Satoshi Nakamoto

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Why did he or she decide to conceal their name?

Before Bitcoin, there were several attempts of creating digital currencies and the people involved were often getting into a bind with authorities. Many systems were shut down, and there were suspicions of terrorism financing swirling around. All of this might have made the real Satoshi Nakamoto want to hide their name under a pseudonym.

In addition, the creation of Bitcoin opened the way for decentralized economic systems. One of the most significant innovations that Bitcoin brought was the possibility of peer-to-peer transactions with the absence of any intermediary. In line with this philosophy, Nakamoto handed over the Bitcoin source code to other developers and disappeared. Since then, Bitcoin is being developed as an open-source project without a central authority or leader.

Was the creator actually Japanese?

Various linguistic analyzes were performed to examine Satoshi’s writing style. Researchers investigated the Bitcoin's Whitepaper, Satoshi’s forum posts, and also emails. Although they failed to conclusively point any single person, the author was writing in perfect English. Therefore, it is unlikely that Satoshi was actually Japanese.

Was this a single person or a group of people?

Email records indicate that Satoshi was a single person. The programmers who kept in touch with Nakamoto would describe him as a paranoid fellow. He would be nowhere to be found for days, and then he would start sending out dozens of emails on Fridays. Satoshi was worried that somebody might break Bitcoin or something might go wrong with it. All in all, this gives a feeling that Satoshi Nakamoto was a coder, doing Bitcoin on the side, just seeing how this project might move forward. 

Are there any theories who Satoshi may be?

There have been many theories relating Satoshi Nakamoto with programming personalities, such as Hal Finney and Nick Szabo. However, each of them clearly refuted any connection to Satoshi.

In 2014, a person named Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto was uncovered by the media as the real Satoshi. Dorian is a physicist and system engineer living in California, but he claims that he has nothing to do with Bitcoin. In contrast, Craig Steven Wright has been actively claiming that he is the real Satoshi Nakamoto. However, he has failed to present any tangible proof for his words.