Key highlights:
- Bitcoin was invented in 2008 by an individual or a team of people that used the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto"
- Even though Bitcoin has grown to an extent that couldn't have been imagined at the start, the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is still unknown
- We present a list of people that have been discussed as Satoshi Nakamoto candidates
Top Satoshi Nakamoto candidates
Even though Bitcoin has already been around for 10 years and became a global phenomenon along the way, its origins continue to be shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the Bitcoin story is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. Even though we can’t even say for sure if Bitcoin was invented by one person or a group of people, plenty of people have been identified as the potential creators of the world's first cryptocurrency.
In this article, we will be looking at people who have been discussed as potentially beind behind the "Satoshi Nakamoto" pseudonym, although this is by no means an exhaustive list and some people on this list are much more likely to be Satoshi Nakamoto than others.
1. Hal Finney
Hal Finney was a software developer for PGP Software, a company that owned the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program. Finney, who passed away in 2014, was the recipient of the first Bitcoin transaction, receiving 50 BTC from Satoshi Nakamoto. This is also the only transaction known to be sent by Satoshi.
Finney was a cypherpunk and an early contributor to the Bitcoin code. He was also the first person to mention Bitcoin on the Twitter social media, simply tweeting “Running bitcoin” on January 10, 2009, about a week after the Bitcoin genesis block was mined.
Writing consultancy firm Juola & Associates concluded from a sample of Finney’s writing that his writing style most closely resembled the writing style of Satoshi Nakamoto compared to other analyzed candidates. Despite this, Finney himself denied that he is the person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.
As an interesting fact, Finney chose to have his body preserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, where people’s bodies are frozen in case technology enables people to be revived in the future.
2. Nick Szabo
Nick Szabo is a computer scientist and legal scholar that created a design for “bit gold”, a decentralized digital currency, in 1998. The similarities between the “bit gold” idea and Bitcoin in addition to Szabo’s specific fields of expertise have led many to believe that he is the person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.
Szabo denies that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. In an e-mail to British author David Frisby, who proposed Szabo as a likely Satoshi Nakamoto candidate, Szabo wrote:
“Thanks for letting me know. I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it.”
Nick Szabo is also regarded as the first person to use the term “smart contracts”. He used the term in public writing as early as 2004.
3. Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen is known as the inventor of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, and also authored the software sharing the same name. Cohen has never claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, and the evidence linking him to Satoshi is circumstantial at best. For example, Cohen shares the same year of birth with Bitcoin’s pseudonymous inventor (1975) and he talked with HashCash creator Adam Back on Usenet in 2000. HashCash is cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper as an inspiration for Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system.
A Steemit post by “markessien” discusses the possibility of Bram Cohen being Satoshi Nakamoto in more detail.
Currently, Cohen is working on a cryptocurrency called Chia, which aims to provide an energy efficient alternative to Bitcoin while providing improved safety and decentralization.
4. Paul Le Roux
Paul Le Roux is mostly infamous for operating a rogue online pharmacy called RX Limited and later becoming an organized crime boss involved in crimes including arms trafficking, money laundering and drug shipping.
However, speculation has emerged about Le Roux as a potential Satoshi Nakamoto candidate. Before his turn to illegal activities, Le Roux was a programmer, developing the Encryption for the Masses (E4M) encryption software. In the “politics” section of the E4M website, Le Roux expressed his opposition to governments intruding on the privacy of citizens and championed encryption technologies as a way for people to protect their privacy.
In one of his passports, he used the surname “Solotshi Calder Le Roux”, which further fuels the speculation that he is the inventor of Bitcoin.
Le Roux was arrested in 2012, and is currently in custody in the United States.
5. Craig Wright
In contrast to everyone else on this list, Craig Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, although his claims have been strongly disputed by a number of experts. Jameson Lopp, the CTO of crypto security firm Casa, recently published an extensive rebuttal of these claims in an op-ed for Bitcoin Magazine.
Wright had even managed to convince early Bitcoin contributor Gavin Andresen that he was Satoshi Nakamoto. However, Andresen later said that Wright should be ignored, regardless of whether he is Satoshi Nakamoto or not.
Wright has done information technology work for a number of companies, and also likes to boast his academic credentials. These days, he is one of the leading proponents of Bitcoin SV, a fork of Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin SV supporters claim the cryptocurrency most closely resembles the vision for Bitcoin that was outlined by Satoshi Nakamoto.
6. Adam Back
Adam Back is a cryptography expert who co-founded the Bitcoin development company Blockstream in 2014. Back was active in the cypherpunk movement, which sought to leverage cryptography and software to protect the rights and privacy of individuals. Back is also the inventor of HashCash, a proof-of-work system that was cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Back communicated with Satoshi via email, and was involved with the Bitcoin project since the relatively early stages. Since he was involved in and has the skillset that would be necessary to create a technology like Bitcoin, Back is often cited as one of the most probable Satoshi Nakamoto candidates. Some have also compared his writing style with Satoshi's writing style, noting several similarities.
Back has firmly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto. In May 2020, YouTube video creator Barely Sociable released a 40-minute video where he makes the case that Back is the person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym. The video gained plenty of traction, and currently has over 600,000 views. The popularity of the video prompted Back to respond, and he stated in a May 2020 tweet:
"I am not Satoshi despite recent video / reddit claiming so. some factors & timing may look suspicious in hindsight; coincidence & facts are untidy."
7. Michael Weber
Michael Weber is speculated to have been involved with AnonymousSpeech, a company that was used to register the Bitcoin.org domain name in 2008. The company offered services that allowed used to register web domains without providing any personal information about themselves. Beyond that, Weber also used the same email providers as Satoshi Nakamoto, namely Vistomail and GMX. AnonymousSpeech also started accepting Bitcoin payments in 2013.
However, it's probably a bit of a strech to say that Weber was Satoshi Nakamoto itself. Martti Malmi, an early Bitcoin developer, told Business Insider that Weber was not involved in the Bitcoin project in any way, other than being "the contact for Anonymous Speech's domain registry service".