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Disclaimer: This article has been updated for clarity regarding the veracity of certain claims about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the creator(s) of Bitcoin, whose true identity remains unknown. The name was used to create the original Bitcoin (BTC) white paper in 2008 and creating and deploying the first Bitcoin software in 2009. Nakamoto’s true identity has never been revealed and they have remained an enigma in the cryptocurrency world. It is estimated that they mined around 1 million BTC at the start of the network, which would make them one of the richest people in the world.
Some believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym of an individual, while others argue that it could be a group of people.
Many have been named as possible inventors while others have claimed they were the inventors of Bitcoin themselves. Below is a list of some of these people. Newcomers to the crypto industry should note that these claims are highly disputed and no official conclusion has been made regarding the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Nick Szabo
Nick Szabo is a computer scientist, lawyer, and cryptographer known for his research on digital contracts and digital currency. He is credited with developing the concept of smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement written in code. Szabo first proposed the idea of smart contracts in 1994 in an article titled “Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets”.
Szabo is also known for his work on digital currency and cryptography and is considered a digital currency pioneer. He created a precursor to Bitcoin called “Bit Gold”, which he described in a series of blog posts in the late 1990s.
Szabo is considered by many to be a likely candidate for Nakamoto’s true identity, but he has denied it.
He is also a legal scholar and has written extensively on the legal implications of digital contracts and digital currency. He is a digital freedom and privacy advocate and has written about the intersection of cryptography and civil liberties.
Hal Finney
Hal Finney was a computer programmer and an early contributor to Bitcoin. He was one of the first to run Bitcoin software and has been an active member of the community in the years since its inception. Finney was also a developer of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software, widely used to secure email communications.
He was a well-known figure in the Bitcoin community and was recognized for his contributions to its development. He was also a strong Bitcoin advocate and wrote extensively about the technology’s potential in various forums and social media platforms.
Finney denied claims that he created Bitcoin but acknowledged receiving the first Bitcoin transaction from Nakamoto. He died in 2014 from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control muscle movement. He was widely respected and honored within the Bitcoin community.
Dorian Nakamoto
Dorian Nakamoto is a retired Japanese-American engineer and physicist whose name was featured as potential Satoshi Nakamoto in a 2014 article by Leah McGrath Goodman in Newsweek magazine.
Dorian Nakamoto denied the allegations, stating that he had never heard of Bitcoin before the article was published and had no involvement in the creation of the cryptocurrency. He also said he was not fluent in English and felt the interviewer took his statements out of context.
Despite his denial, the article sparked a media frenzy, with reporters and members of the public staking out Dorian Nakamoto’s house and attempting to contact him for interviews. The attention caused a lot of stress for him and his family, and he later sought legal advice to deal with the situation. Dorian Nakamoto’s name was later removed from the list of potential candidates. Since then, he has been a private person and not much is known about him or his activities.
Craig Wright
Craig Wright is an Australian computer scientist and businessman who has publicly claimed to be Nakamoto. Wright made his first statements in 2016 and later provided technical information which he said provided supporting evidence.
Wright has been a controversial figure in the cryptocurrency community, and his claims to be Nakamoto have been met with great skepticism. Many experts in the field have said that the evidence presented by Wright is insufficient to prove his claim, and some have accused him of fraud.
Three videos from the September trial in Oslo. That sums it up a bit. pic.twitter.com/diBfHNB3HD
— hodlonaut 13%er ⚡ (@hodlonaut) January 24, 2023
Wright is also known for his involvement in various lawsuits and legal disputes, including a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the estate of Dave Kleiman, a computer scientist and cybersecurity expert who was also considered a potential candidate for Nakamoto, and several disputes. with other members of the cryptocurrency community.
Adam Back
Adam Back is a British computer scientist and cryptography expert who has been involved in the development of various blockchain and digital currency projects. He is best known as the creator of Hashcash, a proof-of-work system used to prevent spam and denial-of-service attacks, which was proposed in 1997 and later inspired Bitcoin’s mining mechanism.
Back is a respected figure in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry and has been involved in various projects and ventures. He is also an active member of the cypherpunk community, a group of activists and technologists who advocate the use of cryptography to protect privacy and civil liberties.
Back has denied being Nakamoto but remains a strong privacy advocate and has spoken out against government surveillance and the erosion of civil liberties. He is also known for his research on distributed systems, writing several articles and articles on the subject.
Wei Dai
Wei Dai is a computer scientist and cryptographer known for his contributions to the development of digital currency. He is best known for his work on digital cash and electronic payment systems and is considered one of the pioneers in the field.
Dai’s most notable contribution is the creation of B-money, an anonymous, distributed electronic payment system proposed in 1998. The concept of B-money served as inspiration for the development of Bitcoin, and many of the ideas presented in Dai’s B-money paper was later incorporated into the Bitcoin white paper.
Dai denied being Nakamoto. He remains a member of the cypherpunk community.
Vili Lehdonvirta
Vili Lehdonvirta is a Finnish economist and researcher on culture and digital economies. He is a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, where he studies digital labor, platform economies and digital currencies. Lehdonvirta has published several articles and articles on digital currencies and online markets and has been a speaker at various conferences and events on the subject.
Lehdonvirta’s name was suggested as a potential Nakamoto due to his early research into digital currencies and online markets. However, there is no concrete evidence linking him to the creation of Bitcoin, and Lehdonvirta himself has denied being Nakamoto. He has also been involved in various policy-making processes and has provided expert testimony on issues related to the digital economy to governments and international organizations.
As stated above, these are only a small number of individuals who have claimed or been named as the true face behind the inventor of Bitcoin. As the crypto industry continues to develop and grow, there will likely be more theories, and the world may never know for sure who the real Satoshi Nakamoto is.