Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto
Fields Digital currencies, Computer science, Cryptography
Known for Inventing bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the unknown person or persons who designed bitcoin and created its original reference implementation, Bitcoin Core.[1] As a part of the implementation, they also devised the first blockchain database. In the process they were the first to solve the double spending problem for digital currency.

Nakamoto has claimed to be a man living in Japan, born around 1975. However, speculation about the true identity of Nakamoto has mostly focused on a number of cryptography and computer science experts of non-Japanese descent, living in the United States and Europe. One person, Australian programmer Craig Steven Wright, has claimed to be Nakamoto, though he has not yet offered proof of this.

As of 2016, Nakamoto owns roughly one million bitcoins,[2] with a value estimated at over US$700 million.

Development of bitcoin

In October 2008, Nakamoto published a paper[3][4] on The Cryptography Mailing list at metzdowd.com[5] describing the bitcoin digital currency. It was titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. In January 2009, Nakamoto released the first bitcoin software that launched the network and the first units of the bitcoin cryptocurrency, called bitcoins.[6][7] They claim that work on the writing the code began in 2007.[8]

Nakamoto created a website with the domain name bitcoin.org and continued to collaborate with other developers on the bitcoin software until mid-2010. Around this time, he handed over control of the source code repository and network alert key to Gavin Andresen,[9] transferred several related domains to various prominent members of the bitcoin community, and stopped his involvement in the project.

The public bitcoin transaction log shows that Nakamoto's known addresses contain roughly one million bitcoins.[2] As of 12 October 2016, this is the equivalent of US$ 636 million.[10]

Characteristics

Nakamoto did not disclose any personal information when discussing technical matters.[11] On his P2P Foundation profile as of 2012, Nakamoto claimed to be a 37-year-old male who lived in Japan,[12] but some speculated he was unlikely to be Japanese due to his use of perfect English and his bitcoin software not being documented or labelled in Japanese.[11]

Occasional British English spelling and terminology (such as the phrase "bloody hard") in both source code comments and forum postings led to speculation that Nakamoto, or at least one individual in the consortium claiming to be him, was of Commonwealth origin.[3][11][13]

Stefan Thomas, a Swiss coder and active community member, graphed the time stamps for each of Nakamoto's bitcoin forum posts (more than 500); the resulting chart showed a steep decline to almost no posts between the hours of 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. Because this pattern held true even on Saturdays and Sundays, it suggested that Nakamoto was asleep at this time.[11] If Nakamoto is a single individual with conventional sleeping habits, it suggests he resided in a region using the UTC−05:00 or UTC−06:00 time offset. This includes 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.

Gavin Andresen has said of Nakamoto's code "He was a brilliant coder, but it was quirky".[14]

Candidates

There is still doubt about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, as the following information shows:

Nick Szabo

In December 2013, a blogger named Skye Grey linked Nick Szabo to the bitcoin's whitepaper using a stylometric analysis.[15][16][17] Szabo is a decentralized currency enthusiast and published a paper on "bit gold", which is considered a precursor to bitcoin.[16][17] He is known to have been interested in using pseudonyms in the 1990s.[18] In a May 2011 article, Szabo stated about the bitcoin creator: "Myself, Wei Dai, and Hal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai's case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai)."[19]

Detailed research by financial author Dominic Frisby provides much circumstantial evidence but, as he admits, no proof that Satoshi is Szabo.[20] Speaking on RT's The Keiser Report, he said "I've concluded there is only one person in the whole world that has the sheer breadth but also the specificity of knowledge and it is this chap ...".[21] But Szabo has denied being Satoshi. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he said: 'Thanks for letting me know. I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it'.[22] Nathaniel Popper wrote in the New York Times that "the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo."[23]

Dorian Nakamoto

In a high-profile March 6, 2014, article in the magazine Newsweek,[24] journalist Leah McGrath Goodman identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American man living in California, whose birth name is Satoshi Nakamoto,[24][25][26] as the Nakamoto in question. Besides his name, Goodman pointed to a number of facts that circumstantially suggested he was the bitcoin inventor.[24] Trained as a physicist, Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. Nakamoto was laid off twice in the early 1990s and turned libertarian, according to his daughter, and encouraged her to start her own business and "not be under the government's thumb." In the article's seemingly biggest piece of evidence, Goodman wrote that when she asked him about bitcoin during a brief in-person interview, Nakamoto seemed to confirm his identity as the bitcoin founder by stating: "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."[24] (This quote was later confirmed by deputies at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department who were present at the time.)[27]

The article's publication led to a flurry of media interest, including reporters camping out near Dorian Nakamoto's house and briefly chasing him by car when he drove to an interview.[28] However, during the subsequent full-length interview, Dorian Nakamoto denied all connection to bitcoin, saying he had never heard of the currency before, and that he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as being about his previous work for military contractors, much of which was classified.[29] Later that day, the pseudonymous Nakamoto's P2P Foundation account posted its first message in five years, stating: "I am not Dorian Nakamoto."[30][31]

Hal Finney

Hal Finney (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014) was a pre-bitcoin cryptographic pioneer and the first person (other than Satoshi himself) to use the software, file bug reports, and make improvements.[32] He also lived a few blocks from Dorian Nakamoto's family home, according to Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg.[33] Greenberg asked the writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates to compare a sample of Finney's writing to Satoshi Nakamoto's, and they found that it was the closest resemblance they had yet come across (including the candidates suggested by Newsweek, Fast Company, The New Yorker, Ted Nelson and Skye Grey).[33] Greenberg theorized that Finney may have been a ghostwriter on behalf of Nakamoto, or that he simply used his neighbor Dorian's identity as a "drop" or "patsy whose personal information is used to hide online exploits". However, after meeting Finney, seeing the emails between him and Satoshi, his bitcoin wallet's history including the very first bitcoin transaction (from Satoshi to him, which he forgot to pay back) and hearing his denial, Greenberg concluded Finney was telling the truth. Juola & Associates also found that Satoshi's emails to Finney more closely resemble Satoshi's other writings than Finney's do. Finney's fellow extropian and sometimes co-blogger Robin Hanson assigned a subjective probability of "at least" 15% that "Hal was more involved than he’s said", before further evidence suggested that was not the case.[34]

Craig Steven Wright

On 8 December 2015, Wired wrote that Craig Steven Wright, an Australian former academic, "either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did".[35] Craig Wright took down his Twitter account and neither he nor his ex-wife responded to press inquiries. The same day, Gizmodo published a story with evidence obtained by a hacker who supposedly broke into Wright's email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Craig Steven Wright and computer forensics analyst David Kleiman, who died in 2013.[36] A number of prominent bitcoin promoters remained unconvinced by the reports.[37] Subsequent reports also raised the possibility that the evidence provided was an elaborate hoax,[38][39] which Wired acknowledged "cast doubt" on their suggestion that Wright was Nakamoto.[40]

On 9 December, only hours after Wired claimed Wright was Nakamoto, Wright's home in Gordon, New South Wales was raided by at least ten police officers. His business premises in Ryde, New South Wales were also searched by police. The Australian Federal Police stated they conducted searches to assist the Australian Taxation Office and that "This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin."[41] According to a document released by Gizmodo alleged to be a transcript of a meeting between Wright and the ATO, he had been involved in a taxation dispute with them for several years.[36]

On 2 May 2016, Craig Wright posted on his blog publicly claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. In articles released on the same day, journalists from the BBC and The Economist stated that they saw Wright signing a message using the private key associated with the first bitcoin transaction.[42][43] Wright's claim was supported by Jon Matonis (former director of the Bitcoin Foundation) and bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen, both of whom met Wright and witnessed a similar signing demonstration.[44]

However, bitcoin developer Peter Todd said that Wright's blog post, which appeared to contain cryptographic proof, actually contained nothing of the sort.[45] The Bitcoin Core project released a statement on Twitter saying "There is currently no publicly available cryptographic proof that anyone in particular is Bitcoin's creator."[46][47] Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik agreed that evidence publicly provided by Wright does not prove anything, and security researcher Dan Kaminsky concluded Wright's claim was "intentional scammery".[48][49]

On May 4, Wright made another post on his blog promising to publish "a series of pieces that will lay the foundations for this extraordinary claim".[50][51] But the following day, he deleted all his blog posts and replaced them with a notice entitled "I'm Sorry", which read in part:

I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.[52][53]

In June 2016, the London Review of Books published a 35,000 word article by Andrew O'Hagan about the events, based on discussions with Wright and many of the other people involved.[54][55] It also reveals that the Canadian company nTrust was behind Wright's claim made in May 2016.

Other speculation

In a 2011 article in The New Yorker, Joshua Davis claimed to have narrowed down the identity of Nakamoto to a number of possible individuals, including the Finnish economic sociologist Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta and Irish student Michael Clear, then a graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College Dublin.[56] Clear strongly denied he was Nakamoto,[57] as did Lehdonvirta.[58] In October 2011, writing for Fast Company, investigative journalist Adam Penenberg cited circumstantial evidence suggesting Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto.[59] They jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase "computationally impractical to reverse" in 2008, which was also used in the bitcoin white paper by Nakamoto.[60] The domain name bitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed. All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.[59]

In May 2013, Ted Nelson speculated that Nakamoto is really Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki.[61] Later, an article was published in The Age newspaper that claimed that Mochizuki denied these speculations, but without attributing a source for the denial.[62] A 2013 article,[63] in Vice listed Gavin Andresen, Jed McCaleb, or a government agency as possible candidates to be Nakamoto. Dustin D. Trammell, a Texas-based security researcher, was suggested as Nakamoto, but he publicly denied it.[64] In 2013, two Israeli mathematicians, Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir, published a paper claiming a link between Nakamoto and Ross William Ulbricht. The two based their suspicion on an analysis of the network of bitcoin transactions,[65] but later retracted their claim.[66]

Some considered Nakamoto might be a team of people; Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who read the bitcoin code,[67] said that Nakamoto could either be a "team of people" or a "genius";[13] Laszlo Hanyecz, a former bitcoin core developer who had emailed Nakamoto, had the feeling the code was too well designed for one person.[11]

References

  1. ↑ S., L. (2 November 2015). "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?". The Economist explains. The Economist.
  2. 1 2 McMillan, Robert (18 December 2013). "Who Owns the World's Biggest Bitcoin Wallet? The FBI". Wired. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
  3. 1 2 Nakamoto, Satoshi (24 May 2009). "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" (PDF). Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  4. ↑ Nakamoto, Satoshi (31 October 2008). "Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper". Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  5. ↑ "Satoshi's posts to Cryptography mailing list". Mail-archive.com. Retrieved 2013-12-14.
  6. ↑ Davis, Joshua. "The Crypto-Currency: Bitcoin and its mysterious inventor.". The New Yorker.
  7. ↑ Penenberg, Adam. "The Bitcoin Crypto-Currency Mystery Reopened". Fast Company. A New Yorker writer implies he found Bitcoin's mysterious creator. We think he got the wrong man, and offer far more compelling evidence that points to someone else entirely.
  8. ↑ Satoshi Nakamoto (17 November 2008). "Re: Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper 2008-11-17 16:33:04 UTC". Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  9. ↑ Bosker, Bianca. "Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Architect: Meet The Man Bringing You Bitcoin (And Getting Paid In It)". HuffPostTech.
  10. ↑ "Bitcoin Currency Data". www.quandl.com. Quandl. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Wallace, Benjamin (23 November 2011). "The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin". Wired. Retrieved 31 May 2016. It seemed doubtful that Nakamoto was even Japanese. His English had the flawless, idiomatic ring of a native speaker.
  12. ↑ "Satoshi Nakamoto's Page". P2P Foundation. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  13. 1 2 Jeffries, Adrianne (4 October 2011). "The New Yorker's Joshua Davis Attempts to Identify Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto". Betabeat. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  14. ↑ Simonite, Tom (15 August 2014). "The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin". MIT Technology Review. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  15. ↑ John Biggs. "Who is the real Satoshi Nakamoto? One researcher may have found the answer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-03-06.
  16. 1 2 Grey, Skye (2013-12-01). "Satoshi Nakamoto is (probably) Nick Szabo". Retrieved 2014-03-13.
  17. 1 2 Grey, Skye (2014-03-11). "Occam's Razor: who is most likely to be Satoshi Nakamoto?". Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  18. ↑ "Re: on anonymity, identity, reputation, and spoofing". 1993-10-18. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  19. ↑ Nick Szabo (2011-05-28). "Bitcoin, what took ye so long?". Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  20. ↑ Frisby, Dominic (2014) "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" In Bitcoin : the Future of Money?, p 85-149. Unbound. ISBN 1783520779
  21. ↑ "Nick Szabo is (probably) Satoshi Nakamato". 2014-11-06. Retrieved 2014-11-06. at ~17:30 into the show
  22. ↑ Frisby p 147
  23. ↑ Popper, Nathaniel. "Decoding the Enigma". New York Times. the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo.
  24. 1 2 3 4 Leah McGrath Goodman (6 March 2014). "The Face Behind Bitcoin". Newsweek. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  25. ↑ Andy Greenberg. "Bitcoin Community Responds To Satoshi Nakamoto's Outing With Disbelief, Anger, Fascination". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-03-06.
  26. ↑ Oremus, Will (2013-11-26). "The real Satoshi Nakamoto: Newsweek finds mysterious bitcoin creator in Los Angeles". Slate.com. Retrieved 2014-03-06.
  27. ↑ Winton, Richard (2014-03-07). "Deputies: Newsweek Bitcoin story quoted Satoshi Nakamoto accurately". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-03-09.
  28. ↑ Rodriguez, Salvador (2014-03-06). "Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto chased by reporters, denies founding Bitcoin". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-03-06.
  29. ↑ Nakashima, Ryan. "Man said to create Bitcoin denies it". Associated Press. Retrieved 2014-03-07.
  30. ↑ "Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency". 2014-03-07. Retrieved 2014-03-07.
  31. ↑ "'Real' bitcoin creator: 'I am not Dorian Nakamoto'". CNBC.
  32. ↑ "Hal Finney received the first Bitcoin transaction. Here's how he describes it.". Washington Post. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  33. 1 2 Andy Greenberg (2014-03-25). "Nakamoto's Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoin's Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
  34. ↑ "Conspiracy Theory, Up Close & Personal". 2014-03-25. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  35. ↑ Greenberg, Andy; Branwen, Gwern (December 8, 2015). "Bitcoin's Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius". Wired. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  36. 1 2 Biddle, Sam; Cush, Andy (December 8, 2015). "This Australian Says He and His Dead Friend Invented Bitcoin". Gizmodo. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  37. ↑ Kaminska, Izabella (9 December 2015). "So, Satoshi is an Aussie?". FT Alphaville. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  38. ↑ Jeong, Sarah (9 December 2015). "Satoshi's PGP Keys Are Probably Backdated and Point to a Hoax". Motherboard. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  39. ↑ Ryall, Jenni (10 December 2015). "New chase for Bitcoin founder leaves everyone exhausted and no wiser". Mashable. Mashable. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  40. ↑ Greenberg A (11 December 2015). "New Clues Suggest Craig Wright, Suspected Bitcoin Creator, May Be a Hoaxer". Wired. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  41. ↑ Hunt, Ellie; Farrell, Paul (9 December 2015). "Reported bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  42. ↑ "Creator of Bitcoin digital cash reveals identity - BBC News". BBC News. BBC. BBC. 2 May 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  43. ↑ "Craig Steven Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Is he?". The Economist. 2 May 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  44. ↑ Satoshi, archived from the original on 2016-05-05, retrieved 2016-05-07
  45. ↑ Thomas Fox-Brewster (2 May 2016). "Craig Wright Claims He's Bitcoin Creator Satoshi -- Experts Fear An Epic Scam". Forbes.
  46. ↑ "Bitcoin Core Project". Twitter.
  47. ↑ http://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/050216/has-bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-been-found.asp
  48. ↑ "Craig Wright's New Evidence That He Is Satoshi Nakamoto Is Worthless". Motherboard.
  49. ↑ "Validating Satoshi (Or Not)". Dan Kaminsky's Blog.
  50. ↑ Alex Hern. "Bitcoin: Craig Wright promises new evidence to prove identity". the Guardian.
  51. ↑ Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof - Dr. Craig Wright BlogDr. Craig Wright Blog, archived from the original on 2016-05-04, retrieved 2016-05-07
  52. ↑ "Dr. Craig Wright". Archived from the original on 2016-05-07.
  53. ↑ Alex Hern. "Craig Wright U-turns on pledge to provide evidence he invented bitcoin". the Guardian.
  54. ↑ Nakamoto, Andrew O’Hagan on the many lives of Satoshi (2016-06-30). "The Satoshi Affair". London Review of Books. pp. 7–28. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 2016-06-28.
  55. ↑ "There could be a lot of money in claiming to have invented Bitoin". Retrieved 2016-06-28.
  56. ↑ Davis, Joshua (10 October 2011). "The Crypto-Currency". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  57. ↑ Clear, Michael (4 April 2013). "Clarifications on Bitcoin Article". Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  58. ↑ "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?". coindesk.com. 26 November 2013. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  59. 1 2 Penenberg, Adam (11 October 2011). "The Bitcoin Crypto-currency Mystery Reopened". The Fast Company. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  60. ↑ Updating and Distributing Encryption Keys US 20100042841 A1
  61. ↑ "I Think I Know Who Satoshi Is". YouTube TheTedNelson Channel. 18 May 2013.
  62. ↑ Eileen Ormsby (2013-07-10). "The outlaw cult". Theage.com.au. Retrieved 2013-12-19.
  63. ↑ Liu, Alec. "Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto, the Creator of Bitcoin?". vice.com. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  64. ↑ "I am not Satoshi" (blog). Retrieved 2014-02-21.
  65. ↑ Markoff, John (23 November 2013). "Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto". New York Times.
  66. ↑ Wile, Rob. "Researchers Retract Claim Of Link Between Alleged Silk Road Mastermind And Founder Of Bitcoin". Business Week. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  67. ↑ Naughton, John (7 April 2013). "Why Bitcoin scares banks and governments". The Observer. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
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