Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

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Almost everyone likes a good mystery. One of the most perplexing questions of the 21st century has been raised by the realm of cryptography: Who exactly is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Bitcoin (BTC) was the first cryptocurrency ever developed, and its creator, Nakamoto, remains a mystery to this day, even after 13 years. Nakamoto is the name given to the mysterious person who claims to have invented Bitcoin.

There is no reason to doubt that the individual or group of individuals who have been operating under the moniker Satoshi Nakamoto were responsible for the creation of Bitcoin; yet, nobody is sure who this individual or group could be.

What is known about Satoshi Nakamoto?

It is well known that Nakamoto developed Bitcoin. This information originates from the now-famous white paper on Bitcoin, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” which was released on the Internet in October 2008.

Nakamoto authored the white paper that described the underlying principles and design of the Bitcoin payment network. On the P2P Foundation forum in February of 2009, Nakamoto made the first online message board post devoted to cryptocurrencies.

“I’ve developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It’s completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper.” Nakamoto wrote.

The whole system relies on cryptographic evidence rather than trust, making it decentralized and eliminating the need for a centralized server or trusted parties. Millions of individuals have taken his advice seriously since that first article.

As of the year 2022, there have been over a million Bitcoin miners checking the transactions on the Bitcoin network. While there are already over a million miners, they only account for a small percentage of the projected 100 million Bitcoin holders. Bitcoin now has the greatest market capitalization of any cryptocurrency, dwarfing even Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Cardano (ADA), and many other cryptocurrencies.

Despite Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in value and popularity, its mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakomoto, remains unknown.

What Facts Do We Know About the Father of Bitcoin?

We know that Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for at least one individual. Bitcoin’s existence is attested to by the fact that its source code was written, the cryptocurrency’s white paper was released, and related emails and forum threads were all sent out.

However, Nakamoto’s last email was sent in April, 2011. The Bitcoin founder announced in a brief message to a developer friend, saying that he had “gone onto other things.”

In March 2014, Nakamoto was supposedly responsible for his last forum post.

Nakamoto merely said at the time, “I am not Dorian Nakamoto”, in response to a Newsweek piece that identified a Japanese-American scientist as the inventor of Bitcoin. Nakamoto, who was involved with other Bitcoin developers at the time of this writing, has disappeared entirely since then.

Few facts concerning Nakamoto are known with certainty, however, and these are:

First, time stamps on Nakamoto’s postings and emails have been used to infer that he was most likely located in the United Kingdom, the East Coast of the United States, or the West Coast of the United States when he first began discussing Bitcoin online.

Second, Nakamoto was known to spell things like “favour” (with a “U”) rather than the American “favor” (without the “U”). This has led some to believe that Nakamoto either hails from or attended school in the United Kingdom.

Third, Satoshi Nakamoto is almost probably a millionaire given the quantity of Bitcoin that has been tracked to wallets that are thought to belong to Nakamoto. However, none of those Bitcoins has ever left their respective wallets or been transferred to another.

Who are the People Rumored to be Satoshi Nakamoto?

A number of individuals have claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous Bitcoin originator. No conclusive evidence supports any of these assertions, however.

Some of the persons that have been speculated to be Satoshi Nakamoto are as follows:

• In 2014, a Newsweek reporter alleged that a Japanese-American man named Dorian Nakamoto who lived in California was indeed Satoshi Nakamoto. In response to the accusation, Dorian Nakamoto successfully prosecuted Newsweek for defamation and denied that claim.
• Australian computer scientist Craig Wright said he was Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in 2016. Wright offered some proof for his claim, but many in the Bitcoin community were still dubious and did not think he was the genuine Satoshi.
• It has been suggested that Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, might really be Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto because of his extensive technical knowledge and early enthusiasm for cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, Musk has dismissed claims that he invented Bitcoin.

And so, the real Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity remains a mystery to this day, and it’s possible we may never find out!

What is Nakatomo’s Net Worth?

Satoshi is believed to hold a significant number of Bitcoins, which would give them a significant net worth if they were to sell them. However, it is not known how many Bitcoins Satoshi actually holds or if they have sold any of them.

As of December 2022, the value of a single Bitcoin is around $16,695.35, so the quantity of Bitcoins Satoshi Nakamoto has and whether or not they have sold any of them will determine their net worth.

It is, thus, not possible to accurately estimate the wealth of Satoshi Nakamoto without knowing their true identity and the extent of their Bitcoin holdings.

The secretive characteristics of Bitcoin founders and the impossibility of investigators knowing for sure which wallets Nakamoto owns mean that no one can say how much Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto is holding. Nakamoto is said to have over a million Bitcoins in his possession. Given the current price of Bitcoin, therefore, it’s reasonable to infer that Nakamoto has significant wealth.

Since it was first created, allegedly by Nakamoto, none of these Bitcoins have ever been taken out of any of their wallets or transferred to anybody else. However, the fact that this Bitcoin is so valuable today might explain Nakamoto’s need for anonymity.

The prosperity Bitcoin has brought about might cause disruption in anyone’s life. It’s also possible that Bitcoin’s developer may be targeted by criminals or oppressive countries.

Many are now mystified as to who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. Has Bitcoin’s founder passed away? What’s taking him, her, or them so long to reveal themselves? When will we learn who exactly was responsible for one of the most groundbreaking financial innovations of this century?

Experts on the blockchain, such as Andrew Lokenauth of the finance-focused website Fluent in Finance, agree that we are unlikely to ever get the definitive answers to these baffling questions.

If the creator(s) of Bitcoin intended to keep their identity secret for any reason, they’ve done an excellent job at hiding it.

Final thoughts

While the identity of Nakamoto, the creator of the cryptocurrency with the mystery message in its genesis block that has grown to a market cap of about $325 billion, may be nothing more than a curiosity to some, to others it has considerably more significance. He is said to have over a million Bitcoins in his possession or around 5% of the total supply of Bitcoins.

Even though the value of Bitcoin has dropped significantly in 2022, with a decline of almost 67% since November 2021, Nakamoto’s Bitcoin holdings would still be worth more than $16.2 billion at this point. The unknown person’s Bitcoins were valued at almost $67 billion at the pinnacle of the cryptocurrency market in November of 2022.

The Bitcoin market would be thrown into chaos if the person or people behind the moniker Satoshi Nakamoto decided to sell even a fraction of their fortune.

In fact, in its SEC IPO filing from April 2021, cryptocurrency exchange site Coinbase included the possibility of the disclosure of Nakamoto’s identity (and the subsequent movement of that person’s Bitcoin holdings) as a risk factor (SEC).

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