It's one of the biggest successes of 2013.
A peer-to-peer financial system prospering in the wake of a financial crisis and international
cynicism towards the banks.
Bitcoin's currency has broken the $1000 mark for the first time and after being under the
radar for the last few years it's now getting attention in the mainstream media.
But just what do we know about this cultural phenomenon, who actually owns Bitcoin?
Well the Bitcoin states that no-one owns it.
It's simply controlled by users all over the world.
Developers continually work on the processes but essentially the users themselves head
up the phenomenon.
So who's responsible for the creation of Bitcoin?
Well, that's more of a mystery.
Programmer Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin so that should be a clear starting off point.
However, Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't exist.
Well he does but it's a pseudonym which means clear thinking inside the foundation.
The appetite to uncover the identity, or identities of Nakamoto is tremendous.
Various investigations have been published online claiming to have put the clues together
and identified the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
The New Yorker recently published a piece by Joshua Davis in which he claimed to have
identified the mystery man, or woman.
After analyzing all Nakamoto's posts and a 2008 research paper on Bitcoin, he studied
the linguistic style, prose, and spelling.
Interestingly Nakamoto switched from the US way of spelling to the English style.
Davis deduced that the man he was looking for was English and a world class programmer.
After attending a Crypto 2011 conference, Davis' workings out led him to James Clear
who denied being Nakamoto.
Thought intriguingly he said he wouldn't admit it if he was indeed the Bitcoin creator.
On the back of the New Yorker piece other armchair detectives set to work, Adam L. Penenberg
a journalism professor at NYU had also been trying to find out who Satoshi Nakamoto was.
He didn't share his belief that James Clear was the wanted man.
Instead came to the conclusion that there were three men in the frame.
Penenberg's investigation kicked off in earnest when he discovered a patent for a system and
method of providing secure communications with an application date of three days before
the domain name of Bitcoin was registered.
The three inventors listed on the patent are Neal King, Vladimir Oksman, and Charles Bry.
Peneberg set about attempting to link them to Satoshi Nakamoto.
There were various compelling points made in his article to tempt us into believing
that any of these men could be Nakamoto.
Such as their previous areas of expertise, there links to a similar technology and in
the case of Neal King, an apparent skepticism about the financial system.
Interestingly Penenberg states in his investigation that the point isn't to find the identity
of the creator(s) but to show just how circumstantial evidence which is what the New Yorker based
its conclusions on isn't synonymous with the truth.
He adds I doubt the New Yorker found the right guy.
I also believe that our evidence is far more compelling, yet we also probably haven't nailed
it either.
But has the NSA got the right guy?
Back in 1996, they wrote this super catchy document called how to make a mint the cryptography
of anonymous electronic cash which basically says something like Bitcoin will happen at
some point.
In this report they refer to the work of this chap, Tatsuaki Okamoto.
Many Bitcoin experts are convinced this is the man behind Satoshi Nakamoto with some
wondering if Nakamoto is the brain child of Okamoto in conjuction with Satoshi Obana.
The combination of their names could certainly be a clue.
Then of course there's the train of thought that the NSA themselves created Bitcoin as
there 1996 prediction was eerily accurate.
Not everyone is keen to uncover the mystery identity though, many think that the point
of Bitcoin is anonymity and that uncovering the identity of Satoshi could topple the system
altogether.
Well no matter who is behind the phenomenon they certainly covered their tracks to keep
us all guessing.