It has been 12 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published the blueprint for the first digital currency that will take the world by storm and become the biggest digital asset of the decade.
Satoshi picked 31st October 2008 to publish the White Paper. The paper contained information on how the digital currency will operate. Satoshi explained how the currency, which would have a digital signature, would facilitate payments between two people without any financial institution or third party.
Today, that paper can be said to have given birth to over $400 billion in market cap alone. The paper was so well crafted that one could tell that Satoshi was a genius of some sort.
But the name, “Satoshi Nakamoto” remains a pseudonym for the great mind behind bitcoin. The real Identity of bitcoin’s creator is still unknown.
All that is known of the creator of the biggest cryptocurrency in the world is that he’s a Japanese man born on April 5, 1975. This information is still, however, disputed by many on account that the kind of English he uses looks very native.
It is surprising that the creator of one of the greatest inventions of the decade is unknown. This mystery has spurred a lot of interesting speculations, with some people claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. A lot have tried to follow the less than visible footprints left by the mysterious Satoshi, but all that was discovered hasn’t gotten the world any closer to knowing who Satoshi is.
The real Nakamoto
Although no one knows who the real bitcoin founder and creator is, there’s a face we’ve attached to the mystery man, and he’s also a Nakamoto— but not “the Nakamoto”.
Dorian Nakamoto is most likely the face you’ll see when you Google Satoshi Nakamoto. In March 2014, Dorian Nakamoto unwittingly became a celebrity when Newsweek magazine ousted him as bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto. But when Dorian was asked about bitcoin, he had no clue what it was about. Newsweek arrived at the conclusion that Dorian was Satoshi Nakamoto because he was a computer engineer for financial information services companies.
While Dorian Nakamoto is not the real Satoshi Nakamoto, he helps attach a face to the unknown Nakamoto, a mascot of some sort.
Other proposed Nakamotos
Hal Finney was the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction. A Caltech engineering graduate and a developer for PGP corporation, Hal had what it took to be Satoshi Nakamoto. An interesting coincidence is that Hal is Dorian Nakamoto’s next door. Hal was also the first person to improve the bitcoin source code after the real Nakamoto pulled out.
Unfortunately, Finney died in 2014 before he could give more insight into bitcoin. His body is, however, preserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, should the technology to bring him back to life be invented, a chance to ask him all he knew about bitcoin could present itself.
Nice Szabo was another man likely to be the real Nakamoto but he denies he’s not the bitcoin founder. However, Szabo created something that was similar to bitcoin, back in 2005. He called it “bitgold”. The concept was perfected in 2009 and hence, the birth of bitcoin. If Szabo hadn’t denied the claims, he might have been the man considered to be the real Nakamoto.
Craig Wright, on the other hand, did not deny the fact that he could be the real Nakamoto. In fact, he had a lot of strong people in the crypto crowd believing he was the real Nakamoto for a while. The Australian business man tried to prove he was the real bitcoin founder and creator through many ways, including suing people who didn’t believe him.
Elon Musk was also considered to be a Nakamoto but the billionaire opted out of the race to be a Nakamoto. Musk’s involvement in crypto is mostly as a meme online. Being the founder of a host of powerful and successful companies, Musk could have very well been the creator of bitcoin.
Whoever Satoshi is or are, he has also refused to cash out the billions his early mined coins are now worth.
Why someone would create something as incredible as bitcoin and not want to be associated with it is as much a mystery as knowing who Satoshi Nakamoto is.
