One of the main mysteries of the modern digital age is the identity of the creator of the most popular cryptocurrency – bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto says about himself that he is a middle-aged Japanese, but a number of journalists cast doubt on these statements. Unable to identify the real creator or creators – when posting any claims online, Satoshi uses credible ways to hide himself, leading to a string of conjectures, accusations and false claims.
David Kleiman and Craig Wright
Perhaps the most scandalous story of all: Ira Kleiman, David’s sister, recently won a lawsuit against Craig Wright, her late brother’s ex-partner. The court ordered Craig to pay $ 100 million to Ira, since he claims that he is Satoshi, and the prosecution claims that it was Kleiman who “farmed" one million bitcoins in the wallet of the creator of the cryptocurrency.
It can be concluded that Dave’s sister is “in chocolate”, but the main issue remains unresolved: neither party has a secret key to access the wallet, and Craig assures that the courier who never arrived should have given him the key in encrypted form. Alas, Wright is more like a businessman who is trying to sell his books on cryptocurrencies with high-profile statements.
Elon Musk
In November 2017, a former SpaceX intern threw in the information that Musk, they say, “a tough guy, understands everything in the world” and after the financial crisis of 2007, he could have come up with the idea to solve the problem of distrust in banks by creating a decentralized currency, which banks do not need.
Musk denied the words of the admired intern, admitting that he once had a single bitcoin donated by a friend, but he lost that too.
Jörg Molt
The deceiver of old women, a swindler and a swindler, was detained in 2021 while trying to escape from Germany. The man is charged with deceiving 50 people in the amount of 1.8 million euros (!). Posing as Satoshi Nakamoto, Jörg founded two projects: "Satoshi School" and "Bitcoin Retirement", where he encouraged investors made up of gullible old people that they would spend most of the proceeds on purchasing mining equipment, but with a real intention to do something and even more so shares profits – did not have.
Fun fact: Molt’s ex-wife claims that in 2008, when the Bitcoin network was launched, he didn’t even have a computer.
Anonymous
Yes, and it happens. In 2018, another Satoshi appeared on the network, which attracted unexpectedly a lot of attention. According to the anonymous source, he was going to write a book about the history of cryptocurrencies in general and bitcoin in particular. Anonymous had a rather bad English, which led many to assume that he was just a schoolboy who was lucky to get his moment of fame.
Dorian Nakamoto
The first and loudest attempt by journalists to get to the bottom of the truth about the founder of bitcoin. Newsweek in March 2014 published a material in which he announced that Dorian is the same Creator. The publication caused a lot of hype, which is not surprising: an unambiguous surname, Japanese origin, libertarian views and a similar writing style.
However, this turned out to be just a coincidence. In an interview with the Associated Press, Nakamoto said that this is a mistake, he has nothing to do with bitcoin and he is just a computer engineer.
Nick Sabo
The most probable of all "contenders for the throne." Nick is a pioneer of smart contracts, the first concept of which he presented in a scientific publication back in 2006. A couple of months before the launch of Bitcoin, he created the concept of his decentralized currency, calling it Bit Gold. The concept was "Bit Gold – a protocol whereby genuine high-value bits can be created online with minimal reliance on trusted third parties", which is very similar to the main idea behind Bitcoin.
Someone Dominic Frisbee in his book "Bitcoin: the future of money?" claims that Nick Szabo is the same Satoshi. Statistical analysis of the letter reveals some similarities in style, and both Szabo and Nakamoto often refer to the economist Carl Menger. However, such statements did not give anything and there are a lot of denials of varying degrees of reliability on the network.
Will we ever find out who is hiding behind the guise of the creator of all cryptocurrencies? I would like to believe, but in reality, Satoshi Nakamoto has not been in touch since 2011.