In 2014, Newsweek reporter Leah Goodman claimed that she had found Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
The man she believes to be Satoshi Nakamoto is named Dorian Nakamoto, 65 years old, a Japanese American.
He graduated from California Polytechnic State University with a bachelor's degree in physics and lives in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains in Los Angeles.
Goodman reporter discovered that Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto's original name was Satoshi Nakamoto. He changed his name to Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto in 1973 and no longer used his original name since then.
This background also makes the public generally believe that he may be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin.
However, after three years of hiding, Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly appeared on the p2pfoundation and clearly responded: "I am not Dorian Nakamoto."
In addition, Dorian Nakamoto also firmly denied that he was the inventor of Bitcoin. He said that he first heard the word Bitcoin from his son. The true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has always been a mystery, and no one knows for sure who he is.
There are several main speculations and theories about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto:
Personal identity: Some believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is a real person, possibly a technical expert proficient in cryptography and computer science.
Pseudonym: Some also believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym that may represent a team or multiple developers who worked together to create Bitcoin.
Revealed Candidates: Over the years, several people have been suspected or self-claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, including but not limited to computer scientist Nick Szabo, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki, etc., but none of these speculations have been supported by solid evidence.
Anonymity: Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity is part of the Bitcoin philosophy, which emphasizes decentralization and privacy protection.
Disappearance: Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly disappeared around 2010 and no longer participated in the development and community discussions of Bitcoin, leaving many unsolved mysteries.
On December 5, 2010, when Bitcoin users began to propose that WikiLeaks accept Bitcoin donations, Satoshi Nakamoto, who was usually concise and focused on technical discussions, joined the discussion with an unprecedented enthusiasm.
“This project needs to grow gradually so that the software is enhanced along the way,” he said in a post on the Bitcoin forum.
I implore Wikileaks not to accept Bitcoin, it is still a small, nascent testing community. If it is not handled properly at this stage, it will only destroy Bitcoin.”
At 6:22 on December 12, 2010, seven days after he posted a call not to donate Bitcoin to WikiLeaks, Nakamoto published his last post on the forum, which was about some insignificant details of the latest version of the software. After that, his email responses became increasingly erratic and eventually stopped altogether.
Investigative journalist Dave Troy recently revealed that the FBI gave a "Glomar response" to his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, which "neither confirmed nor denied" whether relevant records existed.
Troy pointed out that the FBI's response suggests that Satoshi Nakamoto may be a "third party individual." He plans to appeal the result and try to obtain more information about Satoshi Nakamoto that the FBI may have.
While some have speculated that early Bitcoin contributor Hal Finney may be Satoshi Nakamoto, there has been no definitive evidence to date to support this view.
After Satoshi Nakamoto himself came forward to clarify the "Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto" incident, some people discovered that Hal Finney, who had participated in the early preparations for Bitcoin, lived not far from the home of the person who was mistakenly identified as Satoshi Nakamoto, just a few blocks away.
This discovery immediately sparked rumors that Hal Finney was Satoshi Nakamoto, which quickly spread in the community.
Hal Finney and Satoshi Nakamoto do have a close relationship. At the end of 2008, after Satoshi Nakamoto first proposed the concept of Bitcoin, Finney proposed improvements to some of the issues, to which Satoshi Nakamoto responded.
Satoshi Nakamoto also sent the first transaction in Bitcoin history to Finney
However, in the face of these speculations, Hal Finney did not confirm or deny them. He just wrote an article to record his past with Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin.
Hal Finney passed away in August 2014, and in accordance with his wishes, his family sent his body to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation's cryogenic storage facility for cryopreservation.
Finally, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in the last message of the forum:
This is the last message he left for the world. Perhaps we will never know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but Bitcoin is a wealth that we still have the opportunity to own.
