Did We Just Find Satoshi Nakamoto?
Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
It’s always baffled me that, in this day and age, we still can’t definitively identify Satoshi Nakamoto. I can’t even buy a Twinkie at a 7-11 without leaving a digital trail…scanning a rewards card, driving through multiple EZ-Pass checkpoints that log my movement, and carrying devices that track my location down to the second.
In an era defined by data and forensics, it feels almost impossible that someone could create something as significant as Bitcoin and remain completely anonymous. That same tension seems to bother reporter John Carreyrou as well, and understandably so.
As a former short seller, I’ve long respected Carreyrou’s work and have for years, especially his investigative reporting. It was something he demonstrated most famously in his investigation of Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes.
His reputation carries into his latest New York Times piece with Dylan Freedman, where he works on the mystery of Bitcoin’s founder. By the end of his investigation, Carreyrou does not claim to have definitive proof, but does offer a compelling circumstantial argument about who Bitcoin’s founder may be.
Carreyrou explains his interest in the topic was reignited after hearing a podcast discussion of an HBO documentary that claimed to have identified Satoshi. He found the documentary’s conclusion unpersuasive, but one brief moment featuring cryptographer Adam Back caught his attention. Back’s demeanor, as Carreyrou saw it, seemed odd enough to send him down a much deeper reporting path.
From there, the piece centers on the basic problem that has frustrated journalists, researchers, and internet sleuths for years. As Carreyrou writes:
“Satoshi was a master at the art of maintaining anonymity on the internet, leaving few, if any, digital footprints behind.”
What Satoshi did leave behind was text: the Bitcoin white paper, forum posts, and a large set of emails. Carreyrou treats that written record as the key to the entire mystery. I’m sure many people have also seen the video online of John McAfee, prior to his death, also encouraging people to look at Satoshi’s writing to reveal his identity.
A major part of the article is devoted to how he studies Satoshi’s language. He looks at wording, spelling, phrasing, and recurring expressions. One of the first clues is Satoshi’s blend of British and American usage. Carreyrou connects that to the famous newspaper line embedded in Bitcoin’s first block, “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,” and argues that this points strongly toward a British author rather than someone merely imitating British style.
That clue leads him to the Cypherpunks, the loose community of cryptographers and privacy advocates who spent years discussing anonymous digital money long before Bitcoin existed. Carreyrou argues that Satoshi was almost certainly part of that world. Within that group, one name emerges...(READ THIS FULL ARTICLE HERE).