Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin, and more importantly, its underlying blockchain technology.
No matter what the future price of Bitcoin may be, the real treasure is blockchain, because
it is going to change the world as much as the internet did in the 1990’s.
Satoshi Nakamoto was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Economics, and he is a multi-billionaire...And
yet no one knows what he actually looks like.
He may not even be a single person, and the name may serve as a cover for a group who
came together for the sake of starting a digital revolution.
On today’s Biographics, we’re going to go over what we know about this little-known
figure, as well as the theories behind his secret identity.
Dawn of the Cypherpunks In the 1980’s and 90’s, the closest thing
you had to a cool gang of rebellious computer hackers was The Cypherpunks.
They were computer programmers who were interested in creating absolute privacy in the digital
world.
They specialized in creating cyphers that were nearly impossible to break into.
Many of them were anarchists and libertarians who believed that everyone should be connected
online without government interference...Sadly, as we now know, the Internet is anything but
free from the watchful eyes of the NSA.
Many of these cypherpunks experimented in the idea that the Internet could be used to
send digital money without the use of a middleman.
David Chaum invented DigiCash in 1989, and he published an academic paper on the subject.
Another one of the cypherpunks, Nick Szabo, created “Bit Gold”.
All of these ideas were close, but no cigar.
Even though the cypherpunks had this idea conceived, they couldn’t actually come up
with a technical way to accomplish a true peer-to-peer experience.
When you use the Internet, you are depending on your Internet Service Provider, and they
need to abide by the laws of each respective country.
Even with apps like PayPal and Venmo, sending money to your friends may seem like an instant
peer-to-peer experience, at least for the customer.
But behind the scenes, those companies still have to settle bank transactions the old fashioned
way.
This is 3 day’s worth of paperwork through an antiquated and expensive system, called
SWIFT.
If this sounds ridiculous in this day and age, that’s because it is.
The global digital banking system has been long overdue for an overhaul.
And after the 2008 stock market crash, the world was primed and ready for a financial
revolution.
In October of 2008, someone going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a paper called “Bitcoin:
A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.
He began to email all of the Cypherpunks, asking if they were willing to help him create
his idea of a new system he developed called “Blockchain”.
This was a computer network that truly was peer-to-peer, without fear of interference
from an Internet Service Provider ever shutting it down.
The blockchain is basically an accounting system that records all transactions on a
public ledger.
Instead of the US Dollar, value would be exchanged in a digital currency, called Bitcoin.
New Bitcoins have to be created by “mining”, which is a process of computers attempting
to solve a difficult math problem.
Once the cypher is solved, the miner is rewarded with a Bitcoin.
In the beginning, one Bitcoin was only worth fractions of a penny.
Back then, any run-of-the-mill computer you got on the shelf from Best Buy could handle
mining Bitcoin, and anyone could receive and deposit the currency in their digital wallet.
The blockchain network itself exists in the cloud, which is a sort of hive mind that does
not exist in any physical location.
This means that no government in the world has the ability to shut it down, because as
long as there are miners somewhere out there in the world who are running the blockchain,
Bitcoin will continue to exist.
Even though it was the solution they had been searching for, many of the cypherpunks ignored
Satoshi Nakamoto’s ideas.
They weren’t kids anymore.
They were now in their 40’s and 50’s, and they had already tried and failed to make
their own digital currencies.
The idea of Bitcoin was so radical, it seemed liked something out of a science fiction movie.
But one computer programmer from California named Hal Finney saw its potential, and he
was the first person to take Satoshi Nakamoto seriously.
He agreed to work on The Bitcoin Project for free, and in January 3, 2009, Bitcoin was
first launched.
Hal Finney and Satoshi Nakamoto had never met face-to-face, and they never spoke over
the phone.
Nakamoto left his email address on the Bitcoin website, allowing anyone to contact him with
any questions they may have about the project.
This lead many other programmers to join in and help them.
In the very beginning, this idea was only popular to anarchists and libertarians who
had the goal of living their lives free from government rule.
While they are small in number, this community is still incredibly passionate about their
philosophies to this very day.
They were the first ones to cling on to the “Bitcoin Revolution”, and many called
Satoshi Nakamoto a hero.
On The Run From the Law Of course, once the word got out that Bitcoin
was a way to transfer money privately, it was almost immediately adopted by criminals.
In 2011, a website called The Silk Road appeared in a web browser called Tor, which is used
to run the dark web.
The founder and Kingpin of the Silk Road goes by the name of Dread Pirate Roberts, like
the character from The Princess Bride.
You can buy anything on the Silk Road, including human slaves and hit orders from assassins,
and most of these transactions are done in Bitcoin.
In 2013, a 29-year old man named Ross Ulbricht was arrested under suspicion of being The
Dread Pirate Roberts.
In 2015, he was convicted of conspiracy to transfer narcotics, and since he was labeled
as an evil Kingpin, he was given not just one, but two life sentences, plus an additional
40 years, without the possibility of parole.
The average Silk Road drug dealer only got 5 to 10 years behind bars.
Most people in the cryptocurrency community believe that Ulbricht was just a patsy, and
that the real Dread Pirate Roberts has gone free.
The FBI seized Ross Ulbricht’s cache of Bitcoin, and auctioned them off to the highest
bidder.
While Ulbricht was in solitary confinement, someone else logged in to the Dread Pirate
Roberts account on the Silk Road.
Either he had passed the account on to another Kingpin, or they truly did arrest the wrong
man.
Once Bitcoin started getting a lot of bad press, Satoshi Nakamoto was very upset to
see how his project was being used for evil.
The last known person to have communicated with Satoshi Nakamoto was Gavin Andresen,
a programmer who looked up to Nakamoto as his mentor and hero.
When the FBI and CIA came looking for Satoshi Nakamoto, Gavin Andresen agreed to speak to
them about Bitcoin on the mysterious founder’s behalf, because he wanted to help educate
them about what blockchain technology actually is.
This must have frightened Nakamoto, because he completely cut off ties with the rest of
the original Bitcoin team.
Since then, Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin public wallet address has remained untouched.
Even in 2017, when the price ballooned to $20,000 per coin, he has never withdrawn his
money.
He should be one of the richest men in the world, but he has decided not to spend a penny
of it.
For people who were paying attention to Bitcoin since its inception, many found that they
could turn blockchain technology into an opportunity to make their own businesses.
Since the code for blockchain was open-source and free for anyone to use, it could be improved
and built upon.
Boy genius Vitalik Buterin was just 17 years old when he began to learn how to code blockchain,
and founded Bitcoin Magazine.
He gained a lot of respect from people who were much older than he was, and he proposed
a new project called Ethereum.
This wasn’t just another coin to compete with Bitcoin, though.
It was far faster and cheaper, and people could build their own businesses upon the
Ethereum platform.
These were called “ICO’s” or “Initial Coin Offerings”.
Unfortunately, though, the vast majority of these cryptocurrency businesses were- and
still are- total scams.
The government agencies of the world suddenly had a whole lot more to worry about than just
Bitcoin, because uneducated people around the world started to dump their life savings
into fraudulent companies in the hopes that it would be the next Bitcoin.
At the moment, there are very few alternative coins that are legitimate companies, and not
scams.
At the time this video was made, the number 2 cryptocurrency in the world is Ripple, for
good reason.
They are an actual corporation, lead by the former CEO of AOL, Brad Garlinghouse.
They have offices in multiple countries, where they have hundreds of employees working to
educate major corporations about what blockchain can do to help them.
They are already working hand-in-hand with the Federal Reserve, and have contracts with
over 200 banks who have agreed to use their currency, XRP, to settle trillions of dollars
in bank transactions in the future.
The Cult of Satoshi While many of the leaders in traditional finance
and tech that are trying to figure out how to incorporate blockchain into the real world,
there are the purists who still passionately believe in the anarchist ideals of the cypherpunks
and Satoshi Nakamoto.
Many of these original followers were made multi-millionaires by their initial investments.
While some of these people were coders who understood blockchain tech, the majority of
them had no background in computer science at all, and were supporting Bitcoin simply
for the fact that they believe in the philosophy.
Satoshi Nakamoto was never the CEO of Bitcoin, because it’s not even a business entity.
He was never trying to be a leader, but the level of reverence that some people have for
him has been compared to a cult on multiple occasions.
Without a leader to guide them, Bitcoin believers debate over the question: “What Would Satoshi
Do?”
They quote and analyze his old emails and publications.
The Reddit boards are filled with heated debates trying to interpret Satoshi’s words as if
it’s their Bible.
At this point in time, Bitcoin transactions take several hours, or even days to go through,
and they cost roughly $40 in fees per transaction.
It is almost as expensive and slow as the old school banking system.
The idea that Bitcoin will be around forever is kind of like saying dial-up internet should
still be around, too.
Even though the tech has been in a serious downward spiral, and other companies like
Ripple have drastically improved upon blockchain technology in recent years, much of the Bitcoin
community is in total denial.
They continue to have blind faith in the original Bitcoin, and in a man or group who isn’t
even around anymore to give their input.
The original programmer of Bitcoin, Hal Finney, suffered from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's
disease.
If you weren’t already aware, this is the same neurodegenerative disease that immobilized
Stephen Hawking.
So someone’s brain is still fully functioning, but they no longer have control over their
body.
The timeline of Hal Finney’s condition getting worse actually lines up to when Satoshi Nakamoto
decided to disappear.
Andy Greenberg, a senior writer at WIRED magazine made that connection, and he believed that
he had cracked the case, so he went to interview him.
At this point, Hal Finney was in a wheelchair, and he could no longer speak.
He could only answer “yes” or “no” questions.
Greenberg asked point-blank if he was the true Satoshi Nakamoto.
Finney’s eyes glistened in amusement, and he promptly responded, “No”.
Even though Hal Finney had become a multi-millionaire from mining Bitcoin in the early days of the
project, no amount of money could save him from the disease, but maybe he could postpone
the inevitable.
On the brink of death, Finney requested that his body be cryogenically frozen, in hopes
that someday, he would be unfrozen and given the cure to ALS.
In 2014, he passed away, and his body was transported to a lab in Arizona.
Just two miles away from Hal Finney’s home, the FBI showed up on someone’s property
with a warrant.
They dragged out a man with black hair and glasses, and arrested him under suspicion
of being the mysterious founder of Bitcoin.
He insisted over and over again that he had no idea what they were talking about.
His full legal name is: Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto.
Will the Real Satoshi Please Stand Up?
After the paparazzi showing up at his doorstep, the news falsely reported that Dorian Satoshi
Nakamoto was the true founder of Bitcoin.
This sent him into the spotlight of the media, and he had to go on record with the Associated
Press insisting that he did not have anything to do with the project, and that someone had
clearly taken his name as a pseudonym.
Today, Dorian Nakamoto has been affectionately titled “The Fake Satoshi”, and members
of the community actually love him.
His face was even turned into a meme.
Many people felt sorry that he was dragged into this, and even donated Bitcoins to him
as a sort of “sorry for the mix-up” gift.
In 2017, those donations inflated to be worth $273,000, and he quickly cashed out at just
the right time.
Today, Dorian Nakamoto has actually embraced the community, and he now enjoys being a celebrity
and taking photos with his fans.
In 2015, yet another potential candidate emerged in the media.
US authorities raided the home of an Australian man named Dr. Craig Wright.
In 2016, Wright agreed to do multiple press interviews claiming that he was the real Satoshi
Nakamoto.
When he gave his evidence to journalists, they were satisfied, not knowing that he pulled
the equivalent of a technical parlor trick.
Most people don’t know how easy it is to fake this kind of proof on the blockchain.
So it has been published in multiple venues that he is the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
But after seeing the likes of the BBC and The Economist vouching for him, many people
in the Cult of Satoshi began to believe that their Messiah had returned, and he was back
to tell them exactly what to do with their money.
During a pubic interview, boy genius Vitalik Buterin gave a number of examples of how Craig
Wright could have faked this so-called proof, and he gave examples on how he should have
publically proven that he was the real Satoshi Nakamoto, and yet he failed to do so.
Buterin said, “Signaling theory says that if you have a good way to prove something
and you have a noisy way to do it, then the reason why you picked the noisy way was because
you couldn’t do it the good way in the first place.”
Craig Wright is, in fact, profiting off of his sudden claim to fame.
He is an outspoken showman, appearing before crowds making promises about Bitcoin’s future.
In reality, he has started his own company, and the promises he makes are actually not
that impressive where the tech is concerned.
He made millions of dollars from investors, simply by claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
In many ways, he seems to be like The Wizard of Oz, but many have not been fooled.
In February of 2018, Craig Wright was sued for stealing $10 Billion of cryptocurrency
assets from his former business partner.
The lawsuit is still ongoing, so at the time we are making this video, we still can’t
be sure of the outcome.
A journalist named Andrew O’Hagan has done a very deep dive into the Craig Wright case,
and he has discovered that Wright also lost a lot of money in the past from cryptocurrency
firm called Liberty Reserve in Costa Rica.
Wright also met face-to-face with Ross Ulbricht soon before his arrest.
So...why on Earth would this millionaire businessman be associating with a drug dealer from the
silk road?
Some people theorize that Wright isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto at all, and he may actually be the
true Dread Pirate Roberts.
The Future of Blockchain, and Remaining Theories There are dozens of theories of who Satoshi
Nakamoto truly is, from Elon Musk to the NSA.
One of Musk’s former interns at SpaceX, Sahil Gupta, wrote a comprehensive blog post
on Medium as to why he believed his former boss was the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
This caused such a stir, that Elon Musk had to tweet that he was not the founder of Bitcoin.
Everyone has a very passionate reason for believing their theory is the correct one,
of course.
Whoever he is, we may have never seen Satoshi Nakamoto in the news at all, even under another
name.
It’s very possible that he knew better than to put himself in the limelight, and it would
be impossible to even guess his identity.
But if Satoshi Nakamoto is still alive, and if he truly is just one man or a group of
people, why haven’t they touched those billions of dollars in years?
Is there really a person on this planet with the willpower to resist that kind of temptation?
And what does he think about this corrupt system that Bitcoin has become?
In 2012, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in an email to one of the original core developers of
Bitcoin, Mike Hearn, that “Ripple is interesting in that it's the only other system that does
something with trust besides concentrate it into a central server."
...What he is basically saying is that it’s the only other coin he considered a real contender,
and admits that it truly is an improvement on Bitcoin.
In his last email, he also wrote that he had given up on Bitcoin, and wanted to work on
“another project”, without giving any details as to what that new project actually
was.
This leads us to our final theory: David Schwartz, who is now the lead cryptographer at Ripple.
In 1988, Schwartz filed a patent of a distributive computer network before the existence of the
internet.
In a lot of ways, his idea was almost identical to Bitcoin 20 years before Satoshi Nakamoto
appeared on the scene.
Schwartz is no stranger to using aliases, either, and he went by the pseudonym “Joel
Katz” online for years.
There is no denying that he was intelligent enough to come up with this on his own.
Schwartz has used his knowledge to turn the Ripple ecosystem into a product that is far
more sustainable than Bitcoin ever was.
It does not need to be mined, their transactions settle within a few seconds, and each transfer
costs a fraction of a penny.
Banks around the world are already beginning to use the Ripple network, because it’s
the only one that is even remotely possible to use in the real world.
David Schwartz has an estimated net worth of $90 million.
If Ripple succeeds as much as many believe it will, he may become a billionaire at some
point in the future.
This would serve as a rational explanation as to why he hasn’t touched the fortune
in Bitcoin...It’s because he doesn’t want the possibility that it may lead back to him,
and he became so rich with Ripple, he doesn’t actually need it.
When presented with this theory, David Schwartz denies it, of course, but...that’s probably
what the real Satoshi would say.