Mystery of the Bitcoin Inventor Maybe Solved

Bitcoin is the currency that isn't owned by any country, government, or bank. It's distributed worldwide and has been the subject of many law enforcement organizations and media speculations. One point of contention had been the true identity of the inventor of the currency that up until now was only known as "Satoshi Nakamoto."

Two independent investigations from Wired and Gizmodo have revealed strong evidence that the man behind Nakamoto is actually a 44-year-old Australian named Craig Steven Wright. Both were assisted by anonymous sources that have claimed to know Wright very well and sent documentation to help prove it.

Authors of the Wired report, Andy Greenberg and "Gwern Branwen" say that they've "obtained the strongest evidence yet of Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity." The second author, "Gwern Branwen" is an independent security researcher going under a pseudonym. It was his connection close to Wright who had provided the documents that brought a lot of new evidence to the investigation.

Greenberg and Branwen have gathered evidence linking financial records, leaked documents, and even archived blog plots as proof of Wright being the inventor. The authors were also able to tie a PGP encryption key that had been linked to Nakamoto also to Wright. They described the significance of the key:

"A PGP key is a unique string of characters that allows a user of that encryption software to receive encrypted messages. This one, when checked against the database of the MIT server where it was stored, is associated with the email address satoshin@vistomail.com, an email address very similar to the satoshi@vistomail.com address Nakamoto used to send the whitepaper introducing bitcoin to a cryptography mailing list."

Towards the end of the report, however, Greenberg and Branwen admitted that they could not be fully certain that Wright is Nakamoto. It was possible that Wright was a brilliant hoaxer by inserting small clues for the Wired team to draw their conclusions from.

Gizmodo's authors, Sam Biddle and Andy Cush, believed that the invention of the currency should be credited to two people, Wright, and Dave Kleiman, an American computer forensics expert who passed away in 2013. Biddle and Cush had received anonymous tip emails in early November. The source told Gizmodo, "I hacked Satoshi Naklamoto [sic]. These files are all from his business account. The person is Dr Craig Wright."

It eventually led to in person meetings with Wright's business partners and interviews. By the end of their report they too could not confidently confirm that Wright and Kleiman were the original creators.

As New York Magazine reported, this isn't the first time the media has tried to find the identity of the inventor of Bitcoin. In 2014 Newsweek thought a man named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto from California was the mastermind, but he has denied the accusations. And earlier this year the New York Times had thought that a man named Nick Szabo was the culprit, but he has also denied it.

For now, the mystery endures. No doubt the further speculation on his identity has increased the power of Nakamoto's name.