Who is Satoshi Nakamoto？Here are the best guesses

2022-03-15, 05:17

[TL;DR]

Nick Szabo (most likely): Coined the term “smart contracts,” introduced a thesis on a digital currency back in 1998 - called it “bit gold.”

Len Sassaman: Leading cryptographer and the inspiration behind blockchain technology, Sassaman took his own life two months after Satoshi Nakamoto sent his last email, which stated that he was moving on to other things and would no longer work in Bitcoin’s technology.

Craig Wright: Computer scientist and entrepreneur, Wright has claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto over the past six years - but to no avail. Although Craig has won a lawsuit and earned his merit as one of the main researchers in cryptography technology around the time Bitcoin was created, he has failed to prove his claims by using at least one of several Satoshi wallets that have been inactive for over a decade.

Dorian Nakamoto (least likely): A news piece in 2014 used Dorian’s image as Satoshi Nakamoto, and since then he has been constantly harassed about it. Dorian Nakamoto profusely denies the allegations, and have sued several enterprises that attached his image to the anonymous technologist. Still, to this day, he’s the most used image online whenever anyone types “Satoshi Nakamoto” in search tools.

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There are many interesting and fascinating facts surrounding the history of cryptocurrencies, most specifically the first crypto ever - Bitcoin. Whether it relates to the blockchain technology itself or how the movement towards decentralization of financial assets started, nothing comes close to being a consistent topic of discussion than the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. That’s because no one on Earth allegedly has known for certainty who he or she may be. Since the inception of the Bitcoin Whitepaper back in October of 2008, the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has remained a complete mystery.

However, given historical backgrounds in cryptography and some people’s proximity towards digital asset research prior to Bitcoin, several people have pointed to who Satoshi might actually be - while others have often claimed the title as the creator of Bitcoin over the past few years.

With that in mind, this article attempts to answer the question “Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?” based on the most mentioned names in the crypto ecosystem since this ongoing mystery first hit the mainstream world.

Nick Szabo (most likely)

Nick Szabo. Source: Bitcoin News

In a podcast last year and on his Twitter page, Elon Musk claimed that his number one guess for Nakamoto’s identity would be Nick Szabo. A computer scientist and expert in leading research in cryptography since the early 1990s, Szabo has been an essential pillar in the development of smart contracts and digital currencies for the past 30 years.

Elon Musk might have a point there, cause the pieces of evidence are quite strong: Nick Szabo started his research on creating a digital currency back in the early 1990s and was responsible for coining the term “smart contracts” about 25 years ago. Also, the most important piece of evidence: in 1998, Nick Szabo introduced his first idea of what a digital currency may look like: he called it “bit gold”. The technology was never implemented as it was at the time, but is openly considered to be one of the main inspirations for current Blockchain technology and of course, Bitcoin’s name.

However, a couple of factors discredit Szabo as the founder of Bitcoin. For one, he has ferociously denied such allegations for the past decade, claiming to feel honored by the connection people make but asserting fans that he is by no means Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite the obvious inspiration that bit gold brought to Blockchain technology, Nick is not credited as one of the referenced academic sources behind the Bitcoin Whitepaper. Maybe his denial and lack of mentions on the document are both on purpose? We might just never know.

Len Sassaman

Len Sassaman. Source: CriptoNoticias

The connections behind Len Sassaman and Bitcoin’s anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto are plausible - and also very grim. An early member of cryptography advocates towards financial ownership and decentralized assets, Len Sassaman was an American computer scientist and technologist extremely involved in the development of privacy-based software. In that field, he’s more famous for founding the company CodeCon and co-creating the Zimmermann-Sassaman key-signing protocol - considered by many as the foundation for Blockchain’s decentralized technology of verifying transactions.

But his main connection evidence to Satoshi Nakamoto is quite the sad one. On July 2rd of 2011, two and a half years after the Bitcoin whitepaper was released to the public, Len Sassaman took his own life. Two months before Sassaman’s passing, Satoshi Nakamoto sent his final message to the general public: “I’ve moved on to other things and probably won’t be around in the future.” According to Len’s family, the technologist was dealing with depression. Given the proximity between the dates and Len Sassaman’s past as a cryptographer and potential pioneer of blockchain technology, many crypto enthusiasts believe Satoshi’s last email was Sassaman’s farewell to the Bitcoin project - and to the world.

Craig Wright

Craig Wright. Source: Financial Times

The most popular and outspoken member of this list regarding Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity, Craig Wright is an Australian-born computer scientist and entrepreneur who claims to be Nakamoto himself.

On several occasions, Craig Wright claimed to be one of the core team members behind the creation of Bitcoin and the one who used the Satoshi Nakamoto alias to conduct its research and launch the very first blockchain system. However, both claims have been deemed completely false by the community, given that there is no evidence for the matter.

Last year, Wright sued the Bitcoin.org website arguing that the page had no rights to host the official Bitcoin Whitepaper - which the address had been doing so as early as 2009. Under the claim that he was the rightful owner of the document for being the creator of Bitcoin, Wright actually won such a lawsuit in the UK court - simply because the anonymous owner of the website refused to attend hearings and therefore was absent of any counterargument. Craig Wright also won another lawsuit in Miami against a former partner in cryptography research, and was granted the right and recognition as indeed a founding member of blockchain research.

However, there is a major gap in his logic: since claiming to be Nakamoto back in 2016, the crypto community has frequently asked Wright to move Bitcoins from one of Satoshi’s wallet, which has been inactive since 2010. Craig has failed to attend to these requests every single time they were made, even in courts of law, only making the general public even more sceptical about his claims.

Dorian Nakamoto (least likely)

Dorian Nakamoto shows his official ID to the public. Source: XP Investments

If you search “Satoshi Nakamoto” on Google, you’ll mostly see several Dorian Nakamoto pictures and even a Wikipedia page with his image. Also, if you ask Dorian what being recognized as Satoshi Nakamoto has done for him, you will probably get a very angry answer.

Dorian Nakamoto is a Japanese-American engineer who was identified by Newsweek Magazine back in 2014 as being Satoshi Nakamoto during a news piece on Bitcoin and its inventor. It was the first time that mainstream media made a piece on the anonymous Bitcoin creator, so the article was taken by storm by crypto enthusiasts worldwide. Turns out all was needed was having the same alleged last name as the mysterious tech creator.

It also made Dorian’s life a living hell, as the engineer profusely denied the allegations and sued Newsweek for the inappropriate use of his image. To this day, millions of people worldwide are not only sure that Satoshi Nakamoto’s identitiy is publicly known, but unconsciously relate it to the image of an Asian man they most likely saw a few times online. That man is Dorian Nakamoto, and no one is more eager to tell you that they’re not Satoshi than him.

Author: Gate.io Researcher: Victor Bastos
* This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
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