We’ve been down this path before, but it’s looking increasingly likely that this may in fact be the last time. After a big mistake turned Dorian Nakamoto’s life upside down in 2014 when Newsweek unmasked the wrong man, the true Satoshi Nakamoto has seemingly come forward in a blog post and a coordinated reveal with several news agencies. Australian Craig Wright claims to be the inventor of popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, and he apparently has provided technical evidence to back up his claim by providing keys tied to coins that are widely known to be in the possession of Bitcoin’s inventor.
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“I have been staring at my screen for hours, but I cannot summon the words to express the depth of my gratitude to those that have supported the bitcoin project from its inception – too many names to list,” Wright wrote in a blog post. “You have dedicated vast swathes of your time, committed your gifts, sacrificed relationships and REM sleep for years to an open source project that could have come to nothing. And yet still you fought. This incredible community’s passion and intellect and perseverance has taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it. You have given the world a great gift. Thank you.”
He continued, “Be assured, just as you have worked, I have not been idle during these many years. Since those early days, after distancing myself from the public persona that was Satoshi, I have poured every measure of myself into research. I have been silent, but I have not been absent. I have been engaged with an exceptional group and look forward to sharing our remarkable work when they are ready.”
“Satoshi is dead,” Wright said. “But this is only the beginning.”
The Australian businessman then went on to provide instructions on how to verify the cryptographic key he supplied in his blog post. According to independent reports from BBC and The Economist, Wright’s claims have been thoroughly investigated and he is indeed the mysterious Bitcoin inventor the world has been seeking for years now.
Of note, Wright had previously been pegged as Bitcoin’s creator but after articles identifying him began to surface, he temporarily vanished from the internet. So why come forward now?
“I have not done this because it is what I wanted,” Wright told BBC. “It’s not because of my choice… I really do not want to be the public face of anything… I would rather not do it. I want to work, I want to keep doing what I want to do. I don’t want money. I don’t want fame. I don’t want adoration. I just want to be left alone.” His hope is apparently that he’ll be left alone for the most part once this news cycle dies down. And knowing how quickly people stop caring about things on the internet, he’s probably right.
