The creator of Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto.

The developer’s native country is also questionable. In his correspondence with forum members, Nakamoto used exclusively English, with some words and turns indicating the British version. Subsequently, this made it possible to search outside the United States and Japan.

Against the Land of the Rising Sun is indicated by the lack of local localization of Bitcoin. Also, the practice of writing personal data in Japan does not provide for the indication of the first name before the last name.

Public life, the identity of the programmer and cryptologist is carefully hidden from the public. There is no photo of Satoshi Nakamoto, information about his family, children, occupations since 2011, when he handed over the management of the project to Gavin Andresen. By the way, the latter is a programmer, currently an employee of the Bitcoin Foundation.

Andresen is one of the few people who communicated with the creator of the digital currency directly via email. It was to him that the mysterious developer gave access to the software update.

Capital

The undisclosed person known to the public as Satoshi Nakamoto owns a considerable fortune in the cryptocurrency he created. The Bitcoin developer owns assets obtained as a result of forks.

With quotations over $60 thousand (spring 2021) for 1 BTC, the state of the mysterious programmer exceeded $ 60 billion. With such an indicator, he was quite in the top 20 richest people in the world. At the same time, no one knows exactly how many assets are in Satoshi’s possession. Sergio Demian Lerner, a researcher of the cryptocurrency world, used the method of increasing extraNonce. He came to the conclusion that the cryptocurrency developer has mined 1,148,800 BTC. Transfers continue to come to his wallet, a total of 16.7 BTC has been received there since 2011.

Personification

Satoshi Nakamoto’s biography is of great interest to active participants of the digital world, the media, and representatives of the financial sphere. For 12 years, dozens of attempts have been made to personify the developer’s personality. People from different countries were associated with Satoshi’s name.

Some were pointed out by the cryptocurrency community. Journalists sought to confirm or refute the theory. Others, on the contrary, independently declared themselves as a programmer and developer of bitcoin.

The search for Satoshi Nakamoto may pose a threat to cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase stated this in its letter to the SEC before listing. Identity, the movement of assets mined in 2010-2011 could lead to a drop in quotes and the collapse of the digital currency.

Among the potential suitors:

• Nick Szabo.
• Dorian Nakamoto.
• Craig Steven Wright.
• Hal Finney.
• Michael Claire.

Nick Szabo

One of the main contenders is Nick Szabo. Personality is no less mysterious, but quite real. This is a famous scientist, the scope of his work is vast – cryptography, computer science, programming, law, economics, finance. Sabo is famous for his research in the field of smart contracts. His developments are known since 1996. In 1998, Nick Sabo developed an algorithm for the digital currency Bit Gold, which is considered the predecessor of cryptocurrency.

Information about the biography is also unknown. However, this is a real person. Sabo gives lectures at universities, writes articles, runs the blog Unenumerated, where he writes down his ideas about finance, technology.

The connection between Nick Sabo and Nakamoto can be traced in the realization of the idea of cryptocurrency. Back in the spring of 2008, the former wrote in his blog that Bit Gold needs practical realization, for which it is necessary to write code. Sabo nurtured the idea of cryptocurrency 4 years before the release of Bitcoin, it is recorded in the technical documentation of Bit Gold.

Satoshi never referred to Sabo in his description of the cryptocurrency idea, which is very strange. After all, Nick is one of the main ideologues of digital money. In 2010, when Nakamoto was actively working on Bitcoin, Sabo never once mentioned the first cryptocurrency in his messages and posts. On the contrary, after Satoshi’s departure to the “shadow”, Nick Szabo starts writing about the cryptocurrency.

Bit Gold was never actually implemented in practice, although Sabo asked for help in writing the code for the program. Bitcoin, on the contrary, has made its way into our lives.

Sabo’s connection with other applicants is known – he was acquainted with Hal Finney, lived in the same town with Dorian.

Linguistic examination of the white paper of the first cryptocurrency and Nick Sabo’s texts showed striking similarities. This suggests that Sabo may have been among the creators of the technical description of cryptocurrency.

Nick Szabo himself denies his relation to Satoshi.

Dorian Nakamoto

In 2014, the American magazine Newsweek published an article in which the creator of Bitcoin was identified with Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. He is an American engineer, programmer who worked for the US Department of Defense.

Dorian is an American of Japanese descent and resides in Los Angeles County, California. In the city of Temple City works another contender for the role of Bitcoin developer – Nick Sabo.

Dorian denies his involvement in the creation of cryptocurrency. Moreover, Nakamoto worked on secret projects of the U.S. Department of Defense, so he answers many questions about his past evasively or refuses to talk.

Dorian’s image is often used in articles about the creator of Bitcoin.

Craig Steven Wright

Previous candidates for the role of the mysterious developer of cryptocurrency deny their involvement in what is happening. Craig Wright, on the contrary, proves that he is the one who created Bitcoin in 2008.

Craig Steven Wright is an Australian entrepreneur, scientist. Born in 1970, he is a specialist in the field of computer science. Proclaimed himself involved in the creation of Bitcoin, claims that Satoshi Nakamoto is his pseudonym.

In 2015, an article appeared in Wired by journalist Andy Greenberg about Wright. It talks about Craig’s possible relation to the creation of cryptocurrency. The entrepreneur publicly claimed that he was the mysterious developer. However, he refused to provide evidence of his right to the first Bitcoins.

Craig Wright is the founder of Bitcoin SV (BSV). He continues to litigate his rights to be involved in the creation of Bitcoin.

In 2019, Wright filed a petition with the U.S. Copyright Office for the white paper and the original Bitcoin code. Once copyrighted, he demanded that the owners of Bitcoin.org and Bitcoincore.org remove the underlying technical document from their resources. In June 2021, the High Court of London enjoined the owner of Bitcoin.org from infringing Wright’s rights. The court’s decision concerns the ability to download the white paper from the mentioned site.

Hal Finney

The story of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is closely related to Hal Finney. This is a famous American cryptographer who lived with Dorian in the same city. He died in 2014. Directly Hal Finney himself denied that he was Nakamoto.

The specialist is known for the fact that he received the first cryptocurrency transfer from Satoshi to his virtual wallet. This happened in January 2009, the amount was 50 BTC.

In the spring of 2014, Hal Finney met with journalist, researcher Andy Greenberg. During the conversation, the scientist presented his email correspondence, cryptocurrency wallet. This information refuted the version about Hal Finney’s attitude to the development of digital currency.

Michael Clair

Another candidate is considered to be Michael Clair. Programmer from Ireland, graduated from Trinity College in Dublin, a specialist in C++ – the programming language in which the code of Bitcoin is written.

Michael Clair was first pointed out by New Yorker journalist Joshua Davis. He compiled a list of qualities and knowledge that a cryptocurrency developer should possess:

• Master the C++ programming language.
• Understand cryptography.
• Understand the basics of building peer-to-peer networks.
• Understand the world economy, finance.

Michael Clare fell under these criteria. On a television program, the latter accused the journalist of making a mistake. At the same time, the specialist did not make a direct denial of his involvement.

Other versions

The role of the creator of Bitcoin was attributed to different groups of programmers, special services and entire companies.

Group of developers

Developer Laszlo Heinitz, the first buyer of real goods for cryptocurrency, said that the code is written too perfectly for one programmer, most likely the founder of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto is a group of people. In 2013, journalist Adam Penenberg published an article naming US and German developers as the creators of cryptocurrency:

• Neil King.
• Vladimir Oxman.
• Charles Bry.

His theory is based on the fact that the mentioned trio filed a patent application, the text of which contained the phrase “computationally impractical to reverse”. Another evidence in favor of the group of developers is the registration of the bitcoin.org domain 3 days after the filing of their patent. King, Kosman and Bri did not refute the journalist’s version, but also did not admit that he was right.

In addition, there is a version about another group – Nick Sabo, Ian Grigg, Wei Dai. The involvement of these people in the creation of Bitcoin is also not proven.

Symbolism and anagrams

Satoshi Nikamoto – there is a version about the encrypted name of Nick Sabo. It has also not found confirmation or refutation from the famous cryptographer.

The development of Bitcoin is also associated with Pakistani James Bilal Khalid Kaan. His father was the owner of Bank of Credit and Commerce International – the invented cryptocurrency Kaan named after this financial institution.

Groups of large companies may also be involved in the creation of digital currency. Proponents of this theory name Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, Motorola.

American intelligence services

There is a version about the involvement of American special services in the development of Bitcoin. This theory is promoted by representatives of the company Kaspersky Lab. in response to the loss of market share in the field of security software. The idea is the possible financing of the intelligence services of the United States, Canada, other countries with the help of digital money.

Interesting facts

The owner of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance called Craig Steven Wright “a disgrace to the crypto industry”. If desired, the latter could prove his participation in the creation of bitcoin in a multitude of ways, but so far has not done so.

The world-famous startup, developer and businessman Ilon Musk was also attributed the role of the creator of cryptocurrency. The absurd theory was put forward by one of the employees of Musk’s company SpaceX. Ilon denied this version.

In fact, none of the presented theories did not find a hundred percent confirmation of its truth. The search for the discoverer continues with journalists, researchers, enthusiasts of the digital world.

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