Original title: "In Pursuit of the Bitcoin God"

Written by: Benjamin Wallace

Translated by: ChainCather, Riley

Editor's note: This article is excerpted from "The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: The Road to the Genius Behind the Scenes of the World of Decryption and Encryption" by Benjamin Wallace, one of the earliest reporters to report on Bitcoin, and spent fifteen years in-depth investigations, from technical analysis, cultural and sports identification to cross-border tracking, trying to uncover Satoshi Nakamoto's true face. Finally, the clue pointed to a programmer over 70 years old - James A. Donald. However, after meeting and talking with Donald, Wallace chose to put down his pen and gave up on continuing to investigate Satoshi Nakamoto.

TL, DR:

The author first reported on Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011 and went through 15 years of investigation and search. Now I think I have solved this puzzle now.

Sahil Gupta sent an email to reveal to the author that it was speculated that Musk was "very likely" to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Sahil believes that the public is ready to accept that Satoshi Nakamoto and Musk are the same person. He claimed to be "99% sure" and blamed the outside world's doubts on "bias against Musk".

The author described the details of the process of Satoshi Nakamoto founding Bitcoin. After Gavin Andresen told him that he would go to the CIA to explain Bitcoin but received no reply, Satoshi Nakamoto completely retired in 2011, leaving only one suspected forum post and never appeared again.

The author found that Satoshi's idiomatic word "hosed" appeared only four times on the early mailing list of Bitcoin, two of which came from the first questioner, James Donald, and became the key language fingerprint to lock his identity.

The author used multiple clues to lock James Donald, but in the face of the questioning, the Satoshi Nakamoto's number one suspect only ended the conversation with "can't disclose".

Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence can help us confirm Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. But unless we decrypt some unforeseen secrets, we will likely alwaysIf Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, was really the person I guess, he would never admit it. He may not even want to talk to me. To see him, I need to take a 20-hour plane and drive another 8-hour car. But I had to try to talk to him face to face.

In the spring of 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared. I first heard of him that summer when I wrote the first in-depth coverage of Bitcoin for a magazine. This currency is free from the banking system. Twelve years have passed, and the founder of Bitcoin is still a mystery, and his wealth worth tens of billions of dollars has not yet been moved. No one in the history of science has ever been able to create a revolutionary technology without taking credit for it, nor earning a penny from it.

Believers cannot worship a flesh and blood body, so they add the legendary aura to this pseudonym. In 2022, Kanye West walked off the luxury car in Beverly Hills wearing a baseball cap printed with "Samoto"; Budapest erected the first bronze statue of Satoshi Nakamoto - a ghost in a hood; a group of liberals bought the retired cruise ship "Samoto" and recruited residents to establish the first Bitcoin sovereign society; more than one technical expert called for the award of him the Nobel Prize.

When I first reported Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011, I did not expect that his identity will remain an unsolved mystery more than ten years later. Since then, countless attempts to "reveal" have failed, and some have even become farces. In 2014, Newsweek pointed out that California system engineer Dorian Nakamoto was accused of days of siege of his residence. Even "60 Minutes", which has top resources, was helpless, saying that this task was "impossible". However, at this moment, I was sure that I had solved the puzzle.

I was a little nervous. This man spent all his time hiding his movements, and the truth I found was unsettling - he was completely different from the people imagined Satoshi Nakamoto. He repeatedly called himself a "dangerous person" and had a gun hidden in his home.

He also owns at least four properties on two continents. I thought he was hiding somewhere on the Big Island of Hawaii, but in the summer of 2023, the clue pointed to a small seaside town on Australia’s east coast.

When I was anxious about this, I had dinner with my sister. She has been a TV news producer for 20 years and has personally witnessed the FBI's raid on the residence of the "College Bomber" with the "48 Hours" column team. She suggested that I bring it with meProfessional security personnel, put on body armor and notify the local police in advance. "Thank you." I muttered.

The night she sent a text message: "I can't sleep, I don't know why." It was 4:09 am. "Two suggestions: If you go out, try to block him in public places; it is best to arrange long-distance video to keep a certificate."

Is it Elon Musk?

On New Year's Eve 2021, my email received an email titled "New Clues About Satoshi Nakamoto".

Since writing early reports on Bitcoin, such emails have appeared from time to time.

Sender Sahil Gupta posted a blog four years ago, speculating that Musk was "very likely" to be Satoshi Nakamoto. This time he provided new "evidence": a conversation with Musk's chief of staff, Sam Taylor. The content is vague and I did not respond.

Two days later, Gupta's detailed argument was sent to the same email address. The arguments vary from fuzzy to technical flow. I decided to reply. Sahil told me that in 2015 he went to the SpaceX Rocket Factory for an internship when he was a bachelor’s degree at Yale. Musk is at the office three days a week, and the two often meet in the corridor. Sahil majored in computer science and his graduation thesis proposed a central bank digital currency called "Federal Coin". The article thanks "Samoto, a real legend".

During his research paper, he read in-depth cryptocurrency literature, including Satoshi Nakamoto's nine-page white paper. He noticed that Satoshi Nakamoto's vocabulary style is surprisingly similar to Musk: both of them love to use expressions such as "order of magnitude" and "bloody". Satoshi Nakamoto talks about currency in an abstract way, just as Musk did when he served at PayPal. Additionally, both are proficient in C++ language and cryptography. Sahil began to doubt: Is the father of Bitcoin always hiding in the spotlight?

After graduation, Sahir tried to work for Musk. After several emails, he received a telephone interview with Chief of Staff Taylor. At the end of the interview, he mustered up the courage to ask, "Is Elon Satoshi Nakamoto?" Sahir recalled, "Taylor was silent for 15 seconds, and then said, "What can I say?" This was regarded as a key clue by him. same year,He wrote an article "Elon Musk May Invent Bitcoin" and believed that the Bitcoin community needs the return of its founder. Although Musk tweeted to deny it ("False news. A few years ago, my friend gave me a little bit of Bitcoin, but I don't know where it was lost"), Sahil still firmly believes in his theory.

He listed more "evidence": PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek once said that the company's original intention was to create a currency that was separated from the bank; Satoshi Nakamoto and Musk were both used to being two spaces after the end; Musk often went to and from Vannez Airport, and the IP address of an early email of Bitcoin was unexpectedly exposed in northern Los Angeles; early developers commented on Satoshi Nakamoto's "powerfulness", and Musk was the same.

At the end of 2021, Musk was just elected as the "Times" Person of the Year, SpaceX successfully connected with the International Space Station, and he even joked about Dogecoin on Twitter (the coin subsequently rose and fell sharply). Sahil believes that the public is ready to accept that Satoshi Nakamoto and Musk are the same person.

He claimed to be "99% sure" and blamed the outside world's doubts on "bias against Musk."

"But Musk is not humble, why deny it?"

Shahil's explanation for this is: "Companies need marketing, but Bitcoin is different. The mystery of the early anonymous founder made it stronger and faster - this is what Musk is smart about."

I dare not assert whether Sahil is correct, but I can understand his obsession. At that time, the unit price of Bitcoin soared to nearly $70,000, and its total market value exceeded $1 trillion. El Salvador has designated it as a fiat currency. In 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto's identity seemed irrelevant, but it was still an unsolved mystery.

Half a year later, I quit my job and devoted myself to this puzzle that has entangled me for more than ten years.

The disappearing founder

In this paper, Satoshi Nakamoto described a new type of currency that runs in a network of volunteer computers and relies on transparent public ledgers maintained by the entire network, rather than banks or lending records systems. Satoshi Nakamoto attached a more detailed link to the official description—later known as the Bitcoin White Paper.

Several members in the mailing list gave feedback on the software written by Satoshi Nakamoto, and he readily accepted it. "Thank you for your question," he wrote in a letter"My approach is actually a bit inverted: I have to write all the code first to make sure that I can solve all the problems, and then write the paper back." In early January 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto released the initial version of Bitcoin on the open source platform SourceForge. According to early participants, the first day downloads were only 127 times.

Many of the first users were programmers who believed that "currency needs to be upgraded in urgent need." Paper money will fade, wrinkle, break, and be contaminated with bacteria; the face value is fixed, easy to forge, and it is difficult to transfer large amounts. Bitcoin has durability, non-forgery, and almost unlimited splitting, and is expected to realize the ideal of Internet micro-payment - any amount can be instantly received worldwide.

As a digital currency maintained by ordinary individuals, Bitcoin is not subject to central authority intervention. Gold may be confiscated, bank accounts may be frozen, fiat currencies may depreciate due to central bank decisions or be subject to capital controls by dictators, but Bitcoin does not need to rely on these traditional systems.

The core of Satoshi Nakamoto's creation is blockchain - a set of continuously extended system transaction records (buying and selling, etc.). About every ten minutes, the latest transaction records are packaged into "blocks" and linked to the previous block through exquisite mathematical algorithms, making tampering with the content almost impossible. In traditional finance, such ledgers are maintained by banks or institutions; in the Bitcoin network, ledgers are stored and updated by computers from volunteers around the world, and each device runs Bitcoin software.

Although Bitcoin is an open source project (a collaboration between "people picking up firewood"), someone still needs to coordinate. In the first 20 months, Satoshi Nakamoto took on this role. He released the code, other developers made suggestions for modification, and he integrated the approved parts.

After four months of participating in the Bitcoin project, software developer Gavin Andresen won the trust of Satoshi Nakamoto for his commitment and computer science. Satoshi first granted him permission to access the source code directly, and then told Gavin around September 2010 that he would be busy with other projects and would hand over control of the SourceForge code base and the project's "alert key" in the next few months - this key can broadcast emergency messages to all devices running Bitcoin software. For open source projects, these two are almost "the scepter of the leader"; at this point, Gavin officially became the chief developer of Bitcoin, leading a team of five volunteer programmers.

In the following months, Satoshi Nakamoto still occasionally participated in technical discussions, but Gavin's high-profile interaction with the outside world was with his hermit styleThe friction gradually arises. When PayPal and Visa freeze WikiLeaks accounts, some Bitcoin supporters advocated supporting the controversial organization with cryptocurrencies. Someone shouted on the BitcoinTalk forum: "Let them do it!" Nakamoto sternly opposed: "No! Don't let them do it. The project needs to grow gradually so that the software can be improved simultaneously. I beg WikiLeaks not to use Bitcoin... The attention at this moment will ruin us."

For reporters who report on Bitcoin, Gavin has become the first choice interview subject. He is gentle and rational, willing to show himself to others in his real name, filling in the role of "Bitcoin Ambassador" that Satoshi Nakamoto never played. But this seemed to disturb Satoshi Nakamoto. In late April 2011, he sent an email to remind Gavin: "I hope you don't describe me as a mysterious black shadow anymore - the media will only hype Bitcoin into a label of "black market currency."

This became the last email Gavin received. When I first contacted Gavin in July of the same year, he said that "it has not been in communication with Satoshi Nakamoto for several months." On April 26, Gavin told Nakamoto that he would go to the CIA headquarters (Landley, Virginia) to explain Bitcoin to intelligence personnel, but received no reply. On the same day, Satoshi Nakamoto sent an email to at least one project partner programmer.

After that, he was completely silent. Except for a forum with a suspected account post many years later (it is difficult to tell whether it is true or false), Satoshi Nakamoto never appears again.

Gavin and other early Bitcoin developers reached several consensuses on Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. The second channel for Satoshi Nakamoto to publish his white paper is the P2P Foundation website, an idealistic non-profit organization dedicated to promoting various peer-to-peer networks. He filled in the website's profile that he lives in Japan, but no one believed he was really Japanese. His English is flawless, and his words are in English style: in Bitcoin source code and BitcoinTalk forum posts, he prefers British spellings such as "colour" and "optimise".

Samoto is strictly guarding his identity. When registering the domain name bitcoin.org, he hides information through anonymous service anonymousspeech.com, which itself is registered by a Tokyo short-term rental apartment agency. This service provides him with a vistomail.com email address (can fake email sending time), and he has also used the free email address gmx.com. In the communication, he showed a carefully trained ambiguity: answer only technical questions and avoid all private topics.

His programming style is slightly outdated, suggesting that he may be older. For example, he adopts the "Hungarian Nomenclature" - a variable naming rule that was popular among Windows programmers in the 1990s.

Gavin believes that the Bitcoin code may be completed by a small team or even a single person. When programmers collaborate, they usually add comment instructions to the code, but there are very few such comments in Bitcoin software. However, some people questioned: Bitcoin’s initial operation was too smooth and not like it was done independently by individuals. In addition, the white paper uses "we" many times, implying that "Samoto" may be synonymous with teams or institutions.

Samoto Nakamoto began to be deified before he retired. On April 16, 2011, BitcoinTalk user Wobber pointed out the complexity of his knowledge system and the abnormal behavior - creating such disruptive technology without taking credit or making profits, and quietly getting out of it. Some people liken him to Zorro, or the masked David who aimed at the bank with a slingshot with Goliath (Goliath, a giant warrior among the Philippines, here symbolizing overwhelming power).

Is the name hidden? "Satoshi Nakamoto" can be interpreted as "Central Intelligence", which may imply that spy agencies are involved in the birth of Bitcoin. For example, the US Security Agency (NSA) may set up a long game: to build a financial network that is out of regulation, which is used for global agent funds scheduling and acts as a "honeypot" - allowing opponents to expose their whereabouts in transactions that they think are safe and allow the NSA to monitor.

This is not completely absurd. The US Naval Research Laboratory once developed anonymous software "Onion Router" (TOR), which gave birth to the dark web; the FBI secretly launched an encrypted mobile phone and communication service ANOM, which was misused by criminal groups, and eventually led to more than 800 arrests; in the summer of 1996, the NSA cryptography department even published an internal paper "How to Crime Anonymous Electronic Cash" (later published), detailing the principles of cryptocurrencies.

Another interpretation breaks down "Samoto" into a splicing of the names of tech giants—SAMSUNG (Samsung), TOSHIba (Toshiba), NAKAmichi (Qindao), MOTOrola (Motorola)—that implies that the corporate cabal manipulates everything. Reddit users have a big idea and reorganized their letters into "Mom, I took NSA" (Ma, I took NSA's oath) or "So a man tabsurd sentences such as ook a shit.

Dan Kaminsky, a programmer who emerged in 2008 after discovering technical loopholes that could destroy the Internet, believes that Satoshi Nakamoto may be an internal team in the bank. "I suspect he is a team of financial institutions," Dan told me, "this is the intuition." But he added that Satoshi's identity "is not important to the nature of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has long surpassed Satoshi." This echoes a mainstream view: Nakamoto's design of quietly exiting as an anonymous entity is the foundation of Bitcoin's decentralized spirit - his disappearance has made this technology truly a global experiment without leaders.

"We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is"

At the 2022 Miami Bitcoin Conference, Satoshi Nakamoto did not show up, but was everywhere. The main stage is named after "Samoto Hall", and his text clips are carouseled on both screens, just like the "Denite" of the Scientific Church - outsiders read it plainly, but believers regard it as a proverb.

"Imagine gold being stolen and turned into lead."

"Twenty years later, Bitcoin transaction volume will be either extremely large or zero."

"The robustness of the network lies in its simple decentralization."

PayPal Founder and venture capitalist Peter Till appeared from the right side of the stage and threw a stack of 100 dollar bills into the front row: "This thing is still useful, isn't it crazy?" He claimed that Bitcoin is the ultimate warning to the fiat currency system and named "the enemy of the crypto revolution" - Warren Buffett, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and Black Rock CEO Larry Fink. Thiel called these people "an extension of power" and Bitcoin "without a board of directors, we don't even know who Satoshi Nakamoto is" - the last sentence was deliberately emphasized by him.

"We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is." In 2011, he was also an anonymous programmer who was paid attention to by the fringe geek circle; ten years later, he became the "myth creator" of a trillion-dollar market capitalization project, and Bitcoin ranked among the ninth largest asset in the world, second only to Tesla, surpassing Meta. No matter who he is, he has huge wealth. Computer scientist Sergio Demian Lerner speculated through analyzing early blockchains that the value of Bitcoin held by Satoshi Nakamoto at that time is about$40 billion (now higher), firmly ranked as the richest man in Bitcoin.

In the spring of 2021, when the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase went public, its prospectus submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission listed "Samoto's identity exposure" as a risk factor. It is not difficult to imagine a potential crisis: if Satoshi Nakamoto is proven to be an agent, extremist or financial criminal in a certain country, the legitimacy of Bitcoin may collapse. But the Bitcoin community has gradually regarded this mystery as a necessary design - decentralization requires the "birth of purity". Only by not having specific personalities can we avoid splitting due to disputes in the identity of the founder, thereby maximizing universal acceptance.

So, the pseudonym "Nakamoto" was sacred. Although some people think that he hides it for tax avoidance or self-defense, mainstream views shape it as a "selfless martyr." The most ardent believers regard exploring their identity as blasphemy, as asking the Scientists about the existence of Xenu.

But what if the father of Bitcoin is a villain?

In the summer of 2022, I posted a spreadsheet on the office wall listing more than a hundred candidates who were proposed as Satoshi Nakamoto. Most of the main candidates belong to the crypto-punk field, and their names have been proposed several times over the years as candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto. There are also some inconspicuous names from neighboring fields such as mathematics, cryptography and economics. Some were programmers who were early on participating in Bitcoin software projects. There are also some who are the creators of new cryptocurrencies. Many people are just famous smart people: Bill Gates, Steve, Jobs, Musk.

For many years, Nick Szabo, Adam Back and Hal Finney were widely believed to be recognized as major candidates. Saab is a programmer who advocated decentralized currencies a few years before Bitcoin appeared. In the late 1990s, he conceived a Bitcoin predecessor called "Bit Gold". He has the necessary technical skills, and his writing style also has superficial similarities with Satoshi Nakamoto. But he has always denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto and there is no definite evidence that he was associated with the early development of Satoshi Nakamoto or Bitcoin. In addition, the Bitcoin white paper mentioned that Adam Back was the creator of Hashcash, the predecessor of another cryptocurrency. His email address was also one of the first people Satoshi Nakamoto contacted. He also denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, and his writing style was not as consistent as Sabo. Hal Finney is a legendary programmer and cryptographer who received the first ever from Satoshi NakamotoBitcoin transaction. But Finney also denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2009, and his condition deteriorated rapidly and eventually lost his ability to work. If Satoshi Nakamoto is exposed, Finney is the candidate most wanted to see for Bitcoin enthusiasts, because of his tragic heroic story and his aura of kindness -- and because he has passed away (he died in 2014), it is impossible for him to create disgraceful news with disgraceful behavior or connection.

There has always been an opposition to the investigation of Satoshi Nakamoto's identity in the Bitcoin community. Last fall, when a HBO documentary considered liberal, Canadian computer programmer and crypto enthusiast Peter Todd the most likely candidate, the Bitcoin community’s reaction was not only to express strong doubts about the documentary’s conclusions, but also tormented to launch such a project. He made valuable contributions, so his desire for anonymity should be respected. It’s not people that matter, but ideas and code.

But Satoshi Nakamoto has placed his invention on the public square, so I think it is reasonable to explore who placed it here and the reasons behind it.

I carefully sorted out the 60,000 words of text left by Satoshi Nakamoto. His writing is simple and plain, and he rarely expresses his personal opinions or expresses his personality. Whenever I catch a trace of a unique style, I add it to the "Samoto Language Library" - this list finally accumulated more than 200 special vocabulary and phrases. "wet blanket", "sweet", "clobbering".

I wrote a computer program called "Satoshitizer", which can browse various archived articles suspected to be "Satoshi", scan the Satoshi terminology in it, and generate statistics tables. I can use more than a dozen criteria to rank files instantly, including those of Satoshi Nakamoto’s term, users of electronic cash term, and discussers of software tools used by Satoshi Nakamoto.

One ​​day in late April 2023, I found myself thinking about a word I saw in Satoshi Nakamoto’s article: hosed.

The word "hosed" is particularly prominent given that Satoshi's writing style tends to abandon personality or connect with any specific environment. I haven't heard of the word lately, it means tightening or destroying, and I vaguely reminiscent of the 90s surfing or fraternity jargon.

I re-crushed my archive data and carefully marked each instance that had used the word. In the Metzdowd mailing list, the word "hosed" has been used four times in total in the three years before the first release of the Bitcoin White Paper on October 31, 2008. Two of them came from the same person: James A. Donald.

Although Donald was not active in the public discussion of Bitcoin, he left a glimpse in his early history—as the first person on the mailing list to respond to Satoshi Nakamoto. At that time, he raised technical questions about the scalability of Bitcoin and withdrew from the discussion after several rounds of exchanges with Satoshi Nakamoto. He is just an ordinary member of many crypto-punks who are interested in digital currencies.

Donald was only ranked No. 42 in my suspect spreadsheet at that time, not only far behind the three popular candidates, but his reason for being shortlisted is also limited to his identity as a crypto-punk and libertarian who is proficient in C++ programming. But attracted by the coincidence of the word "hosed", I re-read the uncommon word list generated by the "Samoto Fingerprint Analyzer" to try to verify whether Donald has used other rare Satoshi expressions.

It turns out. In the twenty-year corpus I have collected, Donald is the only one who has used the word "fencible" (meaning "stolen goods") - a word Satoshi Nakamoto has appeared once in his works in the form of "non-fencible". Even more shockingly, Donald’s record of using the word goes back to his October 1998 speech on the mailing punk mailing list. My brain started to make a bell. "fence" as a verb means selling stolen goods. Although "fence" is a common slang term, "fencible" in the form of adjective is rare. There are few Google search results, and even when I searched the New York Times historical database (dating back to 1857) with 13 million articles, the word appeared zero in related semantics.

Unlike conventional terms in digital currencies or cryptography such as "trusted third parties" or "zero knowledge proof", "fencible" and "hosed" are not professional terms in computer science or cryptography, they are more like fingerprints that embody a personal language style.

I began to investigate Donald in depth. His whereabouts of the Internet: Various websites claim that he is Canadian, say he has passed away, and point out"James A. Donald" is not his real name. Although he almost never reveals personal information in his posts, the details are still scattered. He comes from Australia but lives in Silicon Valley for a long time. He is similar to Satoshi Nakamoto. His writing is sometimes spelled in American style and sometimes in Commonwealth.

On the ideological level, Donald integrates extreme liberalism (which is inherently uncapitalist) with a fanatical belief in the power of cryptography's change. In 1996, he wrote: "Everyone, this is our plan - we want to destroy machines with advanced mathematics. The method is to replace the current corporate system with cryptography mechanisms, so that more people can have the opportunity to evade and resist taxes."

He showed a special interest in digital currency. In 1995, it was predicted that "people will eventually bypass banks and transfer funds directly." Between 2006 and 2009, Donald used Satoshi’s electronic cash terms in the Metzdowd mailing list far more than other participants.

After examining his programming style, he found that in the late 1990s, Donald promoted a communication encryption software called "Crypto Kong". The software is written in the same C++ language as Bitcoin. Source code obtained through the Internet Archives shows that Crypto Kong and Bitcoin have multiple commonalities: both support Windows systems; both adopt the Hungarian nomenclature preferred by Satoshi Nakamoto; code partitions use eye-catching slash separators; both use elliptical curve passwords to form public-private key pairs.

Digging deep into personal information and discovering: Donald was born in 1952 and is now over 70 years old, which coincides with the "Samoto code style hints at its older age" characteristics pointed out by early Bitcoin developers. He is not active in mainstream social platforms under his real name, and his $2.8 million Palo Alto home and $400,000 Austin property are both blurred in Google Street View (this feature requires formal application from Google, or internal permissions like a son of Donald, who works for Google). It is difficult to find photos of him through public channels, similar to Satoshi Nakamoto. He uses the Swiss private email Proton Mail, and runs anonymous blog "Jim Log", which says he had "lived apart for a long time." The clue clicks like a gear.

The significance of reexamining Donald as the first responder at this moment, and Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008: throwing his shocking work to the world but no one cares about it. So he directed and acted on his own and raised technical questions, which not only promoted discussion but also created misleading.

And his blog leaked more clues:On the eve of October 31, 2008, Donald was paying close attention to the financial crisis. The opening chapter of its blog post "The Roots of Crisis" on October 11 asserted that "the rescue of the market will surely fail", and the title of the Times sealed in the Bitcoin Genesis block is "The Chancellor of the Exchequer is about to implement the second round of rescue plan."

More clues come to light: Donald owns multiple properties in Hawaii. On June 19, 2008 (a few months before Satoshi announced his invention to the world), the Honolulu Star published an obituary of World War II veteran "Satoshi Nakamoto", the deceased at the age of 84. Is this an identity theft to find a pseudonym?

Although "James" rarely reveals identity information, his ideological trajectory is clearly identifiable in his blog post: he was a radical left in his early years, joined the Spartacus alliance at the age of 15, and later left because of "disillusioned with participatory democracy and no good impression of representative democracy." At the age of 17, he joined the apocryptic and Maoist organizations, "just because these two factions are most hated by Trotskyists." Finally, property rights are determined to be free and transform into capitalist.

To verify his academic background, I contacted an insider at the University of Sydney School of Physics. Professor Bob Hewitt, who participated in the interview, recalled that the Melbourne applicant "has a bohemian temperament" - when asked about accommodation arrangements, Donald declared "ready to sleep under the bridge." Although he gave people the impression of being "friendly but weird", his doctoral thesis "Assumptions of the Singularity Theorems and the Rejuvenation of Universes" was rejected because "no one can understand" and eventually dropped out of school.

Professional trajectory shows: Donald first wrote software for Apple computers, then went to the United States to develop electronic games for Epyx, and then moved to the database field. His blog reveals a profound insight into the nature of Bitcoin: "This is just a prototype system, but it is used too early as the final solution." He always looks at Bitcoin from a historical perspective and regards it as a stepping stone toward an ideal future.

I never agree with the assumption that is common in the Bitcoin world - Satoshi Nakamoto must be a benevolent personification. I always feel that those Bitcoin believers who deified Satoshi Nakamoto as a half-human and half-god are just wishful projections: Imagine that he is selfless, humble and low-key, and are prophets who travel to save mankind from the future. Hal Finney became the attractive Satoshi Nakamoto because he perfectly fits this idealImage.

Donald is completely different. In his blog, he promotes a dark ideology called "new reactionaryism" - a trend that has fascinated some people in Silicon Valley. Neo-reactionists believe that society has been hijacked by what they call the "treasure" (a group of academics, media and bureaucratic elites). They despise their efforts to pursue social justice and advocate that abandoning democratic systems and restoring monarchy are the best path for mankind to move forward. Donald's new reactionary variant is more mixed with naked Christian fundamentalism and excessive paranoid delusions: he blames the COVID-19 pandemic on the Jesuit conspiracy.

In addition to the complex declarations, Donald continues to export racist, homophobic, misogynistic remarks and various offensive words. His harsh words made him banned by Slate Star Code in 2014 - a heavyweight Silicon Valley blog known for inclusive discussions on taboo topics such as IQ science is unbearable. But under a relatively uncensored domain name in Laos, he openly advocated "to make women compliant by whipping their hips or upper backs", claiming that "the rape allegations are mostly untrue." Donald has a large number of fans in the "Awakening" and the alt-right blogosphere.

If Donald was Satoshi Nakamoto, wouldn't his motivation for choosing to release Bitcoin under a pseudonym be obvious? He hopes that the world will accept this genius invention purely based on the value of the work itself, rather than stifle it because of its identity bias. He was hiding his identity not because Bitcoin might endanger himself, but because he was afraid that his existence would endanger the future of Bitcoin.

I doubt whether anyone in the circle has known or suspected that Donald is Satoshi Nakamoto. If Satoshi Nakamoto is a harmless ordinary citizen like Dorian Nakamoto, "respecting Satoshi Nakamoto's privacy" is at least a tenable position; if he is a dissident living under an autocratic regime, I would also like to protect this secret. But if Satoshi Nakamoto is really Donald? This will completely disintegrate the narrative of Bitcoin inventors as the "crypto-messiah" - the sacred image of giving up fame and fortune for the noble ideals. Among those who shout "respect for China's privacy", is anyone already aware that if the creator of Bitcoin is proven to be a far-right lunatic, it will inevitably lead to a public relations disaster. What they really want to protect is the reputation of this belief system and the value of their own investment portfolio? In June 2020, Hash Cash founder Adam Barker (long suspected of being Satoshi Nakamoto) tweeted: "Maybe we should be mentally prepared to cut from Satoshi Nakamoto. To be on the safe side, it is best to completely erase this pseudonym."

"Saishi Nakamoto's identity does not matter," wrote Ray Dillinger, who had co-examined codes for Bitcoin with Hal Finney.The discussion itself exists. Whether the creator is a third world dictator, a homeless man under the Belize Bridge, a Bedouin riding a camel through the Biltavell Desert and working on a cell phone, or a trolley vendor in Nairobi, the agreement is no different from what NSA crypto analysts, GRU-funded cyber-water army, well-known security researchers or crypto-punks have created. 'Samoto Nakamoto' does not exist outside the agreement. He was just a hat that someone wore during the development process. As for who is wearing the hat—it doesn't matter at all. ”

”I know who Satoshi Nakamoto is”

I wrote to James Donald for an interview. A few days later, he received his reply unexpectedly. "Email communication is more convenient," Donald wrote, but also said he might be willing to communicate with phone or video. He will need a few days to confirm the schedule.

Two months have passed, and Donald has never agreed to the real-time conversation. Should I go to Australia to search in person? What makes me hesitate about Donald, Satoshi Nakamoto's hypothesis, is that Satoshi Nakamoto has shown a rich emotional spectrum in his past communications. He will express gratitude ("thankful thanks"), show compassion ("poor guy"), show humility ("deep apology") and self-mood ("I am better than writing"). When I look through Donald's documentary over the years, trying to find clues of empathy, gratitude or enthusiasm—even an exclamation mark, an apology, a moment of empathy or a companionship—there is only a desert of emotion.

But among all the crypto-punks that are obsessed with digital currency, only one claims to know Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity. "I know who Satoshi Nakamoto is," James Donald wrote in the comment section of a post on his blog, "and also understand his social demands." If this is true, he will be the only trustworthy person in existence. I decided to meet this person.

Although Donald spent most of his career in California, he obviously owned or had owned property in Australia. By checking the real estate evaluation records of many properties in the United States, I found that at some time in the early 2000s, a property registration address in Austin in his name pointed to a street on the northeast coast of Australia. In recent years, its US property is still registered in the same Australian town, but the address is changed to a postal box. It is known that his wife passed away in 2016. Through the "Tomb Search Website", I found a photo of the plaque commemorating her in the town's cemetery. Five years later, he posted a photo on his blog that was suspected to be a terrace perspective: the foreground was glasses and pottery jars filled with homemade private wine, and several small islands were dotted on the shimmering horizon of the blue sea in the distance. Comparing this scene with other seascape photos of the same town is completely consistent with the geographical characteristics.

I contactHe is a private detective Daniel Quinn, who lives in an area suitable for the suspected Donald's beachfront town. Quinn was provided with the address of the house and old photos from twenty years ago - this photo taken on the abandoned university blog of Donald's son, which is a recent image of Donald that can be found.

A few days later, Daniel sent a surveillance report. "The courtyard is full of weeds and shrubs, and this person is definitely not a flower lover." The house photos attached to the letter show that in front of this house that shares the driveway with two other families, there are high bungalows standing on the hillside next to the lonely palm trees. Through the vegetation growing wildly, you can see the wooden terrace facing the Coral Sea.

Although I didn't see James that day, I received a good news a few weeks later: Daniel successfully captured the man standing in front of the door of the house. Compared with the photos twenty years ago, although the hair is white, the thick beard and metal-framed glasses are perfectly matched with the characteristics of the plump nose. Three days later, I had already set out on my flight to Australia.

"I have a problem, but I talk too much."

There is no doorbell on the screen door, so I knocked on the door frame of James' house. The nervousness made my throat dry. Although I'm not sure if James himself is Satoshi Nakamoto, I suspect he may be part of the collective identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto". Anyway, he is the only person I know who publicly claims to know Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity.

I was worried about how he would receive me. James obviously tried his best to make it difficult to find himself.

While walking through the porch towards the main entrance, I saw Donald sitting in front of the living room computer wearing headphones. The latest blog post he just posted a few hours ago is a long tirade about "Georgians (referring to Georgia) who are unwilling to let churches be destroyed or become a sacred place for Gaia's worship and homosexual sex, and who are unwilling to watch ancient and beautiful buildings flattened by bulldozers and replaced by demonic postmodern monsters."

Western non-organizations are trying to make Georgia homosexualized and then put into a meat grinder against Russia.

Seeing that I had no response when I knocked on the door frame, I knocked on the main door directly. After a moment James opened the door and walked out, wearing a red camouflage long-sleeved shirt and black thermal underwear.

I immediately began to explain. I've emailed him - "Oh, I rarely check the email," James said. I reminded him of the correspondence last year and that I was writingA book written. And told him that if I failed to do everything I could to talk to him, it would be my dereliction of duty.

James said, "In short, I can't tell you anything I can't reveal." His tone was gentle, with a confused sense of humor.

I pointed out that he had publicly insisted that he knew Satoshi Nakamoto's identity and his social goals. Can you explain in detail? "No, sorry."

"Okay...do you really know? Or do you just have a strong suspicion?" "I have a good guess about who might be, but in fact--uh, I can't be sure."

"Do you think it would be Hal Finney?" "I can't answer this question."

"Is it because of respecting his privacy?" "I'm forbidden to disclose anything to anyone, including what has been said."

I suggest giving him a beer. James refused, "Can you have lunch together?" I continued to propose. James smiled. "Listen," he said, "I have a problem that I talk too much and I'm even more polite after drinking a few drinks, so I'll just forget it."

I tried to continue the conversation - handing over my contact information and the book I wrote before - but his response became short and perfunctory. "It's really desirable to live here." I said, pointing to the magnificent sea view. "Yes." James responded with his head down. After thanking me, I turned around and walked down the hill.

Bitcoin has no DNA detection

I spent fifteen years pursuing Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. For this reason, I learned to program, hired machine learning experts, cultural and sports analysis experts, and private detectives, and only received three minutes of meeting after a 37-hour journey. I'm sure no one is as persistent in solving this puzzle as I do. I began to understand why Sahir Gupta firmly believed that Elon Musk was Satoshi Nakamoto. It's time to stop.

Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence can help us confirm Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. But at this moment I am sure that unless some unpredictable secrets are decrypted, we may never know his true identity beyond reasonable doubt. Memory fades and witnesses die. Bitcoin has no paternity test. To prove who is Satoshi Nakamoto unless he appears and displays the relevant private key, or at least provide unforged documents to prove it. As time goes by, even if there are clues, the traces become increasingly blurred.

I feel relieved to accept this fact. I am still fascinated by Satoshi's innovation—but almost astonished by his disappearance of perfection. As a utopian concept, Bitcoin has no possibility of success; but as an emerging asset class, it shows tenacious vitality. Prices rose and fell, hitting new highs, breaking through $109,000 this January (retracement to $85,000). Fidelity Investment now recommends retail investors to allocate a small amount of cryptocurrency in their portfolio. The popularity of blockchain technology is unstoppable.

Samoto Nakamoto has become an existence that the people behind him will never reach - this concept that does not require physical and historical burdens will eventually be immortal.

(Excerpt from "The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: The Road to the Genius Behind the Scenes of the World of Decryption and Encryption" by Benjamin Wallace, Crown Publishing House, launched on March 18)