By Pzai, Foresight News
With the release of HBO's "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" today, the biggest mystery in the history of cryptocurrency - the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto - will be revealed to the public. In a highly liberalized market, crypto traders are also making their own bets for every possible probability. As an important gaming field for crypto events, Polymarket's probability also rises and falls with market fluctuations.
From the perspective of probability fluctuations, the probability of Nick Szabo (the originator of the concept of "smart contracts"), who had previously received less attention, began to rise from the bottom, while Len Sassaman, who was previously favored by the market, fell from the high point. This article takes a look at the "mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto" from the perspective of these people.
Len Sassaman
Len Sassaman is one of the earliest advocates of the Cypherpunk movement (which aims to defend privacy through cryptography and electronic currency). He has led the research on P2P networks and is committed to the development of PGP information transmission encryption and open source privacy technology. As one of the most recognized applications in the context of cypherpunk, Bitcoin also pays tribute to Len in all aspects. Every Bitcoin node contains his obituary in block 138725. Achieving immortality in the most cypherpunk way can be regarded as a response to his long-cherished wish.
And his close friend Justin Newton also said: "Len firmly believed in building an open and permissionless network to promote innovation. I would not be surprised if Len built such a network." Coincidentally, the disappearance of "Satoshi Nakamoto" was not far away from Len's death, which also triggered people's associations. But Len Sassaman's widow Meredith L Patterson recently denied the speculation that Len Sassaman was Satoshi Nakamoto in an interview with DL News, saying that HBO never even contacted her when making the documentary (Money Electronics: The Mystery of Bitcoin).
Nick Szabo
Nick Szabo, a famous computer scientist and cryptographer, first proposed the popular concept of smart contracts between 1994 and 1997. He also proposed the idea of Bit Gold long before Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin came out, and this idea was only one step away from Bitcoin itself. Vitalik also adopted and absorbed his ideas in Ethereum. It can be said that Nick Szabo is absolutely capable of building the Bitcoin system in terms of technology.
Musk also seems to be biased in public opinion. In a previous comment, he said, "Obviously, I don't know who created Bitcoin... It seems that Nick Szabo may be more responsible for the evolution of these ideas than anyone else. He claims not to be Satoshi Nakamoto... But he seems to be more responsible for the ideas behind Bitcoin than anyone else." Interestingly, in a linguistic study of the Bitcoin white paper conducted by Aston University in 2014, the researchers proposed that Nick Szabo has the same view as Satoshi Nakamoto in linguistic representation through language similarity.
Adam Back
Although recently, Blockstream CEO Adam Back said that "no one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, which is a good thing.", indirectly denying that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. But as the designer of Bitcoin's technical engine, the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm (Hashcash, which was first used in the spam control process and derived certain research on electronic currency) and a person who had close communication with Satoshi Nakamoto in the early days, people cannot completely deny that he has no connection with Satoshi Nakamoto. But it can be speculated that Adam Back is most likely to know the whereabouts of Satoshi Nakamoto. And he recently said: "In 2013, I joined the Bitcoin wizards IRC and asked a lot of questions to understand the details of Bitcoin. For example, the balance held by the address and utxo coins. There are records in the logs of the IRC channel, so the developers in the channel are sure that it is not me." This further dispelled many people's ideas that he existed as Satoshi Nakamoto.
In order to promote the wider application of Bitcoin, in 2014, Adam back founded Blockstream in San Francisco, USA, hired several Bitcoin core developers and continued to promote the development and application of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. If he appeared in front of the public as Satoshi Nakamoto, it would surely give the Bitcoin ecosystem a shot in the arm.
David Kleiman
Before this HBO revelation, the crypto space also went through a period when Craig Wright was “Austin Powers.” This identification was also related to the lawsuit filed against him by David Kleiman’s family. In addition, he was involved in the military in the early days and developed encryption tools that were subsequently adopted by the US government. He is also a regular contributor to the Cryptography and Security mailing list, where discussions include technical aspects of cryptographic systems and the politics of cryptography. He is also a long-term member of the Metzdowd Cryptography mailing list, where Satoshi Nakamoto announced Bitcoin on October 31, 2008. So many connections have also made people begin to pay more attention to the relationship between this cryptography pioneer and Satoshi Nakamoto.
In short, the revelation of the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto will bring light to the origin of cryptocurrency. From cypherpunks to large-scale applications, there are also fighters who use technology to realize and defend the freedom of thought and privacy. Whether they are "Satoshi Nakamoto" or not, we can also follow their footsteps and move towards our vision step by step.
