Bitcoin
Where In The World Is Satoshi Nakamoto?
When embarking on our Bitcoin quest, the fascinating details that marked the early years overwhelm us.
The events as transpired, the stories as told by early participants, the incredible personalities we meet, those involved since the early days and those that came later, the heists, the scams, the black markets, the darknet; they all add up to the mythical size of the Bitcoin dimension.
Bitcoin is a tale vast and incredible and the mystery behind the identity of the creator adds even more excitement.
In 2015, for one single reporter and the magazine she was working for, Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto was a perfect match.
But there was one minor this reporter overlooked.
Would Satoshi use his real name when trying to remain anonymous?
Apparently it wasn’t Dorian, but perhaps he is not entirely irrelevant to the case. And indeed the story of Dorian Nakamoto is equally fascinating and full of mysterious circumstances and coincidences.
Follow us on this journey of reaviling information about the identity of the most ellusive person ever, Satoshi Nakamoto.
“Dorian Prentice” Satoshi Nakamoto
His birthname is actually Satoshi Nakamoto, however, at the age of 23 (in 1974) he changed it to Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto (according to the Newsweek article).
We will use the name Dorian in this story, to avoid confusion with the creator of Bitcoin, as it is almost impossible it was him.
Dorian was born in Japan in 1949 (75 today), and at the age of 10 (1959) he immigrated to the US with his mother and two siblings after his parents divorce.
Dorian has definitely signed contracts and NDA’s with government agencies he worked for as an engineer.
He seemed confused and clearly annoyed by reporters who camped outside of his house in March 6th 2014 after Newsweek reporter Leah McGrath Goodman identified him in an article, as the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
The Newsweek article quickly became global news despite the fact that Bitcoin was living its worst moments and had fallen to obscurity after the collapse of the MtGox exchange months ago.
Well, you don’t see that very often, an anonymous individual, using his real name as his alias.
We don’t see that often, not because nobody ever thought of it, but because it has never worked and never will.
You don’t use your real name when attempting to stay anonymous and the reason quite obvious. You will definitely attract attention, and people will look up your entire history, public records, call your friends and family and try to find more clues.
Of course, there is also the chance “Satoshi Nakamoto” is a pseudonym
-Leah McGrath Goodman
Well, actually there is no other chance.
It is a pseudonym and Leah was making up most of this story or not actually verifying everything Dorian was saying.
Apparently the entire article was based on a misunderstading from Dorian regarding the purpose of Leah’s visit.
I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it
- Dorian Nakamoto
Dorian in a 2-hour interview later that day with the Associated Press mentioned this quote was misrepresented, perhaps because his English was not flawless.
Dorian claims he was misinterpreted. “I’m saying I’m no longer in engineering.” and that this was it. Furthermore, he thought the reporter was asking him about his engineering work where he was indeed forced to sign an NDA agreement and never talk about it to get hired.
“It sounded like I was involved before with Bitcoin and looked like I’m not involved now. That’s not what I meant. I want to clarify that,” he said. (source)
Leah McGrath Goodman, was certain though, that Dorian had understood that the discussion was about Bitcoin.
We don’t really know how that exchange went. It was not recorded on tape or camera, so we can only assume how this conversation went.
The reporter was not alone during the short discussion with police officers present, as Dorian had contacted the police when Leah knocked on his door for this brief interview, which was just an exchange of questions and answers that didn’t last long. In her support, the same police officers confirmed everything Leah published in Newsweek regarding that interaction.
It quickly became clear that Dorian Nakamoto was involved with top-secret government engineering, probably for the defense department, and thought the reporter wanted to ask him about that.
Yet, Dorian was unable to discuss his previous work publicly or privately due to contractual obligations (NDAs) that prohibit him from disclosing any information.
Most of the evidence suggests that Satoshi Nakamoto was a single person.
The communications and the code itself lead people to believe so.
Let’s say Satoshi used his real name, even when trying to remain anonymous at all costs. What was going to be the game then? Every research begins by looking for names that match the creator of Bitcoin.
Nobody would ever claim it is Satoshi simply because the guy was using his real name instead of an alias. Instead, it would instantly make him a target, as people will look into details Satoshi would never take into account.
Reasonable people just don’t do that, as nobody can ever be sure they got all the precautions right, and even the slightest clue can and will implicate them.
Therefore, reporters and researchers started looking more into Dorian, but found insufficient clues to support the theory.
Satoshi: I Am Not Dorian Nakamoto
The following day, (March 7, 2014), Satoshi’s account on the P2P”Foundation bulletin board awakened from a three-year hibernation and published a comment.
“I am not Dorian Nakamoto” the mysterious account posted (source).
Suspicions emerged that this account was hacked and posted this message, and these suspicions were validated several years later when the same account posted a new message that was advertising an NFT on the OpenSea NFT marketplace.
Despite the denial and the skepticism by the Bitcoin community, the article was convincing, with the reporter having performed analytical research for two months.
Leah even contacted Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen for information that only close associates of Satoshi could provide. This information described traits of Dorian that match the characteristics of the founder of Bitcoin.
The case Leah McGrath Goodman brought into light is so convincing that even if we look at it today knowing everything, and consider the time span of events, the odds are almost equal to other top suspects (Hal Finney, Adam Back, Nick Szabo, and others).
However, it wasn’t Dorian, for the reasons we already explained.
The creator of Bitcoin needed a name, and he used Satoshi Nakamoto.
The question we should be asking is why he used that name, and if the use of this name had indeed something to do with Dorian.
Hal Finney
Embarking on the next leg of our ‘Carmen Sandiego’ quest to uncover Satoshi, our focus now turns to a detail we might have previously overlooked.
We will shed even more light on Hal Finney later, with a special story, but for our current purpose, we will only briefly mention some details.
The late Hal Finney is one of the top Satoshi candidates as well.
Hal, also denied any involvement as every other suspect did, even when a reporter asked him during his final stage of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) just a few months before passing away.
Hal Finney left us in August 2014.
He was the first person to ever respond to Satoshi after the publication of Bitcoin’s whitepaper in the cryptographers list in 2018.
Hal Finney was also the first person to run the Bitcoin software right after Satoshi Nakamoto launched the network (15 years ago) in January 2009 and actively contributed to Bitcoin’s development after that point.
Yet, probably Hal Finney was not Satoshi either, despite all of the coincidences and his immediate involvement after the network was launched.
We mention Hal Finney in this story as there is a rare connection here regarding Bitcoin and Satoshi Nakamoto.
Hal Finney has contributed to several technologies that Satoshi used to create Bitcoin (PGP 2.0, anonymity systems, RPOW), and he was also the receiver of the first ever Bitcoin transactions when Satoshi sent 10BTC to his address.
What Are The Odds?
Temple City, California.
Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto and Hal Finney lived in the same city for almost a decade.
This city is Temple City, California, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, with a population of 36,000.
Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto lives on Bidwell Street, and according to Forbes, Hal Finney “was only a few blocks away from the Nakamoto’s family home”.
The Forbes story mentions that these top Satoshi candidates were living just 1.6 miles apart from each other.
Researchers and Bitcoin fans were intrigued.
Had Finney invented Bitcoin and used his neighbor’s name as a pseudonym?
“Dorian probably could’ve been a drop,” said Reddit user Ikinoki, suggesting that the creator of Bitcoin maliciously utilized Dorian’s credentials to direct resources to a dead end.
Researchers and Bitcoin fans were intrigued.
Had Finney invented Bitcoin and used his neighbor’s name as a pseudonym?
“Dorian probably could’ve been a drop,” said Reddit user Ikinoki, suggesting that the creator of Bitcoin maliciously utilized Dorian’s credentials to direct resources to a dead end.
Dorian is seven years older than Hal Finney.
These two individuals lived in close proximity and, for a while, even closer when Dorian, in the early 1970s, attended the California Polytechnic College, which was close to Hal’s high school.
Dorian’s address is still public on the internet (in 2024) and his phone number is as well, although obviously, we will not publish them here.
In 1928, Hal Finney and his wife Fran moved from Arcadia to Temple City, just 1,6 miles away from Dorian’s home.
Dorian was living at the same address in Temple City for decades but also had to leave for several years, due to his engineering work and contracts with government projects.
Dorian mentioned that someone used the fictitious name “Satoshi Nakamoto”, but let’s watch again how he phrased it:
He was definitely thinking about who could it be and why the creator of Bitcoin chose this name.
He feels pressured, and we can observe the tension while holding the plastic glass in front of him.
I really like to find somebody who came up with this name.
Dorian strives to comprehend if it could have been someone he worked with in the past or somebody with skills Satoshi could possess that would frame him by using his birth name.
The fact that both Dorian and Hal Finney were living in the same city should also ring bells.
Finney was the first person besides Satoshi to run the Bitcoin client and mine Bitcoins.
He mined around 1000 Bitcoins but had to stop after his desktop started overheating. It was also around the time the first symptoms of ALS appeared, and he had a lot to take care of.
In 2010, as the price of Bitcoin started its enormous rise, Hal managed to discover the wallet.dat file, the client file that provides access to his mined Bitcoin, and securely stored his Bitcoin.
However, as his condition was increasing, he also had to sell the majority of these bitcoins to pay for medical bills.
Finney’s family sold the majority of his Bitcoins for $100 each, to keep Hal alive and serve his needs as much as possible.
After Hal’s passing, his wife, Fran, was targeted by an extortion scheme with criminals threatening to release private family details, in exchange for a large number of Bitcoins, that the family didn’t even possess.
Hal has categorically denied any involvement in the creation of Bitcoin, and he has also denied any familiarity with Dorian.
As far as your theory that I knew Dorian, that is unlikely because I lived in Temple City more than a decade ago, when Bitcoin hadn’t even been dreamed up. Again, I categorically deny any familiarity with Dorian Nakamoto.
- Hal Finey (source)
Dorian Nakamoto also denied he had ever heard of Hal Finney before (as the same Forbes article suggests).
Hal has exhibited to reporters his email communications with Satoshi.
This was a series of emails (15 or more) that Hal and Satoshi exchanged containing technical discussions in regards to bug fixes and notes on the code.
Hal Finney’s son was adamant that his father was not Satoshi:
My father is an honest guy, he would have loved to have been part of creating Bitcoin, and he wouldn’t have hidden it. But he wasn’t involved.
After taking into account every detail mentioned we can conclude that the creator of Bitcoin was not Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, nor was Hal Finney.
Yet, what remains is the selection of the name “Satoshi Nakamoto” and the suspicious proximity of the two individuals living in the same small city for almost a decade, and sharing similar interests, similar brilliance, and perhaps similar ideologies (libertarianism).
Satoshi Nakamoto contacted cypherpunks in the cryptographers’ list (Adam Back and Wei Dai we know for sure).
Satoshi probably knew who Hal Finney was and may have even contacted him personally to share the whitepaper and ask for advice or a review.
Perhaps he had communicated with Hal Finney previously using remailers.
Yet, why would he select the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, and besides Hal Finney, did he also know Dorian?
Dorian mentioned he had no knowledge of cryptography and no idea about alternative currencies, while he had just learned of Bitcoin just a couple of weeks before the reporters had started knocking on his door.
If that statement is true, then he obviously had no idea about the cryptographer list either.
It is strange to find these two Satoshi candidates sharing a proximity of less than 2 miles for so many years, having all these similar interests, and not knowing each other. Surely, the age difference is also important and Dorian was not someone opening up easily to others.
It can be possible that the individual who created Bitcoin had previously met Dorian Nakamoto.
Perhaps for all the reporters who studied the case, this should have been the place to begin.
Satoshi could have been someone who worked together with Dorian and also knew Hal Finney (perhaps not in person but from his work).
He might have used Dorian’s birth name (Satoshi Nakamoto), under the valid assumption that Hal Finney would have been attracted to Bitcoin.
This serves as a starting point to initiate a fresh investigation.
In Conclusion
The elusive identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains shrouded in mystery.
Dorian Nakamoto is not the creator of Bitcoin. He wouldn’t accept responsibility, only to categorically deny it on the day of the Newsweek story.
Hal Finney was also not Satoshi, and since his family had already spent most of his mined Bitcoins, they would undoubtedly require even more. If Hal was Satoshi, the 1 million mined Bitcoins for $100 would have been a blessing for his family.
We hear how Satoshi lost the keys, or intentionally destroyed them, which could be true if he wanted to erase all traces that could lead to his identity.
Yet, Satoshi discussed the price of Bitcoin on several occasions when Bitcoin didn’t even have one and reflected awareness of the future price potential.
Today, Satoshi’s stash reaches the size of $40 Billion. An amount of money that can buy enough lawyers and security in case Satoshi needs it, a scenario we shouldn’t exclude.
The evolving narrative surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto continues to captivate, reminding us that the true architect of Bitcoin may yet emerge from the shadows with a story as remarkable as the creation of the first cryptocurrency itself.
- Cover Picture Facebook (modified)
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