Satoshi Nakamoto: The Father of Bitcoin
The name Satoshi will forever be tied to Bitcoin and its history. The father of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency – Satoshi has had an impact on the world of a magnitude that is difficult to visualise. With bitcoin, he (or they?) single-handedly delivered the biggest disruption on the global economy since the invention of money itself! Yes, we’re saying Bitcoin is as the biggest thing to happen to money since money itself. And we have Satoshi to thank.
Of course, it remains unclear who Satoshi actually is, even though there is plenty of speculation. In order to be in a position to ever find that out though, we need to understand Satoshi’s story better.
Satoshi’s Identity
Satoshi Nakamoto is the name behind bitcoin; but is it a man, woman or an enterprise? It is not clear. Here’s what we know:
- During the developmental years of bitcoin, that is from 2008-2010, Satoshi communicated digitally, beyond which he was never heard of.
- Satoshi’s account contains one million bitcoins, out of which he has spent only 500. Currently, he is worth more than $13 billion.
- Satoshi has taken good care of keeping his identity secret, using the Tor network, and secretive email providers.
The P2P foundation founded by Michel Bauwens contains a profile of Satoshi Nakamoto. While the profile could obviously contain fake details, it mentions that Satoshi was a resident of Japan with his date of birth being 5 April 1975.
Bitcoin Development
It is in the year 2008 that the name Satoshi Nakamoto was first heard.
- October 2007: Satoshi took part in a Cryptography Mailing list in metzdowd.com. He posted his paper – Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system in the listerv.
- He had proposed the idea of a decentralized cryptocurrency and for the first time, the problem of double spending seemed to be eliminated. The idea of ‘peer-to-peer network’ using a blockchain was the solution to it.
- January 2009: Satoshi for the first time, released version 0.1 of the bitcoin software on Sourceforge, through which bitcoins could be mined.
Nakamoto claimed that he had been working on bitcoin technology since 2007. To keep his work limited to a single place, allowing other developers are able to access it easily, Nakamoto created a website called bitcoin.org. Satoshi welcomed other developers to make changes and offer suggestions for the improvement of bitcoin tech.
- Satoshi Nakamoto had embedded a message in block zero (the Genesis block) explaining why he created bitcoins. It revealed that Satoshi was against the corruption rampant in the financial industry in 2009. Bitcoin would be controlled by no one, was quite transparent and so would be free from corruption.
Gavin Anderson is another important name that comes up when Satoshi is discussed. Anderson had an important role to play in making considerable changes in the software.
- He was handed over the reins of the source code repository of bitcoin by Satoshi in 2010.
- By 2011, he had transferred all the domains to different developers.
- Satoshi was in continuous electronic contact with all developers until 2011 when he suddenly vanished and has not made an appearance ever since.
Satoshi’s own bitcoin wallet contains approximately one million bitcoins. All of them are unspent, except the ones which were used for testing transactions. In 2010, many donors who supported cryptocurrency asked Wikileaks to accept donations in the form of bitcoins. Satoshi’s immediate reply to this was, “I make this appeal to Wikileaks not to try to use bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring you likely destroy us at this stage.”
In 2015, Satoshi’s name was in the nominee list for the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences by Bhagwan Chowdhry.
Identity
Satoshi claimed to be a 37 year old Japanese on the P2P network website, but his perfect English and style of writing raised many questions regarding his identity. The times at which he posted in the listserv also reveals that he must have resided between GMT-5 and GMT-6 regions. Although Satoshi was wise enough to keep his identity secret and leave no clue, but investigators were able to speculate with the help of his writings. Someone even claimed the NSA used stylometry and closed down on a few options.
#1 Nick Szabo
Nick Szabo is a computer scientist, and has been into cryptocurrencies for a large part of his life. He even published a paper titled ‘bit gold’ in 1998, years before Bitcoin came into being. It is said that bit gold is a progenitor to bitcoin. Szabo is also known for his concept of ‘smart contracts’, which is a distinct attribute of the programming language E and cryptocurrencies. Nik has been known to use sobriquets earlier too which puts him in the hit list.
Skye Green, a blogger concluded Nick is the real Satoshi after some stylometric analysis on the bitcoin whitepaper, and published his findings on his blog in 2013. Another person named Dominic Frisby, a financial author, also holds the same opinion but due to non conclusive evidence, nothing can be proved. Nick gave his part of clarification to Dominic in 2014 through e-mail, saying, ‘Thanks for letting me know. I’m afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I’m used to it’.
#2 Dorian Nakamoto
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto is a Japanese American man, identified by a Newsweek journalist. Dorian worked as a computer engineer for financial companies. His birth name was Satoshi Nakamoto, which raised suspicion that he was the real Satoshi. In his interview with the journalist, when supposedly asked about bitcoin, Dorian replied ‘I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It’s been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.’
The article understandably caused a flurry and Dorian was hounded by reporters. He later clarified that he had misinterpreted the question and assumed he was being asked about his work at Citibank. Later that day, Satoshi Nakamoto’s P2P foundation posted its first message online in five years. It said ‘I am not Dorian Nakamoto’. At that time, people believed that the account had actually been hacked and it was not Satoshi who had typed the message.
#3 Hal Finney
Hal was a computer scientist and used to work for PGP Developers while simultanouesly being a lead developer developing console games. He was the first person to make a bitcoin transaction with Satoshi. He was also the first person to use the software and find bugs. Finney made considerable improvements in the software, and is said to have lived a few houses away from Dorian Nakamoto for ten years. This fact further fueled the speculation that he was Satoshi. In early 2013, Finney posted on a forum named Bitcoin Talk that he was paralysed but this didn’t stop him from working. He programmed till the end of his life. He was essentially involved in developing an experimental software, ‘bcflick.’ A consultancy firm, ‘Juola and Associates’ used stylometry and found his writing the closest match to Satoshi’s. His blogging partner Robin Hanson stated that Finney was too involved in bitcoins, more than he seemed to be.
Other Suspects
A lot of guesswork has been performed about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. There are many more speculations about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. The other suspects include:
- Craig Steven Wright, an Australian computer scientist and technology entrepreneur claimed to be Satoshi. After an anonymous tip, Wired and Gizmodo claimed “he either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did”. This statement had been published as a result of Wright’s discussion with his lawyers. It is supposed that he said that he had been running bitcoins ever since 2009 and he tried his best to hide this fact but failed.
- Martii Malmi who was a developer based in Finland and was believed to have been involved in bitcoins since a long time. It is also said that he was the person who had developed its user interface.
- Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir were two colleagues belonging to the Weizmann institute based in Israel. They were the first people to link Satoshi and Silk Road (a black market website).
- Donal O’Mahony and Michael Peirce are other suspects in the long list. They had published a book on digital payments with Hitesh Tewari which set people thinking about their link with Satoshi.
Despite the speculation, no conclusive evidence exists on Satoshi’s real identity. Some even say he was involved with the US government and his name actually means ‘central intelligence’. But people will continue to speculate. Regardless of whether there’s ever any progress on nailing him, it’s undeniable that the man set about the biggest financial revolution the world has seen in a long time.