By Alex Thorn, CoinDesk; Translated by Deng Tong, Golden Finance
HBO documentary claims to have solved the mystery of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. But does it really matter?
For years, journalists, bloggers and filmmakers have tried to uncover Satoshi Nakamoto's identity, with the latest attempt coming from HBO's Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery (scheduled to air on October 8 at 9 p.m. ET). So far, no one has succeeded in finding Satoshi Nakamoto. Yet Bitcoin's adoption around the world has continued unabated. The fact that Bitcoin's creator went to great lengths to hide his identity has always been meant to reinforce its decentralized ethos.
Bitcoin's mysterious origins are a fundamental part of its charm and value. The idea that anonymous developers could create a revolutionary form of money that no one controls resonates deeply with a generation that has been shaped over the past 20 years by financial crises, widespread distrust of government and a desire for greater economic autonomy.
Money is a major factor in the ongoing speculation surrounding Satoshi’s identity. It is estimated that Satoshi owns as many as 1 million Bitcoins, currently worth about $63 billion. Any signs that these Bitcoins are being cashed out would undoubtedly spook investors and cause the price of Bitcoin to plummet.
But Satoshi was intentionally anonymous from the beginning. His intention all along was to address the fact that “the fundamental problem with traditional currencies is all the trust required to make them work,” as he said in 2009. By remaining anonymous, Satoshi removed any personal bias or centralized control, ensuring that Bitcoin could grow organically as a community. Currently, only cryptographic proof can prove Satoshi's identity.
Satoshi shared very little about himself, but here's what we do know. We know he wrote the Bitcoin whitepaper and distributed it to the cryptography mailing list on October 31, 2008. We know he uploaded early source code to SourceForge. We know he registered bitcoin.org. We know he mined the first block (the "Genesis Block"). We know he posted on the BitcoinTalk forum as "satoshi." We know that in 2011, in his last known communication, Satoshi said he had moved on to other things, leaving the future of Bitcoin up to the world.
Researchers estimate that Satoshi owns between 800,000 and 1 million bitcoins, but it’s hard to know for sure because of his desire to remain anonymous. The coins are spread across thousands of wallets, and we know for sure that only a handful of transactions and blocks were sent or mined by Satoshi. Sergio Lerner’s famous Patoshi pattern is widely considered the best theory for revealing which coins were mined by Satoshi himself.
To definitively prove his identity, Satoshi would need to sign a message with a key known to belong to him, or transfer coins known to belong to him onto the chain. Anything less would be far from enough. That won’t happen on Tuesday night. This documentary won’t solve that mystery. Nor should it! Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity is one of the most important features of Bitcoin’s origins, and a key differentiator between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
More importantly, those who contemplate uncovering Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity should consider the devastating consequences of doxxing. The lives of those whose identities have been wrongly revealed have been ruined—whether it was Dorian Nakamoto who suffered the media storm, or Hal Finney’s family who suffered the consequences of reckless speculation.
If anyone truly respects Satoshi Nakamoto’s legacy, they will protect what he held most dear: anonymity.
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