One of the most enduring mysteries of crypto is the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. A subject of intense debate, there are many theories about the creator of Bitcoin. Some of which inch towards , , and territory.
Whether Satoshi is a single person or a group. Whether they are alive or have passed away. Whether this persona is a creation of intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA. Whether it is a pseudonym for the companies behind Bitcoin. (Sa)msung, (Toshi)ba, (Naka)michi and (Moto)rola.
Countless manhours of later, no one is closer to the truth.
Names that make the rounds are of well-known , cryptographers, and computer scientists:
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. Inventor of , a cryptographic (PoW) system to thwart spam. Not only are Adam Back and his invention mentioned in the , but Hashcash is also used in Bitcoin’s mining function. Believed to be the first email correspondent with Satoshi, Back has not made his exchanges public to Satoshi from doxing. Currently, he serves as the CEO of Blockstream, a Bitcoin-focused company he co-founded. He being Satoshi.
. Proposer of , a distributed money system that was one of the precursors to Bitcoin. On Adam Back’s recommendation, Satoshi to Wei Dai to talk about b-money. The Bitcoin whitepaper mentions both Dai and b-money as references. The smallest unit of the Ethereum cryptocurrency is named after him. 1 Wei = 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 of an ETH. He being Satoshi.
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The late . Creator of (RPoW), a cryptographic proof system for digital payments. as the “world's first implemented cryptocurrency”, RPoW was another forerunner of Bitcoin. As one of the earliest of Bitcoin, Finney collaborated (, , ) with Satoshi to make significant contributions at the time.
He was the person after Satoshi to the software, a transaction, and a block. Thereby, establishing that Bitcoin worked. Hal Finney was cryopreserved after passing away from in 2014. He being Satoshi.
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. Pioneer of and designer of , one more Bitcoin predecessor. Originally , Szabo and Bit gold mentions were added to the Bitcoin website in . Satoshi has also separately acknowledged their influence in . Szabo’s on money was an inspiration for Hal Finney’s RPoW. In contrast to the other three, there is no evidence or acknowledgment of communication between Szabo and Satoshi. He being Satoshi.
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Among other commonly debated possibilities are (founder of , creator of ), (developer of ), , one or more founders of the Cypherpunks mailing list (, , ), etc.
Despite all the cryptography-related possibilities above, the most familiar Satoshi face in media is an unlikely one. In March 2014, Newsweek published a that they had found Satoshi. , a retired contractual engineer living in California.
In a weird bit of coincidence, Hal Finney’s house was a few blocks away. Dorian denied (, ) being Satoshi.
He stressed that the investigating reporter had him. A linguistic analysis the same.
But the resultant media frenzy had already disrupted his life. To apologize for the trouble, Andreas Antonopoulos a fundraiser for him. Donations totaling ~USD 23k at the time (47.5 BTC) poured in. And as of today, has received a sum of 102 BTC. Presumably all from donors.
Satoshi is also supposed to have to save Dorian from the media glare. This is disputed though (, ). Nonetheless, Dorian Nakamoto is now a permanent memetic fixture on BT and CT.
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As the search for Satoshi continues, a is to not create a cult of personality. Or to the quest altogether to protect Satoshi. With the possibility of the identity never coming to light, “We Are All Satoshi” is an oft-repeated phrase (, ).
Faketoshis and the Bizarre Claims of Craig Wright
And then there are the self-proclaimed Satoshis. Or Faketoshis. A pejorative for individuals whose claims of being Satoshi are viewed with skepticism. From Jörg Molt (, ) to to to and more (, , , ).
The most notorious of them is Craig Steven Wright (CSW). Founder of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), a forked version of Bitcoin.
, , , , the late , , , , , , , , , , and many others from the tech and crypto community have denounced him.
Even the two publications that broke the stories that CSW was Satoshi retracted days later (, ). Both suspected that the “leaked” tip-off documents they had received were forgeries.
Nevertheless, CSW continues to be the most persistent Satoshi claimant. So much so that some Bitcoiners (, ) have made full-blown archives (, , ) of his inconsistencies. From his public statements (, , , , , , , , , , , , ). His works (, , , , , , *). And legal disputes (, , , , , , , , , , ).
*The subreddit debunks CSW’s claims.
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To deal with criticism, CSW has resorted to and litigations (, ). Albeit unsuccessfully (, ). Tying up detractors . Often leveling libel charges (, , ) in UK courts among other known tactics (, ).
Cex’es which delist his coin, BSV, have brought against them. Bitcoin developers have been to coerce impossible confiscations for him. Also . . More on that below.
Several platforms hosting the Bitcoin and have been forced to take them down in . Because of continuous hounding over . To CSW’s , this has triggered to flip him off. Including from .
A conclusive proof by any claimant would be to sign a message or move funds using Satoshi’s known keys. For a brief while, one early Bitcoiner was led to believe CSW had them. Gavin Andresen was a contributor whom Satoshi had with maintaining the project.
After a now infamous in London, he was “” of CSW. Some alleged . Others Gavin was under from saying . Eventually, he opened up about his suspicions of being duped (, ). He , “it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright.”
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CSW now insists he has deliberately the device that contained Satoshi’s keys. The only indisputable evidence that could have linked him to Satoshi. Even more peculiar is his to seek out Satoshi’s coins worth tens of billions.
He has instead spent considerable resources to various other wallets and funds. Some of those pursuits have backfired in spectacular fashion (, , ).
In spite of that, he has taken Bitcoin devs and maintainers to court over yet another set of addresses. CSW’s claim: stole (, ) private keys to “his” (, ) wallets containing >100k BTC (~USD 2.6 Bn today). And for some reason, they deleted his only copy of the keys.
Instead of just moving the Bitcoin elsewhere . The most bizarre twist, one of those wallets was once involved in a notorious heist (, ).
CSW’s demand: Bitcoin developers must make to the Bitcoin protocol somehow to give him access to those coins. Changes reminiscent of his blockchain, BSV (, ). Creating backdoors to recover private keys is not possible.
So he is trying to a court-mandated rollback of a decentralized blockchain. A near improbable endeavour that goes against crypto ideals of immutability and censorship-resistance.
Not only is Bitcoin a no-no, but any retrospective change to the chain would be flat-out rejected by the network of nodes and forked off. Not to mention the disastrous implications for open-source development (, ).
These campaigns of intimidation have developers and Bitcoiners. Earning CSW and his associates near-unanimous scorn across CT to the point of mockery (, , , ). Irrespective of tribalism (, ).
It has boiled over to a point where his partners have started to backpedal (, ). While disillusioned supporters over .
Bitcoin and Its Mimics
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Bitcoin is a topic because it serves :
The Bitcoin token (ticker: $BTC or the less popular, $XBT) serves as an asset for investment. As money for remittances. As a tradeable commodity for speculation.
The Bitcoin network serves as a payment system for merchants. As a communication grid. As a tool for political subversion.
The Bitcoin blockchain serves as an immutable database. As a distributed ledger.
The Bitcoin software serves as a protocol for other applications to be built on top.
And so on. This is why descriptions for Bitcoin have such variety – internet money, freedom money, gold 2.0, schmuck insurance, etc. Satoshi , “Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There's nothing to relate it to.”
There is no official body in charge of Bitcoin. There is no The Bitcoin Company that controls its means of production*. No The Bitcoin Association that represents it*1. No headquarters it operates out of. No spokesperson on its payroll. Anyone claiming otherwise may not have your best interest in mind.
* A “Bitcoin company” is just any business that deals in Bitcoin. To custody, transact, mine, run nodes, etc.
*1 There is a “Bitcoin Association” set up as a lobby/PR/advocacy group for one of Bitcoin’s forks. More on that below. It has nothing to do with Bitcoin though.
The website is as an open-source project. Originally registered and managed by Satoshi and , the first Bitcoin developer. It was later handed over to volunteers. Similarly, the Bitcoin is free and open source.
Managed pro bono by volunteers again. can contribute to it. Bitcoin companies, , , etc. sponsor some of these developers and maintainers with donations and grants.
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The rules of Bitcoin are enforced by the software’s code and verified by thousands of volunteer-run nodes worldwide. Anyone can a node and become part of the network. But no entity can change the rules and regulations .
TLDR: Bitcoin has . No controlling interests. . No copyright. No patent. A truly .
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As a result, many Bitcoin imitations crop up uninhibited. Coins and tokens that should not be mistaken for the real thing. Like memecoins that use “” as a (HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu’s ticker is $BITCOIN). Or sketchy projects and scams that use to entrap the gullible.
“Better Bitcoin”, “Bitcoin, but different”, “Just like Bitcoin”, “Bitcoin of the East”, “Bitcoin for the travel industry”, etc.
And because there is , factions attempt coups from time to time. To wrest control over Bitcoin itself. These vested interests try to force contentious changes. Pushing for changes in the software that are not backward-compatible and persuading nodes to support them.
The subset of nodes which agree to run the new code create a Bitcoin hard fork. By splitting away into a new network with a new chain and new coin.
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Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and BSV are the most well-known . BCH forked from Bitcoin and BSV forked from BCH. The bone of contention for these was the size of blocks in the chain. They wanted to increase the block size from the limit hardcoded by Satoshi.
With this in mind, Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn, another early Bitcoin contributor, made the first notable fork called Bitcoin XT. Thus, igniting .
Despite having powerful interests on their side, the “big blockers” could not get their way with Bitcoin. After a failure to reach middle ground (^), BCH forked using Bitcoin XT as a template. Years later BSV, forked from BCH over further disagreements.
^ The Failure of NYA is seen as a victory of David over Goliath. It established that independent nodes held sway over the network. Contrary to the long held belief that Bitcoin companies and mining coalitions had controlling authority.
Contentious hard forks have a shared history with Bitcoin. Until the point of their split. Thereafter, they operate as separate projects. Some from dearly held principles. Yet continue to obscure their difference from Bitcoin.
For example, BSV marketeers (, ) have a reputation for blurring the lines. Through . Lobbying efforts (, ). . Setting up entities like the “.” As a subtle distinction, they will sometimes say “BitCoin” instead of “Bitcoin” to refer to BSV.
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Non-Bitcoin endeavors get co-opted too. Case in point, Jack Dorsey-backed ‘s initiative. Launched in June ’22, Web5 is a non-blockchain implementation of a decentralized web experience. Discussed more in Part VII – Tribalism.
Months after TBD’s announcement, news of a “” conference came forth. “Web5” was being blockchain’ised at this event. The “?” CSW.
On a similar note, when I first started reading about Bitcoin in earnest, Bitcoin.com puzzled me. Because it addressed BTC as “Bitcoin Core” while hinting that BCH was “Bitcoin.” It was only later that I realized the site was a for-profit (, ) owned by BCH affiliates.
If you are on Reddit, please note that the r/btc subreddit is also managed by BCH supporters. A result of blocksize politics. Even the handle on X/Twitter was owned by a BCH advocate.
Whether deliberate or not, obfuscations like these the unaware, trouble the aware (, ), and lead to . Giving promoters of forks a dubious reputation in Bitcoin circles (, ). So, I hope this part will help you discern between forks, fugazis, and the real thing.
Plan for Part V: Centralisation v/s Decentralisation
NOTE:Also published .
Disclaimer:None of the information mentioned above should be construed as financial advice.
