Benjamin Wallace On Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's Creator WanderLearn: Travel To Transform Your Mind & Life podcast

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Benjamin Wallace On Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's Creator

3d ago 33:27

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Benjamin Wallace's new book is The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto.

It's the greatest whodunit. Whoever created Bitcoin became the world's richest person, yet we don't know who he is. In fact, we don't even know if it's one person.

There have been other cases where identities have been hidden for a while:

Mysterious Whistleblowers (Deep Throat)
Mysterious Authors (Ferrante, Klein, Publius)
Mysterious Artists (Banksy)
Mysterious Spies / Hackers (Cambridge Five, QAnon figureheads, Cicada 3301)

However, nothing tops the enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto. Watch my interview with Benjamin Wallace on the WanderLearn Show:

Watch the Video Interview Questions for Benjamin Wallace

In 60 seconds, tell us why we should be curious about who Satoshi Nakamoto was.
What's the percentage chance that Satoshi Nakamoto is more than one person?
What's the percentage chance that Satoshi Nakamoto is dead?
Assuming he's alive, what's the percentage chance that Satoshi Nakamoto will voluntarily reveal himself in his old age or via a dead man's switch video?
Who are your top 4 candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto?
If those 4 candidates are in a pie chart, how big is the 5th piece of the pie: the Someone Else slice?
Although Nakamoto's OPSEC was impeccable, is it realistic to believe that he faked his Britishisms, his double-spacing after periods, and potentially running his prose & code through a stylometry mixer because he was certain that Bitcoin would become a multi-trillion-dollar asset?
What new insights have you had since you wrote the book?
What's the percentage chance that we will definitively solve this mystery like we solved the Deep Throat mystery? Or will the ending be more like Forrest Fenn (e.g., a partial conclusion because we know the treasure was found and by whom, but we don't know where)?
What surprised you in your investigation?
It seems you want Nakamoto to be Hal Finney, but it's hard to believe he didn't tap into the fortune when his life was on the line. And why not admit to being Nakamoto when he was on his deathbed? Perhaps to protect his family from assaults? Perhaps because he collaborated with someone else and doesn't want to unmask him. But then he could admit that he was part of the Satoshi team and leave it at that.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

In his book, Wallace writes that any plausible Nakamoto candidate should have the following characteristics:

Software tools
Coding quirks
Age
Geography
Schedule
Use of English
Nationality
Prose style
Politics
Life circumstances (How had Nakamoto found the time to launch Bitcoin? Why had he left the project when he did?"
Resume ("I'm not a lawyer.")
Emotional range (humble, confident, testy, appreciative)
Motivation to create Bitcoin
Rationale, and the foresight and skill, to create a bulletproof pseudonym (Who would bother wiping a crime scene clean before it was a crime scene? Who was already that good at privacy in 2008?)
Monkish capacity to renounce a fortune

Although this list severely restricts who Satoshi Nakamoto could be, it still leaves countless possibilities.

Wallace, who has been trying to crack this mystery for 15 years, has yet to meet a candidate who checks all the boxes.

Wallace refrains from declaring that he has solved the mystery, even though countless "detectives" have already done so.

He interviews people who tell him, with 100% certainty, that Satoshi Nakamoto is:

Nick Szabo
James A. Donald
Adam Back
Hal Finney
Peter Todd (according to HBO)
Elon Musk
Numerous other options

It's tempting to select what you think is the most viable candidate, throw in a heavy dose of confirmation bias, and declare, "Mystery solved, Sherlock!"

Plenty have done so.

It requires great restraint to resist the temptation of calling it a day, and instead, persevere pugnaciously like Wallace has in what is the greatest whodunit of the 21st century.

Many suspects seem highly implausible. Elon Musk, for example, is a bombastic self-promoter who would love to proclaim he was the genius behind Bitcoin. It's unimaginable why he would keep his mouth shut.

Hal Finney was a sincere, honest, and good guy. As he said many times when he was dying of ALS, he had no reason NOT to reveal that he was Satoshi Nakamoto. Therefore, it's not him, even though it would provide a neat explanation as to why the old Satoshi Nakamoto bitcoins haven't moved.

Adam Back is plausible, although ex-cypherpunk Jon Callas says, "The primary argument against Adam Back is he couldn't keep his mouth shut."

Still, an engrossing 3-part documentary argues that Nakamoto is Adam Back. Here's the final episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcvX0P1b5g

Is Nick Szabo Satoshi Nakamoto?

For several years, I believed Nick Szabo was Satoshi Nakamoto. It was an unoriginal deduction since Szabo is a popular choice among amateur Nakamoto detectives. Indeed, Szabo was one of Wallace's prime candidates for a long time.

However, in his book, Wallace explains why Szabo has too many strikes against him:

Szabo is a scatterbrain when it comes to projects. He doesn't focus on one thing for years. He juggles 150 balls. Nakamoto was laser-focused for 18 months.
He told Jeremy Clark that Szabo "seemed to think that his bit gold was better" than Bitcoin.
Clark also said Szabo is an "incoherent" presenter, whereas Nakamoto was "lucid."
Although Szabo is intensely private, he's not a complete recluse. He likes sharing ideas and getting public recognition.
Minor point: Satoshi Nakamoto wrote, "I'm not a lawyer," but Szabo is one.

Although these points suggest Szabo is unlikely to be Satoshi, Szabo remains a strong Nakamoto candidate, given the absence of a perfect candidate.

Besides, Clark's points are easily refuted. Just because Szabo implied Bitgold was better than Bitcoin means little. Szabo could say that to shake off people who think he's Satoshi. Or he could genuinely believe that aspects of Bitgold were superior to Bitcoin. Clark said Szabo "seemed to think..." He didn't say, "Szabo emphatically said..."

Also, I listened to Szabo speak for 2.5 hours on the Tim Ferriss Show, and he sounded plenty lucid to me.

Szabo is a decent speaker.

Naturally, Szabo always denies he's Satoshi.

As Wallace says, denying you're not the guy proves nothing. Mark Felt was an obvious suspect for being the Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal. He denied for decades. And guess what? He was Deep Throat! Sometimes the most obvious suspect is the criminal (think O.J. Simpson).

Is James A. Donald Satoshi Nakamoto?

After reading The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto, I added another suspect to my short list: James A. Donald.

Satoshi Nakamoto used the rare term "hosed" a few times. Donald did so twice.

Furthermore, Donald was the first person to respond to Satoshi Nakamoto's original Bitcoin post, albeit in a critical way. He has various other attributes that Satoshi Nakamoto shares (read the book to see them all).

However, Donald is rough around the edges, whereas Satoshi Nakamoto was silky smooth, polite, and unoffensive. Again, James A. Donald is no slam dunk candidate. Nobody is.

Hence, the mystery endures.

The only negative aspect about this book is that it may provide too much detail for the casual reader with limited interest in this mystery. If you're just looking for the answer, I'll tell you now: we do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

For Satoshi sleuths, there is no better resource than The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto. It delves deeper and wider than any video, article, or book about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Believe me, I've gone down that rabbit hole.

Why should we care who Satoshi Nakamoto is?

Many argue we don't need to know who Satoshi Nakamoto is because:

Knowing his identity could taint the "immaculate conception" of Bitcoin because we might learn that Satoshi Nakamoto was an asshole.
We should respect Satoshi Nakamoto's right to privacy. He obviously wanted to be pseudonymous, so let him be.
If Satoshi Nakamoto is alive, it would imbue him with too much power, especially over the Bitcoin protocol.

I strongly disagree with this lack of curiosity. Why?

There's a chance that in the 25th century, historians will consider Bitcoin one of the top 10 inventions of all time. I'm not saying that Bitcoin will be around in the 25th century, but something like it will exist and be the global currency, and historians will link its existence to Bitcoin.

In 2001, Arthur C. Clarke predicted that by 2016, "All existing currencies are abolished. A universal currency is adopted based on the 'megawatt hour.'"

Eight years before Clarke's prediction, Bitcoin was created.

Although Clarke was wrong about other currencies being abolished, Bitcoin's value is loosely correlated with its energy consumption. I explain why Bitcoin is worth anything.

Consider the Top 10 Inventions and Their Inventors

Imagine if we didn't know who these inventors were:

The Printing Press - Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1440): This invention revolutionized communication, allowing for the mass production of books and the widespread dissemination of knowledge, leading to the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
The Electric Light Bulb - Thomas Edison (1879): While others experimented with electric lighting, Edison created a practical, long-lasting, and commercially viable incandescent light bulb, which transformed society by extending the day and enabling new industries.
The Telephone - Alexander Graham Bell (1876): The telephone revolutionized long-distance communication, enabling people to speak to each other across vast distances in real time.
The Steam Engine - James Watt (1778): Watt's improvements to earlier steam engines significantly increased their efficiency, powering the Industrial Revolution and leading to the mechanization of factories, transportation, and other industries.
The Automobile - Karl Benz (1885): Benz is credited with creating the first practical automobile powered by an internal combustion engine, ushering in the age of personal transportation and reshaping urban and rural life.
Alternating Current (AC) Electrical System - Nikola Tesla (late 1880s): While Edison championed direct current (DC), Tesla's work on AC made it possible to transmit electricity over long distances, laying the groundwork for modern electrical grids.
The Airplane - Orville and Wilbur Wright (1903): The Wright brothers achieved the first successful controlled, powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft, fundamentally changing travel, commerce, and warfare.
Penicillin - Alexander Fleming (1928): Fleming's discovery of the first antibiotic revolutionized medicine by providing a cure for many bacterial infections, saving millions of lives.
The Internet / World Wide Web - Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (Internet, 1970s) & Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide Web, 1989): These inventions created a global network of information and communication, transforming almost every aspect of modern society, from business and education to personal life.
The Computer - Charles Babbage (early 19th century): Babbage's designs for the "Analytical Engine" laid the theoretical groundwork for modern computers. Later, inventors like John Atanasoff, Alan Turing, and others developed the first electronic and programmable computers.

Imagine if we had no clue who invented penicillin or the telephone. Wouldn't historians do their best to figure that out, especially since they were recent and impactful inventions? Would you just shrug your shoulders and say, "Who cares? My telephone works."

Sure, many wouldn't give a shit. However, for other, more curious minds, we'd like to know.

Major Inventions with Unknown Inventors

Here are four major inventions whose creator is a mystery:

The Wheel: The invention of the wheel is one of the most important technological advancements in human history, enabling transportation and mechanization. Archaeological evidence suggests it originated in Mesopotamia around 3500 BC, but there is no record of who first conceived of it. The challenge wasn't just creating the wheel itself, but also the wheel-and-axle system, which required precise engineering.
Writing: The development of writing systems enabled the permanent storage and transmission of information, transforming human society. The earliest known writing system, cuneiform, emerged in Sumer (ancient Mesopotamia) around 3400 BC. However, like the wheel, it was likely the result of a gradual process of development by many different people, not the work of a single inventor.
Fire making: Some person probably rubbed two sticks together, and the rest is history. Since we can't know who that individual was, it would still be fascinating to know where it started and if it was developed in more than one place independently, like Calculus.
Bitcoin: Yeah, it's a major invention. It's been the best-performing asset since 2010, it's worth more than any company, and Satoshi Nakamoto is the wealthiest person ever. It has sparked a multi-trillion-dollar industry in just 15 years. So, yes, it's important, and yet we don't know who created it.

Verdict: 10 out of 10 stars!

Admittedly, I'm a Bitcoin fan who has produced many videos and articles about the first cryptocurrency, so I'm biased.

Still, if you love a perplexing mystery, you will love trying to solve this one. The good news is that we haven't solved it yet.

My Satoshi Nakamoto Fantasy

There's a good chance that Satoshi Nakamoto is around my age. If so, he also has a 30-year life expectancy.

I hope that in 2050, a video appears on the Internet that shows an old man who says, "I am Satoshi Nakamoto. To prove it, I will do what no Satoshi pretender has been able to do: move the 'Satoshi' coins that have been dormant since I mined them in 2009."

He records himself and his computer screen, and with a few clicks and keyboard taps, the transactions get broadcast onto the Bitcoin blockchain for all to see.

Next, he says, "I am donating my one million bitcoins to the Bitcoin Core for ongoing maintenance and to the following charities." Or perhaps he'll use the one million Bitcoins to create a Bitcoin node on the Moon. Or perhaps he will "burn" his Bitcoin, reducing the total BTC supply to 20 million coins, not 21 million.

Regardless, I hope Nakamoto will finally unmask himself, just like Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat) did when he was 91 (he died at 95).

Yeah, this fantasy is unlikely, but we can dream, can't we?

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