In a recent investigative piece by The New York Times, British cryptographer and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back is once again identified as the potential creator of Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The report utilized stylometric analysis of writing styles and historical online records from decades past to support its claims.
Back has categorically denied these allegations via X, stating, ‘I am not Satoshi.’ Despite his denial, concerns within the Bitcoin community focus more on his safety than the investigation’s findings. Being wrongfully identified as Satoshi could pose significant security threats due to the enormous wealth associated with Nakamoto-linked wallets.
Arkham Intelligence data reveals that dormant Satoshi-associated wallets contain approximately 1.1 million Bitcoins, translating to about $78 billion given the current trading value above $72,000 per Bitcoin. This staggering figure makes anyone incorrectly identified as Satoshi a target for criminal activities such as extortion or kidnapping.
The investigation led by John Carreyrou and Dylan Freedman from The New York Times involved compiling over 134,308 posts by 620 candidates on cryptography mailing lists between 1992 and 2008. Their analysis pinpointed shared grammatical patterns and hyphenation errors between Back’s writings and those attributed to Satoshi.
Critics, including Jameson Lopp of Casa, have denounced the investigation as lacking sufficient evidence, arguing that such techniques cannot definitively identify Satoshi Nakamoto. The community fears repeating past mistakes, like the situation with Peter Todd following an HBO documentary which falsely linked him to Nakamoto, leading to severe personal threats.
Moreover, wrongly attributing Bitcoin’s creation can pose broader institutional risks, as seen in Craig Wright’s legal actions under the claim of being Satoshi. This saga underscores developers’ preference for maintaining Bitcoin’s decentralized and leaderless ethos, essential for its operation as an open-source protocol free from centralized control.