Precisely 15 years ago, on December 12, 2010, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, known by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, posted their final message on the BitcoinTalk forum. Since then, there have been several non-public appearances—until the end of April 2011, Satoshi corresponded with some early Bitcoin developers. Satoshi sent their last message on April 26, 2011, to developer Gavin Andresen, requesting a reduction in their profile as “mysterious and behind the scenes.”
Satoshi’s final public communication on December 12, 2010, concerned a DoS attack on the first cryptocurrency’s network and Bitcoin software updates. In those years, forums were among the most favored venues for discussion. And BitcoinTalk, which emerged around the same time as the Bitcoin network launch in 2009, became the primary open venue for Bitcoin developers to communicate.
On April 23, 2011, in a message to developer Mike Hearn, Satoshi stated they had “moved on to other things and that Bitcoin is in good hands with Gavin and everyone else,” referring to developer Gavin Andresen, who had been actively involved in Bitcoin’s evolution since 2010. In 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto named him the lead developer of Bitcoin Core (Bitcoin software).
Satoshi’s last known message, from April 26, was sent precisely to Andresen, who on April 27 announced he would present a talk about Bitcoin at the CIA headquarters in June during a conference on new technologies for the US intelligence community. It is surmised that this might have influenced Satoshi Nakamoto’s decision to cease public activity. Following this correspondence, the Bitcoin creator transferred codes to Andresen containing a copy of the cryptographic key from the system for alerting Bitcoin network participants about critical errors.
Who is Satoshi
Subsequently, the identity of the anonymous Bitcoin creator has become shrouded in theories and speculation about who truly hid behind the name Satoshi Nakamoto. One theory suggests that the CIA itself is the direct creator of Bitcoin.
“Obviously, it’s the CIA, we all understand that,” stated popular journalist Tucker Carlson during a closed panel discussion at the Bitcoin 2024 conference.
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There is a notion that the secrecy maintained for so many years is due to Satoshi passing away. Nevertheless, researchers continue to propose candidates for the role of the first Bitcoin developer to this day. For instance, the authors of the documentary film Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, which premiered last October on US television channel HBO, named Peter Todd as the supposed creator of Bitcoin.
Other contenders for this role also include renowned cryptographer and early Bitcoin proponent Hal Finney, early digital privacy advocate cryptographer Len Sassaman, programmer and cypherpunk Paul Le Roux, computer scientist and cryptographer Nick Szabo, and Blockstream CEO Adam Back. However, some do not confirm these suppositions, while others firmly deny being Satoshi.
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“If Satoshi were alive, and I do not believe he is alive, I am certain he would have a wide smile on his face,” remarked Mike Novogratz, head of investment firm Galaxy Digital, commenting to CNBC on Bitcoin’s historic surge above the $100k mark.
Satoshi’s Bitcoins
Speculation surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity is fueled alongside the growth of the primary cryptocurrency. Yet, years of research and numerous theories about the amount of cryptocurrency Satoshi might hold have not led to definitive answers.
Although there exists a public consensus in the crypto market based on the work of researcher Sergio Demian Lerner. Based on data from the Bitcoin blockchain, Lerner identified a pattern, termed Patoshi—a distinctive feature of mined blocks in Bitcoin during its initial years of operation.
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He hypothesized that the pattern might have arisen from Satoshi’s possible utilization of specialized mining software. Based on this marker, the researcher calculated the quantity of Bitcoins that Satoshi might have mined: approximately 1.1 million Bitcoins, or over $100 billion at the current exchange rate (over $92k as of December 12).
Such a vast amount of Bitcoins, Satoshi, like any other network participant at that time, could have accumulated over several years of operation on a regular laptop. This was feasible due to low competition among miners and the high issuance rate of new coins in those years.
For comparison, by the end of April 2011, when Satoshi sent the message to Andresen, over 6 million Bitcoins had been mined. Up to 10,000 coins could be mined daily. Currently, the rate of Bitcoin creation per day rarely exceeds 500 coins.
The network’s power has grown from 0.1 Th/s (terahashes per second) at the end of April 2011 to over 1 billion Th/s at the beginning of December, representing a power increase of more than 10 billion times—this figure reflects the growth in Bitcoin network computational capacity, according to Blockchain.com. Regarding price, in 2011, Bitcoin was valued at tens of cents.
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