For more than 10 years, people from both finance and tech have speculated about the creator of Bitcoin. Last month, the New York Times completed its investigation into the Bitcoin creation mystery, naming Adam Back as the likely creator. Some people in the industry do not agree with this conclusion and remain skeptical of the results of the investigation. MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has publicly rejected the publication’s findings, arguing that the true identity of the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto remains safely hidden. For Saylor and many market veterans, solving this historic puzzle requires much more than just matching writing styles.
The Demand for Cryptographic Proof
According to the findings released by the media firm, all of the authorship determinations that were made used the technique of “Stylometry.” Based upon the analysis of the linguistic history and presentation style of a given author, Stylometry can help identify the user of each author’s writing and determine the likely individual who authored that written work. Although Florian Cafiero, a computational linguist, was the first to evaluate these twelve different writers, he identified Back as the author by matching him against the other writers evaluated. Evaluating the available data from each writer’s work, Saylor has pointed out numerous flaws with this study. He noted that while linguistic analysis is an interesting academic exercise, it is far from definitive evidence. In the realm of digital currency, true identity is verified through mathematics. Saylor insists that until someone steps forward and actively signs a message using Satoshi Nakamoto’s original private keys, every new theory is simply a compelling narrative rather than a proven fact.
Historical Emails Tell a Different Story
Beyond the lack of hard cryptographic evidence, there is an established historical paper trail that contradicts the recent media claims. Saylor quickly pointed to verified emails exchanged between Adam Back and Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. In August of that year, Satoshi reached out to Back to confirm a specific citation regarding Hashcash—a proof-of-work system Back invented—for the soon-to-be-released Bitcoin white paper. For Saylor, this contemporaneous correspondence strongly suggests that the two pioneers were completely distinct individuals interacting with one another, rather than one person orchestrating an elaborate digital ruse.
What is at Stake for MicroStrategy
It is no surprise that Saylor is closely monitoring these developments, given his company’s unprecedented financial exposure to the digital asset. MicroStrategy is currently the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin on the planet. The company holds 766,970 BTC which represents an estimated value of $54.57 billion. The success of Saylor’s sizable holdings depends solely on Bitcoin continuing to be a decentralized and non-leadership-based digital currency system. Saylor has stated repeatedly that Satoshi’s disappearance was an intentional and brilliant move that will help to remove any form of centralized authority and strengthen the long-term endurance of the entire network.
Market Reaction and the Gift of Volatility
When reports attempting to identify Bitcoin’s creator are released, they typically create a small amount of uncertainty in the market. After this report was released, Bitcoin experienced a minor decrease of approximately -2.4% ($68,269 to $66,634), but again this type of rapid market movement does not generally affect long-term holders. According to Saylor, who has often characterized these short-term price adjustments as ‘noise’, such volatility provides a unique opportunity for believers in the long term to build their position while speculative traders panic.
The Cypherpunk Defense
Adam Back is a cryptographer who has categorically denied being the creator of the world’s first cryptocurrency; he explains any similarities between his writing and the original white paper are a result of technical interests in the early cypherpunk community and that media reports demonstrate a clear case of confirmation bias. The research confirms this by indicating that they did not find any evidence linking Adam Back to Satoshi Nakamoto. The overall conclusion from the financial industry is that this is the logical conclusion: the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto will be unsolved without a key.
