Australian computer entrepreneur has publicly identified himself as Satoshi Nakamoto, inventor of the widely-used cryptocurrency Bitcoin. But Nakamoto forcefully denied the report, saying he had never even heard of the currency.
Advertisement
Whether Craig Steven Wright is the creator of bitcoin, as he claims to be, a potentially more important mystery remains: Where is the substantial pile of the initial digital currency he is believed to own and does the inventor plan to sell it? Wright mentioned that he was the main member of the bitcoin development team and community, but others have also helped him.
In his Monday blog post, Wright did not make a clear-cut admission that he was Nakamoto. “The investment and interest is going into more and more non-currency uses”.
“It absolutely doesn’t show that Wright is Satoshi, and it does very strongly imply that the objective of the blog post was to deceive people”, reads an excerpt from one Reddit thread.
Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright published a blog post on Monday in which he claims to be the creator of bitcoin and claims to have “cryptographic proof” that he is Satoshi Nakamoto – bitcoin’s mysterious founder.
In December, the technology magazine Wired and the website Gizmodo both published lengthy investigations based on documents and emails that concluded Wright was probably Nakamoto.
A Bitcoin (virtual currency) paper wallet with QR codes and a coin are seen in an illustration picture taken at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, France on May 27, 2015.
He says part of their meeting was spent on a “careful cryptographic verification of messages signed with keys that only Satoshi should possess”.
“I’m not seeking publicity, but want to set the record straight”, he said.
But The Economist said that there were still a number of steps to go through to evaluate whether Wright was the creator of bitcoin. “I just want to be left alone”, he said.
Jon Matonis, one of the founding directors of the Bitcoin Foundation, told the BBC he is convinced that Wright is who he claims to be and is responsible for a brilliant achievement.
The hunt for creator of world’s most popular cryptocurrency, the Bitcoin seems to have finally come to an end.
Wright told The Economist he would exchange his Bitcoin in small chunks to avoid sinking the price. Wright declined to comment on the stories, which were the subject of scepticism among some of his contemporaries. Since then, Wright claims he has been traced by reporters and it has begun to weigh heavy on relationships with family and friends.
Advertisement
“I have nothing to do with bitcoin”, Nakamoto said. I also received satisfactory explanations to my questions about registering the bitcoin.org domain and the various time-of-day postings to the BitcoinTalk forum.
