By Justin Newton

Compiled by: BitpushNews Mary Liu

Len Sassaman, on track to become one of the most important cryptographers of his time, was a true cypherpunk—brilliant, irreverent, and idealistic.

Len has dedicated his life to defending individual freedoms through cryptography, working as a developer of PGP encryption and open source privacy technologies, and as an academic cryptographer studying P2P networks under the guidance of blockchain inventor David Chaum.

But after a long battle with depression and functional neurological disorders, Len tragically committed suicide on July 3, 2011 at the age of 31.

His death coincided with the disappearance of the world’s most famous cypherpunk: Satoshi Nakamoto. Just 2 months before Len’s death, Satoshi sent their final communication: “I have moved on to other things and may not be here in the future.”

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An HBO documentary released on Tuesday has reignited speculation that my late friend Len Sassaman is Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin.

The documentary filmmaker claims to have chatted face-to-face with the person he believes to be Satoshi Nakamoto, making it unlikely that Len, who committed suicide in 2011, was the person he was chatting with. Still, others have detailed Len's technical abilities that make him a "logical" candidate for Satoshi.

Regardless of how the HBO film defines him, I’m willing to share what I know about Len and why I, too, think he could be Satoshi Nakamoto.

Len Sassaman, circa 2006

When I met Len Sassaman, he was wearing a rumpled jacket and tie. We were in the living room of our history teacher, Thomas Ruth, at the Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Len was a junior, and I, an alumnus (who was working in the data center space at the time), had just returned from the San Francisco Bay Area to visit Thomas Ruth for a long weekend.

Len sat on the couch and I sat in a chair next to him. My mentor, Thomas, was known for working with kids who had trouble growing up or fitting in. Len was one of those kids, who had trouble maintaining eye contact and who would downplay his own achievements.

Although Len was only 16, he already showed the potential to be a computer scientist, and Thomas asked me if I would be willing to be a friend in this field and help Len find his footing and path in society. Thomas was very helpful to me, so I readily agreed. The first day we spent about two and a half hours in Thomas's living room, drinking hot tea equivalent to Jolt Cola, because it was full of sugar and had twice the caffeine of regular tea.

When I look back on that conversation, I remember a lot of the things we discussed that day, and in retrospect, Len’s ideas were very much aligned with those of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Another mentor of mine had pointed out to me how technology and history feed off each other in cycles, and how great inventions change society and the world. I shared this aha moment with Len: great skills in technology can be levers that, if pulled tight enough, can move the world in the direction we want it to go.

It was during this discussion that Len went from being passive, shy, and reserved to being passionate and engaged.

Until then, he had lived in a world shaped by popular kids; upon seeing a path in which he could help shape the future without having to be in the spotlight, his posture immediately changed dramatically, from slouching to His posture changed to straightening and leaning forward, and his eyes changed from lowered to wide, looking directly at me.

By this time, my teacher was sitting in her chair with a knowing smile on her face, occasionally standing up to make sure both Len and I had enough of that famous caffeinated beverage to keep the conversation going.

We spent the next few hours talking about the importance of freedom of communication, anonymity online, and the democratization of information. The conversation included developing open source software and standards, expressing our values ​​through code, creating software that can change the world, and predicting some of these impacts.

Silicon Valley Years

Len moved to San Francisco shortly after I moved to Los Angeles to work for ISP NetZero. I introduced him to my friends in the North American Network Operators (NANOG) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) communities, and he joined my circle and started on the path to finding his own circle.

We stayed in relatively close contact for about 10 years after that. We would go a while without any contact, and then I would get an email or text asking, “Are you available for a phone call?” with no context.

Some of the calls were quick inquiries for career advice as he considered a job opportunity, or whether he should stay in a position that didn’t totally appeal to him. These were usually quick calls because he just needed someone in the field he trusted to validate an idea or a vision he had.

The call was long, similar to a conversation on the couch at my mentor’s house. We spent hours discussing the value of open and permissionless innovation, and the importance of a network that allows people to build without permission.

We spent hours discussing the trade-offs between allowing bad guys to do bad things and allowing good guys to act quickly without waiting for slow, conservative institutions to agree.

Ultimately, we agree that the web itself should be completely open, and that controls should be built in at other levels, either using technology when possible or law when absolutely necessary.

This principle lies at the heart of Bitcoin and is perhaps its most valuable and enduring feature.

Satoshi Nakamoto? Maybe

Many people have given logical reasons why Len couldn’t be Satoshi, but in my opinion these people simply don’t understand the kind of person Len was.

Here is my response to their arguments:

“Len wasn’t rich in the past, and his family isn’t rich now.” — Len believes the purpose of working in technology isn’t to get rich, but to create the future we all want to live in. This lines up with the fact that Satoshi never profited from Bitcoin as he or she or they did, because the coins mined by Bitcoin’s creator didn’t move. I 100% imagine Len destroying the private keys to his mining wallet to ensure that he or anyone else can’t profit from what he did.

“Len is a Bitcoin skeptic and is critical of Bitcoin on Twitter.” — Len often offers harsh criticisms of projects he is deeply involved in. One of his personality traits is to reflect that his work is not good enough, even if it is already great. If he is really Satoshi, making these criticisms public would be a good way for him to maintain anonymity and distance.

A few other points to add:

Len is a firm believer in building open and permissionless networks that foster innovation. This is what initially attracted me to Bitcoin, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Len built such a network.

Len 100% believes in individual rights over authority. At the same time, he is not one of those libertarians who flocked to the early Bitcoin community. I am sure that if he were Satoshi, seeing his work being exploited by those who wanted to get rich overnight would have caused him to abandon the project and possibly exacerbate his depression.

To be clear: Len and I have never discussed Bitcoin, and if he is Satoshi, I can easily understand why he would not want to discuss Bitcoin with me or any of our friends. Ultimately, I don’t know if he is Satoshi. But given his skills and personality, it would not be surprising if he is Satoshi.

Regardless, Len was a wonderful man who deserved better than the world gave him. His memory shines brightly in my heart.

Thanks to Carl Jay Pardini, one of Len’s high school friends, for reviewing and fact-checking this article.