Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

No one knows. Not conclusively, at any rate. Satoshi Nakamoto is a creator of Bitcoin protocol and the software Bitcoin-Qt. It is not clear whether he is a person or group of persons.

The first description of the Bitcoin was published by Nakamoto in 2008 at metzdowd.com in The Cryptography Mailing list. Later, in 2009, he launches the first software for Bitcoin.

He had been continuing to work on the software release with the support of other enthusiastic developers for some time, but in the middle of 2010 he stopped to contact with them and the customers.

The control of the source code repository and alert key functions of the software were given to Gavin Andresen. The other active members of the Bitcoin community received the control of the Bitcoin.org domain and several other domains.

They say that Nakamoto wealth is approximately one million bitcoins. It equaled US$1.1 billion.at one point in December 2013.

Nevertheless the identity of Nakamoto is still unknown. No one is sure whether the name “Satoshi Nakamoto” is real, because it can be pseudonym as well. Also Satoshi Nakamoto can be a group of people, hiding behind the name of Japanese guy. It cannot be proved even if on his P2P Foundation page he assured the public that he is a real Japanese citizen at the age of 37.

Lots of people doubt his nationality, because his level of English is pretty high and Bitcoin software, created by him, hadn’t been documented nor labeled in the Japanese language. There is allegations that Nakamoto has a Commonwealth origin, because he or one of the crew members uses occasional English spelling and terminology in code comments and forum postings.

Some people believe his can be a crew. For example, a security researcher of the Bitcoin code, says that only a true genius could do a job that not every group of professionals can do. This point of view is also supported by Laszlo Hanyec, a former developer of Bitcoin core.

Swiss coder and Bitcoin community member, Stefan Thomas, made a time graphic of more than 500 Nakamoto’s posts on bitcoin forum. The research showed that Satoshi Nakamoto most likely lives in the parts of North America that fall within the Eastern Time Zone and Central Time Zone, as well as parts of Central America, the Caribbean and South America, considering the regular sleep pattern.

The New Yorker magazine had published the article back in 2011 in which Joshua Davis said that he found out who might be the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Among his variants were Dr Vili Lehdonvirta, Finnish economic sociologist, Michael Clear, an Irish  graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College Dublin. But Clear and Lehdonvirtastrongly denied their connection with Bitcoin.

Later in 2011 investigative journalist Adam Penenberg, Fast Company, suggested Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry as a potential Nakamoto. His theory was based on the fact that they filed a patent application which featured “computationally impractical to reverse”, and this phrase was used in the Bitcoin white paper as well. But those persons also disapproved this information.

Last year Ted Nelson  said that Satoshi is Shinichi Mochizuki, a mathematician from Japan. The information was given in the newspaper called The Age. Also there were allegations that Gavin Andresen, Jed McCaleb, or a government agency could be Nakamoto.

One of the most interesting version believes that ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ is an abbreviation for leading technical companies Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, and Motorola, and those companies provided a joint work to create Bitcoin.

Some believe that the most possible candidate for Nakamoto is Nick Szabo. Szabo is a blogger, known for his research in digital contracts and currency. He also created a mechanism, designed to make “bit gold”, decentralized digital currency. This mechanism is a progenitor of the Bitcoin architecture.

In a March of 2014 was issued an article with an information that Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a man with a Japanese origin that lives in California.

Plus to being a namesake Dorian Nakamoto has a range of similarities. Goodman, the journalist who wrote this article, claimed that during a personal interview Dorian said “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It’s been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.” 

The information was confirmed afterwards by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Nevertheless, this information was denied on the Nakamoto’s P2P Foundation account by posting : “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” This was the first massage from Satoshi Nakamoto in 5 years, but his identity is still unknown.