Satoshi Nakamoto is the name behind the founder of Bitcoin. He was first introduced to the public through the BTC whitepaper, which he published in a 2008 Cryptopunk newsletter, signaling the very beginning of the decentralized era.
While having been around for nearly two years after posting the whitepaper, in which time he also created and ran BitcoinTalk forums for a while, he vanished from the web in 2010. Many believe this was necessary as a large number of people had chosen to either mine or buy bitcoin, making him a dangerous single point of failure.
Finding the real identity of Satoshi is an important question that was never answered – thankfully so. With Satoshi holding approximately one million BTC through early mining efforts, having this amount fall in the wrong hands could be catastrophic for the project’s survival.
That said, many have tried to guess the identity of Satoshi over the years, with some claiming that more than one person is involved. In this article, we take a look at some of the possibilities, including that of a “government-created” persona.
Satoshi is one person
The great majority of investors tend to think that Satoshi Nakamoto is one person. Yet, it has already been established that the Japanese name was nothing more than a pseudonym. Digging deep into the rabbit hole, and looking at prior attempts to create a decentralized digital currency, we can find many famous names that have been repeated across discussion boards online.
From all the names, one tends to stand out – Hal Finney, the first person to receive a BTC transaction from Nakamoto himself, died from ALS shortly after Satoshi announced his “retirement” from Bitcoin in 2010. Many speculate that he is the sole founder, as he was one of the most prolific software engineers of his time. Whether he was or wasn’t, most are confident that he knew the creator’s real identity.
Other potential candidates for the role include Nick Szabo, Wei Dai, Adam Back, Elon Musk, and Craig Wright. The latest, however, has received much hate from the public, for boldly claiming the founder’s title.
Satoshi is a group of individuals
Another popular narrative that flows around is Satoshi as a group instead of an individual. This would certainly be possible given the sheer number of people that were simultaneously working on digital currencies over the past decade. It is also the reason why Hungary decided to give its Satoshi statue a mirror face, indicating that “we are all Satoshi”. Every single person who empowers the network is, in some way, the creator of it, which is why many uneducated, traditional investors still think Bitcoin is a scam in the form of a pyramid scheme.
When looking at the potential members of the Satoshi group, simply look at the names mentioned in the previous chapter, and consider doing some additional research in the early days of the Cypherpunk movement.
Satoshi is a government operative
For those who think critically, another possibility, yet much less talked about, is that Bitcoin was created covertly by the US (or another) government. Released during the wake of the 2008 crisis, which according to many has never ended, just progressed, makes a compelling case for a slow transition into a single, global currency. And Bitcoin is an excellent choice as it is fully traceable, with most exchanges whitelisting wallets before onboarding customers.
An interesting Medium article attempts to decode the meaning of the creator’s Japanese name, and the results are rather intriguing. Is an intelligence agency behind it? And if so, what does this mean for the project’s future?
In our case, there are two cases that can be made here:
- If Bitcoin was indeed created by government operatives for any reason, they have allowed it to become a trillion-dollar asset. They could have manipulated the price of bitcoin to the ground and fully discredit it, or even come out to the public with evidence in an attempt to crush it. This didn’t happen, even though there is lots of evidence related to multi-year price manipulation.
- If Bitcoin was not created by the government, the annual “shadow” funding for military operations (10% of the total US budget) could have easily crushed BTC during its early days. This, according to wallet flows, has not happened. And now, several countries are looking to make Bitcoin a legal tender. It is thus evident that governments are not taking extreme measures to ensure Bitcoin’s destruction, and are rather waiting on the sidelines to see a potential hyperbitcoinization.
In both cases, this is beneficial for Bitcoin’s future and adds to the argument that we could eventually see a single digital currency backing every native currency on a global scale. The question that remains then, is when this will happen.
Other articles from mtltimes.ca – totimes.ca – otttimes.ca
Is Bitcoin payment of the Future
