Hey buddies!
In our previous post, we saw a basic understanding of what a bitcoin is. The identity of the person or persons known as "Satoshi Nakamoto" who created Bitcoin is still a mystery. In this post, we tried to cover all the information that can be found regarding "Satoshi Nakamoto".
Satoshi means "clear thinking, quick-witted, wise". "Naka" can mean "medium, inside or relationship" while "Moto" can mean "origin or foundation". These meanings would all apply to the mysterious person who founded a movement based on a clever algorithm. The problem here, of course, is that each word has multiple meanings.
Do We or Do We Not Know Satoshi?
No one conclusively knows who invented bitcoin. The name "Satoshi Nakamoto" is associated with a single person or a group of persons who released the original Bitcoin whitepaper and software in 2008 and 2009, respectively.
Many people have either been suggested or have claimed to be the real-life people behind the pseudonym. But as of January 2021, the true identity or identities behind Satoshi remains obscured.
The following people were suggested to be Satoshi Nakamoto throughout the years:
The New Yorker's Joshua Davis believed that Michael Clear, a graduate cryptography student at Dublin's Trinity College. He arrived at this conclusion by searching for linguistic clues by analysing 80,000 words of Nakamoto's online writings. He also suggested Finnish economic sociologist and former games developer Vili Lehdonvirta. But both have denied being Bitcoin's inventor. Michael Clear publicly denied being Nakamoto at the 2013 Web Summit (click here to read more about it).
Adam Penenberg at FastCompany argued that Satoshi might actually have been three people: Charles Bry, Vladimir Oksman and Neal King. He figured this out by typing unique phrases used in the whitepaper into Google to check the usage elsewhere. One of the "computationally impractical to reverse" turned up in a patent application made by these three people for updating and distributing encryption keys. All of them deny it. (Click here to read more about it)
The media has spun stories like Satoshi Nakamoto is a solitary, visionary genius who created Bitcoin out of thin air. It is tempting to believe that story, but such innovations do not happen in a vacuum. All major scientific discoveries, even though original-seeming, were built on previously existing research.
Precursors to Bitcoin:
Adam Back's Hashcash
Wei Dai's b-money
Nick Szabo's bit-gold
Hal Finney's Reusable Proof of Work.
The bitcoin whitepaper itself cites Hashcash and b-money, along with various other works spanning several research fields. Perhaps, many of the individuals behind the other projects named above have been speculated to have also had a part in creating bitcoin, which is not a surprise!
Possible motivations:
There are few possible motivations for Satoshi Nakamoto deciding to keep their identity secret.
Privacy - As bitcoin has gained popularity, Satoshi would like to garner a lot of attention from governments and the media. Every person has a right to privacy, and so does our dear mysterious Satoshi!
Major disruption - Bitcoin can cause a major disruption in the current banking and monetary systems. Bitcoin could surpass nations' sovereign fiat currencies if it were to gain mass adoption. This is a threat to the existing currencies. The governments might take legal action against the creator.
Safety - In 2009 alone, the total payout was 16,24,500 bitcoin. We can conclude that few people, including Satoshi, were dealing with bitcoin through 2009 and possess a majority of that bitcoin stash. Someone in possession of that much bitcoin could become a target easily.
Satoshi took care not to reveal anything personal. The last anyone heard from him was in 2011, when he said that he had "moved on to other things". Remaining anonymous is a good way for Satoshi to limit exposure considering the above reasons. But still, curiosity does not let us rest without knowing the identity of Satoshi. And so, there is still a search for Satoshi's identity.
Until the next read, you know the drill...
Like, comment, share and subscribe!
Comments