another slice of the Bitcoin pie.
And who could blame him?