- Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity has never been definitively verified.
- Over the years, several people called themselves Bitcoin’s enigmatic creator.
- That didn’t stop people from naming themselves and others as Satoshi in 2024.
Satoshi Nakamoto was finally unmasked in 2024. Many times.
Over the course of the year, several people declared themselves to be the legendary creator of Bitcoin.
Others, meanwhile, said they had discovered the identity of a person who would theoretically control fortune worth more than $100 billion.
None of the unmaskings, of course, panned out though.
More than 16 years after the birth of the OG cryptocurrency, the identity of the cypherpunk remains unknown, and a potentially massive risk for the crypto ecosystem should Satoshi’s mammoth stash of Bitcoin ever hit the market.
Big money
In that time, crypto has become big money.
Bitcoin alone has ballooned to an asset worth $1.9 trillion, comprising the bulk of the $3.6 trillion crypto market. Wall Street has also tapped into the sector with the launch of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Wallets associated with Satoshi hold more than 1 million Bitcoin, a stash that would make its owner one of the 20 richest persons on the planet.
Analysts have long worried that the naming of Satoshi would prompt the Bitcoin founder to sell off his treasure trove, and drive down the price of the cryptocurrency. The disclosure could also encourage bad actors to go after the stash.
Coinbase, the listed US crypto exchange, regularly lists the unmasking of Satoshi as a risk in its public filings.
As the greatest mystery in the history of modern finance, armchair detectives produced a long list of potential Satoshis in 2024:
Craig Wright
Craig Wright has claimed to be Satoshi since 2016, a move that’s earned him the sobriquet Faketoshi among his detractors.
The Australian computer scientist has sought to support his claims with hundreds of blockchain patents and an affinity for Japanese culture.
Following years of litigation in multiple jurisdictions, a British judge in February ruled that Wright is not Bitcoin’s creator.
Wright appealed, but the UK judge found multiple falsehoods in his petition and “artificial intelligence-generated hallucinations.” This court determined that Wright may have used an AI app to craft his claim and introduced errors in his argument.
The alleged hallucinations include references to cases called “Anderson v the Queen [2013] and UKPC 2,″ which don’t exist.
Len Sassaman
The Satoshimania of 2024 came to a head in October when filmmaker Cullen Hoback promised that he would unmask Bitcoin’s founder once and for all in his HBO documentary “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery.”
Aired in November, the film triggered a wave of speculation and several bets on prediction market Polymarket about who Hoback planned to name.
The top bet? Late American cryptographer Len Sassaman. When DL News asked Sassaman’s widow, she denied that her husband had been the pseudonymous creator.
Peter Todd
Instead, Hoback named Peter Todd, a prominent Bitcoin developer.
Hoback went to great lengths to pin Satoshi’s tail on Todd. As evidence, Hoback listed a reply from Todd to one of Satoshi’s quotes, as well as Satoshi’s frequent posting during the US summer season — when Todd was purportedly on holiday.
He doubled down in an interview with DL News, “The evidence simply led me to Todd,” and said he has more material to back up his claims.
But Todd shrugged off the accusations, and struck back.
“His evidence is incredibly flimsy — conspiracy-thinking-level flimsy,” Todd told DL News in November.
Most in the Bitcoin community rallied behind Todd. When the documentary aired, the reaction was swift.
“Foolishness,” said one crypto expert.
“Dangerous,” said another.
Stephen Mollah
Exactly 16 years after the Bitcoin whitepaper went live on October 31, 2008, a software dev named Stephen Mollah stepped onto the stage in a London meeting space and said he was Satoshi Nakamoto.
“Satoshi is a pseudonym I started using on April 5, 2007. I am the inventor of Bitcoin and blockchain technology,” Mollah said.
But Mollah and his promoter Charles Anderson had trouble getting their laptop connected to the internet let alone demonstrating proof.
Satoshi ‘s identity remained a mystery.
Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.