Who invented bitcoin?

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Nobody in the world knows who is behind the name of Satoshi Nakamoto, and those who know do not talk about it. Whoever he was aware that he stopped working on a project on the creation and use of crypto-currency around the end of 2010. However, his activities at an early stage of the system's operation brought him significant profits. There are several theories about who this person is.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Despite the fact that we do not know who this person is, but we know exactly what he did. The fact is that it was Satoshi Nakamoto who was the creator of Bitcoin code and actually the creator of the crypto currency itself. In November 2008, for the first time , a document revealing the essence of virtual money was sent to the cryptographic list by the mailing list . Later in 2009, he created the first version of the client software for bitcoins. In addition, Satoshi Nakamoto himself participated in the project until finally disappeared from the community at the end of 2010.

He worked in the project at an early stage of his development with other people on an open source basis, but at the same time he tried not to disclose information about himself. The last time information about him appeared in the spring of 2011, when he wrote in one of his reports that he "goes on to activities in a different field."

Was he Japanese?

It is well known that one should not judge a book by its cover. Although, perhaps we should do it. So, if you pay attention to the name "Satoshi", then in translation from the Japanese language it means "clear thinking", "resourceful", "wise". As for the first part of the name "Naka", it can be interpreted as an "internal environment" or "relationship". "Moto" also means "origin" or "foundation." Of course, all these aspects are applicable to the person who is the creator of the cunning algorithm and one of the founders of such a complex project.

We, unfortunately, can not know for sure whether Satoshi Nakamoto is Japanese or not. After all, it would be pretty presumptuous to assume that the name is really "he". We just use this phrase to refer to the creator of the algorithm, although perhaps it was just a pseudonym, behind which "she" or even "they" could hide.

Does anyone know who Satoshi Nakamoto really is?

It is hardly possible at this time to find people who know who is hiding under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. However, many try to unravel the mystery of this mysterious person, using in t.ch. detective methods, intriguing no less than the answer itself.

Thus, Joshua Davis of The New Yorker believes that Satoshi Nakamoto is none other than a graduate of the Faculty of Cryptography of Trinity College (Dublin) Michael Claire. He came to this conclusion on the basis of an analysis of 80,000 words from Nakamoto's online records. In addition, suspicions also fall on the sociologist of the Finnish economic organization, the former computer game developer Vili Lehdonvirt. However, both "suspects" deny their involvement in crypto-currencies.

There is a version according to which Nakamoto is not one, but three people, namely Nil King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bray. To this conclusion came Adam Penenberg, who simply typed in the search box Google unique phrases from the records of Nakatamo. So he sought to determine if they were used elsewhere. And so, one such request was successful: in a patent application filed on behalf of the three individuals mentioned above, related to the updates and distribution of encryption keys, one of the phrases "surfaced".

It is noteworthy that with the domain name Bitcoin.org, which originally sounded like Satoshi, a similar entry was published. This happened exactly 3 days after the application for a patent was filed in Finland. All interested persons deny this fact, including Michael Claire, who publicly announced this within the framework of the Web Summit in 2013. In any case, registered on August 18, 2008, the domain bitcoin.org used for this purpose the Japanese registration patent service on conditions of complete anonymity. And only on May 18, 2011 registration on the site was transferred to Finland, which weakens the theory of Penenberg.

Others believe that behind the name of Satoshi is Marti Malmi, a computer program developer who lives in Finland. He was involved with trading bitcoins from the very beginning, in particular, developed a unique user interface for the system.

Jed McCaleb, an amateur of Japanese culture, a resident of Japan, who created the first bit of the stock exchange Mt.Gox, co-founded Ripple, and also in 2000 P2P eDonkey, was among the "suspects".

There is also a theory that under the name of Satoshi, computer scientists Donal O'Mahony and Michael Pierce are hiding, as they are the authors of the idea of ​​implementing digital payments, set out in their joint book. It should be noted that Donal O'Mahony studied all at the same Trinity College (Dublin), which was completed by Michael Claire.

More recently, Israeli scientists Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir of the Weizmann Institute have established that there is a connection between Satoshi and the online drug store and other illicit goods and services of SilkRoad. Relevant information was requested from the FBI in October 2013. They suggested that there is a link between the address allegedly owned by Satoshi and SilkRoad. However, such information is not fully verified. Later it was found out that the address belongs to the developer in the field of security to Dustin Trammell, who denied the connection with Satoshi.

So, what do we know about him?

The only information about Nakamoto, which exists in wide circles, is known only from the words of people who stood with him at the source of the Bitcoin network development. According to them, Satoshi very carefully thought out the whole system. At the same time his thinking can not be called standard. So, the main developer of the system Jeff Garzik noted that the style of writing Satoshi code is not quite ordinary, not typical for the level of the classical software engineer.

How rich is he?

The analysis, conducted by a specialist in bitcoins and cryptography by Sergio Lerner, shows that Satoshi produced most of the early blocks of the Bitcoin network. At the time, the amount of the cryptonet belonging to him was equivalent to no less than $ 100 million. In terms of the exchange rate of the crypto currency in November 2013, the same number of bitcoins corresponded to $ 1 billion.

What is he doing now?

Nobody knows where Satoshi is now and what he does. However, in one of his last messages of April 23, 2011, it was said: "I tackled other things. He (Bitcoin) is in the reliable hands of Gavin and the rest. "

Did he work for the government?

Of course, there are rumors of this kind. After all, some have managed to assume that his name means "Central Intelligence". People will always see only what they want to see. This is the nature of gossip and rumors.

In this light, the question is very obvious, why should state structures be interested in creating a crypto currency, which will be used to finance an anonymous trading mechanism? After all, this state of affairs binds the hands of both senators and the FBI in the fight against terrorism and criminal activity. Certainly, the supporters of conspiracy theories have their explanations on this score.

It is possible that all these speculations do not matter. So, the main developer of the system Jeff Garzik concisely noted that Satoshi created an open source network for purposes that should not be available to the general public. However, open source itself does not allow you to hide all the secrets: it speaks for itself.

He also mentioned that Satoshi is too clever and therefore used a pseudonym. This forced people to focus on the very technology of bitcoins, and not on the personality behind it. That is why, bitcoins are much more famous than the founder of Satoshi Nakamoto's digital network.