Nakamoto's true identity is unknown. Various people have been posited as the person or group of people behind his name. He used aJapanese name and gave his residence asJapan,[9] but many have speculated that he is actually a Britishsoftware andcryptography expert who worked on Bitcoin in theUnited Kingdom.[10][11] If Nakamoto is an individual person, then his bitcoin holdings make him one of the wealthiest people in the world. Hiswallet, which has been untouched since 2010, holds an estimated 1.1million bitcoins. At their July 14, 2025 price of more than $123,000 each, these were worth nearly $135billion.[12]
Development of bitcoin
Satoshi Nakamoto message embedded in the coinbase of the first block
Nakamoto said that the work of writingbitcoin's code began in the second quarter of 2007.[13] On 18 August 2008, he registered the domain name bitcoin.org,[14] and created a web site at that address. On 31 October, Nakamoto published awhite paper on the cryptography mailing list at metzdowd.com describing a digitalcryptocurrency, titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".[15][16][17]
On 9 January 2009, Nakamoto released version 0.1 of the bitcoin software onSourceForge and launched the network by defining thegenesis block of bitcoin (block number 0), which had a reward of 50 bitcoins.[18][19][20][8][21] Embedded in thecoinbase transaction of this block is the text: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks",[18] citing a headline in the UK newspaperThe Times published on that date.[22] This note has been interpreted as both atimestamp and a derisive comment on the alleged instability caused byfractional-reserve banking.[19]: 18
Nakamoto continued to collaborate with other developers on bitcoin's software, making all modifications to the source code himself until mid-2010. He then gave control of thesource code repository and network alert key toGavin Andresen,[23] and transferred several related domains to various prominent members of the bitcoin community. In 2011, Nakamoto wrote in an email to co-developer Mike Hearn that he had “moved on to other things,” and he was never heard from again.[24]
As of 2021, Nakamoto is estimated to own between 750,000 and 1,100,000 bitcoin. In November 2021, when bitcoin reached a value of over $68,000, his net worth would have been up to $73 billion, making him the 15th-richest person in the world at the time.[25]
Characteristics and identity
Nakamoto has never revealed personal information when discussing technical matters.[8] On hisP2P Foundation profile as of 2012, he claimed to be a 37-year-old man who lived in Japan,[9] and gave his date of birth as 5 April 1975.[26] Some theorize that the date referenced the signing ofExecutive Order 6102, which prohibited the ownership ofgold coins in the United States, and 1975 as the year it was repealed. AuthorDominic Frisby categorized the date as an "obscure but brilliant reference" and as "extremely political".[26]
It is speculated he was unlikely to be Japanese due to his native-level use of English.[8] The bitcoin white paper was not initially translated into Japanese.[27] Analysis of the time of his posts indicates activity aligning with a western time zone. Stefan Thomas, a Swisssoftware engineer and active community member, graphed the timestamps of each of Nakamoto's bitcoin forum posts (more than 500); the chart showed a steep decline to almost none between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m.Greenwich Mean Time (midnight to 6 a.m.Eastern Standard Time). This was between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.Japan Standard Time, suggesting an unusual sleep pattern for someone living in Japan. As this pattern held even on Saturdays and Sundays, it suggested that Nakamoto was consistently asleep at this time.[28]
Others have considered that Nakamoto might be a team of people.Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who read bitcoin's code,[29] said that Nakamoto was either a "team of people" or a "genius";[30] Laszlo Hanyecz, a developer who had emailed Nakamoto, had the feeling the code was too well-designed for one person;[8] Andresen has said of Nakamoto's code: "He was a brilliant coder, but it was quirky."[31]
The use ofBritish English andslang in both source code comments and forum postings, such as the expressions "bloody hard", "lad" and "mate" as well as terms such as "flat" and "maths", and the spellings "grey" and "colour",[18] as well asdouble-spaced sentences led to speculation that Nakamoto is British, or a citizen of aCommonwealth nation.[8][15][30][32][33] The incorporation of text in the first bitcoin block from the headline of an article on the front page of London'sTimes newspaper on the same day suggests he was located in the UK.[11][18][19]
Possible identities
Nakamoto's identity is unknown,[34] but speculations have focussed on variouscryptography andcomputer science experts, most of whom are of non-Japanese descent.[8] Bitcoiners and cryptographers have suggested various methods by which a person could prove their identity as Nakamoto, such as moving the earliest bitcoins mined or signing a message with the key associated with the first bitcoins.[35] On the other hand, a denial of being Nakamoto is very difficult to confirm.
Hal Finney
Hal Finney (4 May 1956 – 28 August 2014) was a pre-bitcoin cryptographic pioneer and the first person (other than Nakamoto himself) to use the software, file bug reports, and make improvements.[36] His home inTemple City, California, was also a few blocks from a programmer named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, according toForbes journalistAndy Greenberg.[37] Greenberg asked the writing analysis consultancyJuola & Associates to compare a sample of Finney's writing to Nakamoto's, and found it to be the closest resemblance they had yet come across, including when compared to candidates suggested byNewsweek,Fast Company,The New Yorker,Ted Nelson, and Skye Grey. Greenberg theorized that Finney may have been a ghost writer on Nakamoto's behalf, or that he simply used his neighbour's identity as a "drop" or "patsy whose personal information is used to hide online exploits"; but after meeting Finney, seeing the emails between him and Nakamoto and his bitcoinwallet's history (including the first transaction from Nakamoto to him, which he forgot to pay back) and hearing his denial, Greenberg concluded that Finney was telling the truth. Juola & Associates also found that Nakamoto's emails to Finney more closely resemble Nakamoto's other writings than Finney's do. Finney also denied knowing Dorian Nakamoto, who was himself named byNewsweek as a likely candidate for the creator of bitcoin.[37]
Dorian Nakamoto
In a high-profile March 2014 article inNewsweek,[38] journalistLeah McGrath Goodman identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese-American man living inCalifornia, whosebirth name is Satoshi Nakamoto,[38][39][40] as the Nakamoto in question. Besides his name, Goodman pointed to a number of facts that circumstantially suggested he was the bitcoin inventor.[38] Trained as a physicist atCalifornia State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defence projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. According to his daughter, Nakamoto was laid off twice in the early 1990s, turnedlibertarian, and encouraged her to start her own business "not under the government's thumb". The article's seemingly biggest piece of evidence was that when Goodman asked him about bitcoin during a brief in-person interview, Nakamoto seemed to confirm his identity as its founder, saying: "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."[38][41]
The article's publication led to a flurry of media interest, including reporters camping out near Nakamoto's house and chasing him by car when he drove to an interview.[42] Later that day, the pseudonymous Nakamoto's P2P Foundation account posted its first message in five years: "I am not Dorian Nakamoto."[43][44] In a subsequent interview, Nakamoto denied all connection to bitcoin, saying he had never heard of it before and that he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as about his previous work for military contractors, much of which was classified.[45] In a Reddit "ask-me-anything" interview, he said he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as related to his work forCitibank.[46] In September, the P2P Foundation account posted another message saying it had been hacked, raising questions over the authenticity of the message six months earlier.[47][48]
Nick Szabo
In December 2013, blogger Skye Grey linkedNick Szabo to the bitcoin white paper usingstylometric analysis.[49][50][51] Szabo is adecentralized-currency enthusiast and published a paper on"bit gold", one of bitcoin's precursors. He is known to have been interested in using pseudonyms in the 1990s.[52] In a May 2011 article, Szabo said of bitcoin's creator: "Myself,Wei Dai, andHal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai's case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai)."[53]
Financial authorDominic Frisby provides much circumstantial evidence but, as he admits, no proof that Nakamoto is Szabo.[54] Szabo has denied being Nakamoto. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he wrote: "Thanks for letting me know. I'm afraid you got it wrongdoxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it."[55] Nathaniel Popper wrote inThe New York Times that "the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo."[56]
On 8 December 2015,Wired wrote thatCraig Steven Wright, an Australian academic, "either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did".[57] Wright took down his Twitter account and neither he nor his ex-wife responded to press inquiries. The same day,Gizmodo published a story with evidence supposedly obtained by a hacker who broke into Wright's email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Wright and computer forensics analystDave Kleiman, who died in 2013.[58] Wright's claim was supported by Andresen and formerBitcoin Foundation director Jon Matonis.[59]
Wright has said that he chose the name "Nakamoto" in honour of Japanese philosopherTominaga Nakamoto, whom Wright learned about from his Japanese martial arts instructor, and "Satoshi" after thePokémon character Satoshi, because his name was anglicized as "Ash", and thus "Satoshi" represents the current financial system that must be burned into ash to make way for cryptocurrency.[59]
Many prominent bitcoin promoters remained unconvinced by the reports.[60] Subsequent reports also raised the possibility that the evidence provided was an elaborate hoax,[61][62] whichWired acknowledged "cast doubt" on its suggestion that Wright was Nakamoto.[63] Bitcoin developerPeter Todd said that Wright's blog post, which appeared to contain cryptographic proof, actually contained nothing of the sort.[64] Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik agreed that the evidence Wright publicly provided proves nothing, and security researcherDan Kaminsky concluded Wright's claim was "intentional scammery".[65]
In May 2019, Wright started usingEnglish libel law to sue people who denied he was bitcoin's inventor and called him a fraud.[66] In 2019, Wright registered US copyright for the bitcoin white paper and the code for bitcoin 0.1.[67] Wright's team claimed this was "government agency recognition of Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto";[68] theUnited States Copyright Office issued a press release clarifying that this was not the case (as they primarily determine whether a work is eligible for copyright, and do not investigate legal ownership, which, if disputed, is determined by the courts).[69]
In March 2024, in the Crypto Open Patents Association (COPA) case before theHigh Court,Judge James Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto.[70]
First, that Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper. Second, Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in the period 2008 to 2011. Third, Dr. Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin system. And, fourth, he is not the author of the initial versions of the Bitcoin software.[71]
— Judge James Mellor UK High Court 2024
The written judgment released on 20 May 2024, stated that documents submitted as evidence substantiate Wright's claim to be Satoshi were forgeries, and Dr Wright had "lied to the court extensively and repeatedly".[72] On 19 December 2024, Wright was sentenced in the UK to one year in prison, suspended for two years, for contempt of court in relation to Wright's£911 billion lawsuit againstJack Dorsey's companyBlock, Inc.[73]
Other candidates
Len Sassaman memorial on Bitcoin blockchain
In a 2011 article inThe New Yorker,Joshua Davis claimed to have narrowed down Nakamoto's identity to a few people, including the Finnish economic sociologistVili Lehdonvirta and Irish student Michael Clear, who, in 2008, was an undergraduate student in cryptography atTrinity College Dublin.[74] Each of them strongly denied being Nakamoto.[75][76][74]
In October 2011, writing forFast Company, investigative journalistAdam Penenberg cited circumstantial evidence suggesting Neal King, Vladimir Oksman, and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto.[77] They jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase "computationally impractical to reverse" in 2008, which was also used in the bitcoin white paper by Nakamoto.[78] The domain name bitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed. All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.[77]
In May 2013,Ted Nelson speculated that Nakamoto was Japanese mathematicianShinichi Mochizuki.[79]The Age newspaper reported that Mochizuki had denied these speculations.[80]
In 2013, two Israeli mathematicians, Dorit Ron andAdi Shamir, published a paper claiming a link between Nakamoto andRoss Ulbricht. The two based their suspicion on an analysis of the network of bitcoin transactions,[82] but later retracted their claim.[83]
In 2016, theFinancial Times said that Nakamoto might have been a group of people, mentioning Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, andAdam Back as potential members.[84] In 2020, the YouTube channelBarely Sociable claimed that Adam Back, inventor of bitcoin predecessorHashcash, is Nakamoto.[85] Back subsequently denied this.[86]
Elon Musk denied he was Nakamoto in a tweet on 28 November 2017, responding to speculation the previous week in aMedium post by a formerSpaceX intern.[87]
In 2021, developer Evan Hatch proposed cypherpunkLen Sassaman (1980–2011) ofCOSIC as a possible candidate.[89] Sassaman had been mentioned on bitcointalk on 15 March 2013 when a user suggested Sassaman was Satoshi.[90] A presentation given by Kaminsky at the 2011Black Hat Briefings revealed that a testimonial in honour of Sassaman had been permanently embedded into bitcoin'sblockchain.[91]
In 2024, anHBO documentary directed byCullen Hoback titledMoney Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery named former Bitcoin developerPeter Todd as allegedly being Satoshi Nakamoto.[92][93] Hoback's claim relies on a chat message written by Todd where he commented on a technicality in one of Satoshi's last posts, shortly after Todd had created his personal account, and just an hour after the initial post was made. Hoback also notes Nakamoto's use ofCanadian English, as well as a subsequent chat post by Todd where he rued being "the world's leading expert on how to sacrifice your bitcoins [...] I've done one such sacrifice and I did it by hand." Hoback characterized the latter as an admission by Todd of having destroyed access to the Bitcoin believed to be held by Nakamoto.[92] Todd denied that he was Nakamoto, stating that it was "ludicrous" and "grasping at straws", and criticized Hoback by saying that it was "ironic that a director who is also known for adocumentary on QAnon has resorted toQAnon style coincidence-based conspiracy thinking here too".[94][95]
In popular culture
Abust of Satoshi Nakamoto was installed inBudapest, Hungary, in 2021.[96]
^abcdefgWallace, Benjamin (23 November 2011)."The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin".Wired. Vol. 19, no. 12.ISSN1059-1028.Archived from the original on 29 October 2023. Retrieved29 October 2023.It seemed doubtful that Nakamoto was even Japanese. His English had the flawless, idiomatic ring of a native speaker. ... Other clues suggested that Nakamoto was British
^ab"Satoshi Nakamoto's Page".P2P Foundation. Archived from the original on 29 May 2012. Retrieved2 May 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Wallace, Benjamin (17 March 2025)."In Pursuit of the Bitcoin God".Intelligencer. Retrieved18 January 2026.In his profile on the site, Nakamoto gave his residence as Japan. But no one believed he was Japanese. His English was flawless. He sounded British. In both the bitcoin source code and his posts to the BitcoinTalk forum, Nakamoto favored Anglo spellings like colour and optimise.
^abFrost, Liam (26 November 2020)."Here's Where Bitcoin's Satoshi Nakamoto May Have Lived".Decrypt. Retrieved19 January 2026.This was a direct quote from an article published in The Times, a daily London-based newspaper, on January 3, 2009. The researchers explained that Nakamoto likely would not have seen this headline if he was living in the US.
^Penenberg, Adam (11 October 2011)."The Bitcoin Crypto-Currency Mystery Reopened".Fast Company.Archived from the original on 6 October 2013.A New Yorker writer implies he found Bitcoin's mysterious creator. We think he got the wrong man, and offer far more compelling evidence that points to someone else entirely.
^Wallace, Benjamin (23 November 2011)."The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin".Wired. Vol. 19, no. 12.ISSN1059-1028.Archived from the original on 29 October 2023. Retrieved29 October 2023.It seemed doubtful that Nakamoto was even Japanese. His English had the flawless, idiomatic ring of a native speaker. ... Other clues suggested that Nakamoto was British
^Popper, Nathaniel (15 May 2015). "Decoding the Enigma".The New York Times.the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo.
^abNakamoto, Andrew O'Hagan on the many lives of Satoshi (30 June 2016)."The Satoshi Affair".London Review of Books. pp. 7–28.ISSN0260-9592. Retrieved28 June 2016.
^Kaminska, Izabella (9 December 2015)."So, Satoshi is an Aussie?".FT Alphaville.Archived from the original on 12 December 2015. Retrieved9 December 2015.
^"Copyright.gov: May 22, 2019: Questions about Certain Bitcoin Registrations". 22 May 2019. Archived fromthe original on 27 February 2021. Retrieved28 November 2021.The examination process is primarily focused on determining whether a deposited work is eligible for protection under the Copyright Act... the Copyright Office does not investigate whether there is a provable connection between the claimant and the pseudonymous author.
