Original post author: Ryan
A month ago, I took my first steps into the world of cryptocurrency mining. So far, the mining itself has been great - I've made about $80 by mining Ethereum, and I expect to accelerate that a little bit when I finally hook up my second video card that's currently sitting around doing nothing. While $80 doesn't seem like much, it was essentially free money. The impact to our electric bill has been negligible - and the mining is technically putting off a little bit of heat which offsets the gas bill. Aside from mining, I also invested a (very) small amount of money into Ethereum, which hasn't done great as an investment so far. But that's OK. I'll let it ride.
When I first posted about crypto, I said I would follow-up with another post all about Satoshi Nakamoto (the mysterious inventor of bitcoin). I had the Nakamoto post written about a month ago, but I forgot to...you know...actually post it.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
The short answer is that he is the inventor of bitcoin and, more importantly, the blockchain technology that makes bitcoin work.
The long answer is that 'Satoshi Nakamoto' is almost certainly a pseudonym. People who reviewed the computer code for bitcoin say that it was either made by a single genius or a group of specialists working together. While the true identity of Nakamoto is unknown, there are a few theories…
A computer scientist named Craig Steven Wright has claimed to be the true Nakamoto on several occasions, and a few big names in the community have confirmed it. But, a few other big names have claimed that he is a phony. Some say that the evidence he provided was falsified. The jury is still out.
Someone did an analysis of Nakamoto’s writing style and found that it matched the writing style of a man named Nick Szabo, who was the inventor of an earlier electronic currency in the 1990s. A finance journalist studied the matter and concluded that Szabo would be the only person with sufficient experience and knowledge to invent bitcoin. Szabo denies being Nakamoto.
There is a Japanese American physicist named Dorian Nakamoto, who was born under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. A journalist once asked him if he invented bitcoin, and he said, “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It's been turned over to other people.” Obviously, that response made people freak out. He later said he misinterpreted the question, he thought it was related to his work at Citibank, and that he hadn’t ever heard of bitcoin.
An electronic currency pioneer named Hal Finney happened to live near Dorian Nakamoto during the release of bitcoin. It is known that Finney participated in some of the first bitcoin transactions and that he helped fix a few early bugs in the bitcoin code. Analysis of Finney’s writing style also closely matches that of Satoshi Nakamoto. Finny denies that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, and a Forbes journalist who met with Finney and studied him more closely reported that it’s unlikely that he is the true Nakamoto.
A Tesla intern even claimed that Elon Musk was the developer of bitcoin. Musk denied it.
A software developer named Gavin Andresen has been the lead developer – and the main figurehead – of bitcoin since 2011. In fact, Satoshi Nakamoto officially designated him as such. Some rumors began to swirl that he may be the real Nakamoto, but then during a convention, Andresen said something to suggest that Craig Steven Wright was the real Nakamoto. Shortly after, he retracted his statement. Another interesting thing about Andresen: he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
From my limited amount of research on Nakamoto, I've learned that tech journalists are obsessed with searching for him, and the cryptocurrency community generally doesn't care who he is.
...big shoutout to wikipedia and the first 5 webpages that come up when you google "Satoshi Nakamoto" for giving me this info.
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