Researching Satoshi's identity is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Maybe even worse, as Satoshi planted so many diversions that lead the research to a wide range of suspects.
It could have also been a team, as just by reading the whitepaper we encounter plural term.
"We propose a solution to the double-spending problem..."
"We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures."
"The solution we propose..."
"We have proposed a system.."
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - Satoshi Nakamoto
Only one name is given (Satoshi Nakamoto), and maybe using singular wasn't going to look well. Using plural, meant there was a team behind the project. This usually applies better when presenting a startup to those interested. But, this is not evidence of more than just one person being behind Bitcoin.
Satoshi is a very intriguing mystery (that is worth 60 Billion USD today), and there are also so many experts having better information than me. I don't think I can ever find Satoshi and this post will probably offer very little to those that were early in Bitcoin.
As with most discussions on Satoshi's identity, this is a post that covers only some of the parts of the Satoshi story. There is only factual information that can't be used as evidence and no in-depth investigation.
It seems that lately many seem to believe that Adam Back, the CEO of Blockstream, is also the person that created Bitcoin.
Adam Back apparently has been an inspiration to Satoshi with his invention of Hashcash, a Proof-of-Work mechanism which however was not unique as it was also describe prior to Back's work in papers of other cryptographers.
Still, mainly due to the double space he is using, he has been the prime suspect for being Satoshi.
There are more clues in the YouTube videos by BarelySocial and ColdFusion but there are also several inconsistencies regarding the initial vision of Bitcoin and how Back supported an entirely different use case.
Satoshi wasn't going to make it easy at all.
Adam Back Is A Match But Makes No Sense
I may be wrong in my previous assumptions, but it would be extremely difficult for Satoshi to just be Adam Back, unless of course he was part of a bigger team.
Satoshi took precautions, used Tor and other anonymizing services, and possibly any kind of software and hardware capable of increasing privacy.
If Satoshi was Adam Back, or Nick Szabo it would have been easy. If it was one of them, the first thing they would have done would be to change the double space into a single one. Why would they allow that indication out there that limits the possibilities to just a handful of suspects?
Satoshi would not want authorities looking for him, yet he also did not want to be seen as someone with shady intentions. Therefore he disappeared right after federal agents had a discussion with Gavin Andresen.
There is a list of worries Satoshi should be having by creating Bitcoin:
The persecution of the P2P networks and torrent services. Police raids, arrests of developers and administrators, and the PirateBay trial.
The international attention and condemnation of Wikileaks which eventually led to an anticipated arrest warrant issued on Julian Assange.
The previous example of E-gold.
It could be that Satoshi (while studying Adam Back), created a similar image in his style of writing by using double space.
It could also be that he selected the name knowing that a programmer under the name Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto was a programmer working on confidential projects and living at the same location with Hal Finey.
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto is a Japanese American man who was outed as the brains behind Bitcoin by Newsweek in March 2014. He lives and works in Temple City, California, a few blocks from where Hal Finney also lived (source).
Coincidences are piling up in this case, so it should be prudent not to exclude any of the details of the case.
Satoshi mentions Adam Back in the whitepaper, but not Szabo or Bit Gold.
Stylography is a methodology that could give some answers, but the results when it was applied to Satoshi's writings had given different results. In an article published in 2019, stylometry results found different matches for each piece of data examined.
".. the possible candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto are Nick Szabo, Ian Grigg, Wei Dai, and Timothy C. May."
An unusual result is that Ian Grigg has a similarity score of .99996 to Satoshi’s email exchanges
Parenthesis:
It could be Ian Grigg, but if he was he played perfectly the bluff of the century and never caught bluffing. Ian Grigg has publicly admitted he was part of a team trying to obfuscate the trail leading to Satoshi.
Since there is a trail, then probably Ian Grigg may also have answers leading to the identity of Satoshi. However, he is still in the same poker table, and keeps playing the same bluff over and over again as the case of Craig Wright generates so much confusion that at least the mainstream media don't really want to find out more about Satoshi anymore.
It is not Grigg, because he would have been found already. People looked and found nothing at all. He is probably lying about how he once met who he thought was Satoshi and the rest made up stories that do not even indicate CSW was Satoshi.
Back To Adam
Adam Back is not mentioned in this paper, so perhaps the research didn't apply to Back's writing style. Maybe stylometry results including Adam Back's contribution in the Bitcoin forum could shed some light.
British phrases, Mistakes and Typos
Satoshi's use of British English
"labour" and not "labor"
"flavour" and not "flavor"
"modernise/formalise"
"maths" instead of "math"
"flats" instead of "appartements"
"bloody hard" - Mostly used in UK and Australia, but also parts of Canada, Not in the USA.
The Times newspaper reference in the code of the Genesis Block. "The Times" is a famous UK newspaper.
However, Satoshi sometimes used American English terms too.
"as long of a message as you like"
"neat" (rarely used in the UK)
"pocket change"
"heating oil" (more on this bellow)
Typos:
"... a obvious" (simple mistake)
" adminning" (a common term used by computer engineers)
"walkthough" (simple mistake)
"idealogical" instead of "ideological"
Maybe the last one seems to be a simple mistake but lets take a look at the post in question:
Source: Bitcoin forum.
We can also see the word "flat" used here (commong in the UK), instead of appartement".
And then the words "heating oil" which is used in both the UK and USA, but in the UK houses use mostly gas. Heating oil is used in premises where no gas is available.
There are around 1.5 million people in Great Britain using oil for home heating.
This narrows it down a lot in case Satoshi is British. But there is also Australia, Canada, and the USA, and perhaps all the world as people study abroad and can flawlessly communicate in written English.
However, there is a clue I was missing when I initially published this story in 2021 and while once again all the evidence is circumstantial, this is something nobody mentioned before.
… the term “heating oil” ...
There are around 1.5 million people in Great Britain using oil for home heating.
(- Wikipedia)
“This narrows it down a lot in case Satoshi is British”
Adam Back, pitching heating oil to Luke Dash Jr on Twitter.
Who would have guessed?
I had no idea this would turn out to be linked with Adam Back when I wrote this story back in 2021.
While once again we can't definitely assume Back was Satoshi Nakamoto, certainly there are clues
The rest of the comments in this discussion (on Twitter) were somewhat irrelevant, with minimum response to Back’s “heating oil” argument.
Maybe this is not an indication either. Maybe, it was just a coincidence like every other coincidence uncovered so far. Isolated from every other event and circumstantial evidence linking Back to Satoshi this clue means nothing.
In addition to everything else, though, we can consider these possibilities:
Back naturally can’t remember everything he wrote (as Satoshi), and couldn’t calculate he might have used the same argument (heating oil) while posting as Satoshi on the Bitcoin forum.
Back purposedly mentioned heating oil (four times) to instill questions and lead researchers to yet another clue on Satoshi’s identity.
Or, it was yet another coincidence, together with everything else.
Of course, this is not evidence (once again) but only another piece of the puzzle that raises suspicions even further. However, clues are mounting up to a size we can’t keep ignoring.
Combining every clue in Barely’s Sociable video, Adam Back’s reactions, and everything else we uncover on the way, the odds only keep rising significantly.
Nick Szabo and Hal Finney
The case of Szabo is still the most compelling one. Nick Szabo denies he is Satoshi, but there are so many clues.
Bit Gold
Source Reddit
Nick Szabo is a first-generation Hungarian, born in the US. He denied being Satoshi although many facts are pointing to him as a prime suspect.
In Conclusion
It would have been "bloody hard" for Satoshi to leave so many clues on his identity, and be the first suspect that fits the description.
While nobody can prove anything and there is little evidence in my post, it is the same for any other publication.
The aforementioned YouTube videos have done a magnificent job in giving the clues that Satoshi left behind.
Probably the most reasonable argument made by BarelySocial is the private conversations Adam Back had with Satoshi and the emails that still are not public.
Finding Satoshi is actually a topic for organizations with vast resources and skillful data analysts. Even so, it will probably be a waste of resources, since fourteen years later the only valuable thing that remains is the one million Bitcoins mined by Satoshi, which will probably never move.
Satoshi's identity remains an intriguing topic, with all the mystery that surrounds the identity of the creator of Bitcoin and the unexpected disappearence.
All we have ten years later is just circumstantial evidence and a mount of distractions, but no proof.
Lead Image Source
References:
"Bitcoin The Future of Money" by Dominic Frisby
Satoshi Archives, Bitcoin.com
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