Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence will help us confirm the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Written by: Benjamin Wallace
Translated by: ChainCather, Riley
Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from Benjamin Wallace's book "The Mysterious Mr. Satoshi: Fifteen Years Unraveling the Genius Behind the Crypto World." Benjamin Wallace—one of the first journalists to report on Bitcoin—has spent fifteen years investigating, from technical analysis and stylistic identification to international tracking, in an attempt to uncover the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Ultimately, the clues pointed to a programmer in his seventies—James A. Donald; however, after meeting and talking with Donald, Wallace chose to put down his pen and abandon the investigation into Satoshi Nakamoto.
TL;DR
The author first reported on Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011 and has undergone a 15-year investigation and search, now believing he has cracked the mystery.
Sahil Gupta emailed the author, speculating that Musk "is very likely" Satoshi Nakamoto. Sahil believes the public is ready to accept that Satoshi and Musk are the same person. He claims to be "99% certain" and attributes external doubts to "bias against Musk."
The author describes the details of Satoshi Nakamoto's founding of Bitcoin, noting that after Gavin Andresen informed him he would be explaining Bitcoin to the CIA but received no response, Satoshi completely withdrew in 2011, leaving only a suspected forum post and never appearing again.
The author discovered that Satoshi's commonly used word "hosed" appeared only four times in the early Bitcoin mailing list, two of which came from the first skeptic, James Donald, becoming a key linguistic fingerprint for identifying him.
The author identified James Donald through multiple clues, but when questioned, this prime suspect of Satoshi Nakamoto only ended the conversation with "I cannot disclose."
Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence will help us confirm the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. But unless the government declassifies some unpredictable secrets, we may never know his true identity beyond reasonable doubt.
If Satoshi—Bitcoin's anonymous inventor—is indeed the person I suspect, he would never admit it. He might not even want to talk to me. To meet him, I would need to take a 20-hour flight and then drive for 8 hours. But I must try to talk to him face to face.
In the spring of 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared. I first heard of him that summer when I was writing one of the first in-depth reports on Bitcoin for a magazine. This currency exists outside of government and banking systems. Twelve years later, the identity of Bitcoin's founder remains a mystery, and the hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth attributed to him have remained untouched. No one in the history of science has ever done this: create a revolutionary technology without taking credit or earning a dime from it.
Believers cannot worship a flesh-and-blood figure, so they have placed a legendary aura around this pseudonym. In 2022, Kanye West stepped out of a luxury car in Beverly Hills wearing a baseball cap that read "Satoshi Nakamoto"; Budapest erected the first bronze statue of Satoshi—a hooded ghost; a group of libertarians bought a decommissioned cruise ship named "Satoshi" and recruited residents to establish the first Bitcoin sovereign society; and more than one tech expert has called for him to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
When I first reported on Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011, I never expected that more than a decade later, his identity would still be an unsolved mystery. Countless "reveal" attempts since then have failed, some even becoming farcical. In 2014, Newsweek confidently identified California systems engineer Dorian Nakamoto, leading to days of media siege at his residence. Even the resource-rich 60 Minutes was stumped, calling the task "impossible." Yet at this moment, I am convinced I have cracked the mystery.
I feel a bit anxious. This person has gone to great lengths to hide his tracks, and the truth I have discovered is unsettling—he is nothing like the Satoshi people imagine. He has repeatedly referred to himself as a "dangerous person" and has firearms in his home.
He also owns at least four properties across two continents. I once thought he was hiding somewhere on the Big Island of Hawaii, but in the summer of 2023, the clues pointed to a seaside town on the east coast of Australia.
While feeling anxious about this, I had dinner with my sister. She has been a television news producer for 20 years and was present when the FBI raided the home of the "University Bomber" with the 48 Hours crew. She suggested I bring professional security, wear a bulletproof vest, and notify local police in advance. "Thanks," I mumbled.
That night she texted me: "Can't sleep, not sure why." The time was 4:09 AM. "Two suggestions: If the target goes out, try to corner him in a public place; it's best to arrange for someone to record from a distance for evidence."
Could it be Elon Musk?
On New Year's Eve 2021, I received an email titled "New Clue About Satoshi Nakamoto."
Since writing early reports on Bitcoin, such emails have occasionally appeared.
The sender, Sahil Gupta, had previously blogged four years ago speculating that Musk "is very likely" Satoshi Nakamoto. This time he provided new "evidence": a conversation with Musk's chief of staff, Sam Teller. The content was vague, and I did not respond.
Two days later, Gupta sent a detailed argument from the same email address. The points ranged from vague to technical. I decided to reply. Sahil told me that in 2015, while an undergraduate at Yale, he interned at the SpaceX rocket factory. Musk was in the office three days a week, and the two often crossed paths in the hallway. Sahil majored in computer science, and his thesis proposed a central bank digital currency called "Federal Coin," thanking "Satoshi, a true legend" in the acknowledgments.
During his research, he delved into cryptocurrency literature, including Satoshi's nine-page white paper. He noticed that Satoshi's style of wording was strikingly similar to Musk's: both liked to use expressions like "order of magnitude" and "bloody." Satoshi discussed currency in abstract terms, just as Musk did during his time at PayPal. Additionally, both were proficient in C++ and cryptography. Sahil began to wonder: had the father of Bitcoin always been hiding in the spotlight?
After graduation, Sahil tried to work for Musk. After multiple emails offering his services, he secured a phone interview with chief of staff Teller.
At the end of the interview, he mustered the courage to ask, "Is Elon Satoshi Nakamoto?"
Sahil recalled: "Teller was silent for 15 seconds and then said, 'What can I say?'" He took this as a key clue. That same year, he wrote an article titled "Elon Musk May Have Invented Bitcoin," arguing that the Bitcoin community needed the return of its founder. Although Musk tweeted a denial ("False. A friend gave me some Bitcoin years ago, but I don't know where it is"), Sahil remained convinced of his theory.
He listed more "evidence": PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek had said the company's original intention was to create a currency independent of banks; both Satoshi and Musk were accustomed to leaving two spaces after a period; Musk frequently traveled through Van Nuys Airport, while an early Bitcoin email inadvertently revealed an IP address located north of Los Angeles; early developers described Satoshi as "arrogant," and Musk was the same.
By the end of 2021, Musk had just been named Time's Person of the Year, SpaceX successfully docked with the International Space Station, and he even joked about Dogecoin on Twitter (which subsequently skyrocketed and plummeted). Sahil believed the public was ready to accept that Satoshi and Musk were the same person.
He claimed to be "99% certain" and attributed external doubts to "bias against Musk."
"But Musk is not humble; why would he deny it?"
Sahil's explanation was: "Businesses need marketing, but Bitcoin is different. The mystery of the early anonymous founder actually made it stronger and developed faster—this is Musk's shrewdness."
I cannot assert whether Sahil is correct, but I can understand his obsession. At that time, the price of Bitcoin had soared to nearly $70,000, and its total market value had surpassed $1 trillion. El Salvador had made it legal tender. In 2011, the mystery of Satoshi's identity seemed irrelevant, but now it remains an unsolved mystery.
Six months later, I quit my job and devoted myself fully to this puzzle that had entangled me for over a decade.
The Disappearing Founder
In this paper, Satoshi described a new type of currency—it operates on a network of volunteer computers, relying on a transparent public ledger maintained collectively by the network rather than a banking or government lending record system. Satoshi included a link to a more detailed formal explanation—later known as the "Bitcoin White Paper."
Several members of the mailing list provided feedback on the software Satoshi had written, which he gladly accepted. "Thank you for your questions," he wrote in an email, "My approach is actually a bit backward: I need to finish all the code first to ensure it solves all the problems, then go back and write the paper." In early January 2009, Satoshi released the initial version of Bitcoin on the open-source platform SourceForge. According to early participants, the first-day download count was only 127.
Many of the early users were programmers who believed "currency needs an upgrade." Paper money can fade, wrinkle, tear, and harbor germs; its value is fixed, easily counterfeited, and difficult to transfer in large amounts. Bitcoin, on the other hand, offers durability, counterfeiting resistance, and near-infinite divisibility, promising to realize the ideal of small internet payments—any amount can be instantly received globally.
As a digital currency maintained by ordinary individuals, Bitcoin is not subject to central power interference. Gold can be confiscated, bank accounts can be frozen, fiat currency can depreciate due to central bank decisions or be subjected to capital controls by dictators, but Bitcoin does not rely on these traditional systems.
At the core of Satoshi's creation is the blockchain—a continuously expanding system of transaction records (buying, selling, etc.). Approximately every ten minutes, the latest transaction records are packaged into "blocks" and linked to the previous block through sophisticated mathematical algorithms, making content tampering nearly impossible. In traditional finance, such ledgers are maintained by banks or government institutions; in the Bitcoin network, the ledger is collectively stored and updated by computers of global volunteers, each running Bitcoin software.
Although Bitcoin is an open-source project (a collaborative effort), someone still needs to coordinate it. For the first 20 months, Satoshi took on this role. He released code, other developers proposed modifications, and he integrated the accepted parts.
Software developer Gavin Andresen joined the Bitcoin project four months later, and his contributions and computer science expertise earned Satoshi's trust. Satoshi first granted him direct access to the source code and then, around September 2010, informed Gavin that he would be busy with other projects and would transfer control of the SourceForge code repository and the project's "alert key" in the coming months—the key that could broadcast emergency messages to all devices running Bitcoin software. For an open-source project, these two were nearly "the leader's scepter"; from then on, Gavin officially became the chief developer of Bitcoin, leading a team of five volunteer programmers.
In the following months, Satoshi still occasionally participated in technical discussions, but Gavin's high-profile interactions with the outside world began to clash with his reclusive style. When PayPal and Visa froze WikiLeaks' accounts, some Bitcoin supporters advocated using cryptocurrency to support the controversial organization. Someone shouted on the BitcoinTalk forum: "Let them come!" Satoshi firmly opposed: "No! Don't let them come. The project needs to grow gradually, and the software must improve in sync. I urge WikiLeaks not to use Bitcoin… The current attention will ruin us."
For journalists reporting on Bitcoin, Gavin became the preferred interviewee. He was gentle and rational, willing to reveal his real name, filling the role of "Bitcoin ambassador" that Satoshi Nakamoto never played. However, this seemed to make Satoshi uneasy. In late April 2011, he emailed Gavin: "I hope you won't describe me as a mysterious shadow anymore—the media will only label Bitcoin as 'black market currency.'"
This became the last email Gavin received. When I first contacted Gavin in July of that year, he stated that he "had not communicated with Satoshi for months." On April 26, Gavin had emailed Satoshi to inform him that he would be going to CIA headquarters (located in Langley, Virginia) to explain Bitcoin to intelligence personnel, but received no reply. On the same day, Satoshi had sent an email to at least one project collaborator.
After that, he fell completely silent. Aside from a suspected account posting on a forum years later (the authenticity of which is difficult to determine), Satoshi never appeared again.
Gavin and other early Bitcoin developers reached a few consensus points regarding Satoshi's identity. One of the second channels through which Satoshi published the white paper was the P2P Foundation website—a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting various peer-to-peer networks. In his profile on that site, he listed his residence as Japan, but no one believed he was actually Japanese. His English was flawless, with British-style wording: in the Bitcoin source code and BitcoinTalk forum posts, he preferred British spellings like "colour" and "optimise."
Satoshi was extremely guarded about his identity. When registering the domain bitcoin.org, he concealed his information through the anonymous service anonymousspeech.com, which was itself registered by a short-term rental agency in Tokyo. This service provided him with a vistomail.com email address (which could spoof the email sending time), and he also used the free email service gmx.com. In his communications, he exhibited a carefully trained ambiguity: he only answered technical questions and completely avoided personal topics.
His programming style seemed somewhat outdated, suggesting he might be older. For example, he employed the "Hungarian notation"—a variable naming convention popular among Windows programmers in the 1990s.
Gavin believed that the Bitcoin code could have been completed by a small team or even a single person. When programmers collaborate, they typically add comments in the code to explain the function of instructions, but such comments are extremely rare in the Bitcoin software. However, some questioned this: the smooth operation of Bitcoin in its early days did not seem like something an individual could accomplish alone. Additionally, the repeated use of "we" in the white paper suggested that "Satoshi" might be a collective or institutional name.
Before Satoshi withdrew, he had already begun to be mythologized. On April 16, 2011, BitcoinTalk user Wobber pointed out the vastness of his knowledge and the peculiarity of his behavior—creating such a disruptive technology without taking credit or profiting, and then quietly withdrawing. Some compared him to Zorro or that masked David who aimed his slingshot at the "Goliath" of banks and governments.
Does the name hide clues? "Satoshi Nakamoto" can be literally interpreted as "central intelligence," perhaps suggesting the involvement of a spy agency in the birth of Bitcoin. For example, the NSA might have laid a long-term plan: to create a regulatory-free financial network, used for global agent funding as well as serving as a "honeypot"—allowing adversaries to expose their whereabouts in what they believe to be secure transactions, leaving them open to NSA surveillance.
This is not entirely absurd. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory developed the anonymous software "Onion Router" (TOR), which gave rise to the dark web; the FBI secretly launched encrypted phones and communication services called ANOM, which were misused by criminal groups, ultimately leading to the arrest of over 800 people; in the summer of 1996, the NSA's cryptography department even internally published a paper titled "How to Mint Anonymous Electronic Cash" (later made public), detailing the principles of cryptocurrency.
Another interpretation breaks down "Satoshi Nakamoto" into a combination of tech giant names—SAmsung, TOSHIba, NAKAmichi, MOTOrola—implying a corporate conspiracy manipulating everything. Reddit users have whimsically rearranged the letters into absurd phrases like "Ma, I took NSA's oath" or "So a man took a shit."
Dan Kaminsky, a programmer who rose to prominence in 2008 for discovering a technical vulnerability that could destroy the internet, believes Satoshi might be a team within a bank. "I suspect he is a small team from a financial institution," Dan told me, "that's my intuition."
But he added that Satoshi's identity "is not important to the essence of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has long surpassed Satoshi." This echoes a mainstream view: Satoshi's design as an anonymous entity quietly stepping back is the foundation of Bitcoin's decentralized spirit—his disappearance has allowed this technology to truly become a global experiment without a leader.
"We don't know who Satoshi is."
At the 2022 Miami Bitcoin Conference, Satoshi was not present, yet he was everywhere. The main stage was named the "Satoshi Hall," and the screens on either side cycled through his text snippets, akin to Scientology's "Dianetics"—mundane to outsiders, yet revered as scripture by believers.
"Imagine gold being stolen and turning into lead."
"Twenty years from now, Bitcoin's transaction volume will either be enormous or zero."
"The robustness of the network lies in its simple decentralization."
PayPal founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel appeared from the right side of the stage, throwing a stack of hundred-dollar bills to the front row: "This thing can still be used, how crazy is that?" He declared Bitcoin the ultimate warning against the fiat currency system and named the "enemies of the crypto revolution"—Warren Buffett, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Thiel called these individuals "extensions of state power," while Bitcoin "has no board of directors; we don't even know who Satoshi is"—the last sentence he emphasized deliberately.
"We don't know who Satoshi is." In 2011, he was an anonymous programmer focused on the fringe geek circle; ten years later, he became the "myth creator" of a trillion-dollar project, with Bitcoin ranking as the ninth largest asset globally, second only to Tesla and surpassing Meta. Whoever he is, he possesses immense wealth. Computer scientist Sergio Demian Lerner speculated through analysis of the early blockchain that Satoshi held Bitcoin worth about $40 billion at that time (now worth even more), firmly establishing him as the richest Bitcoin holder.
In the spring of 2021, when the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase went public, its prospectus submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission listed "the exposure of Satoshi's identity" as a risk factor. It is not hard to imagine the potential crisis: if Satoshi were confirmed to be an agent of a certain country, an extremist, or a financial criminal, the legitimacy of Bitcoin could collapse. However, the Bitcoin community gradually views this mystery as a necessary design—decentralization requires a "pure birth." Without a specific persona, it can avoid division due to disputes over the founder's identity, maximizing universal acceptance.
Thus, the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto" has been sanctified. While some believe he is hiding to avoid taxes or for self-protection, the mainstream view portrays him as a "selfless martyr." The most fervent believers consider the exploration of his identity to be blasphemy, akin to asking Scientologists about the existence of Xenu.
But what if the father of Bitcoin is a villain?
In the summer of 2022, I posted a spreadsheet on the wall of my office listing over a hundred candidates who had been proposed as Satoshi Nakamoto. Most of the main candidates belonged to the cypherpunk realm, and their names had been suggested multiple times over the years as potential Satoshi. There were also some obscure names from adjacent fields like mathematics, cryptography, and economics. Some were programmers who had participated in the early Bitcoin software project. Others were creators of new cryptocurrencies. Many were simply famous smart people: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Musk.
For years, Nick Szabo, Adam Back, and Hal Finney have been widely regarded as the leading candidates. Szabo is a programmer who advocated for decentralized currency years before Bitcoin appeared; he conceived a precursor to Bitcoin called "bit gold" in the late 1990s. He possesses the necessary technical skills, and his writing style superficially resembles Satoshi's. However, he has always denied being Satoshi, and there is no concrete evidence linking him to Satoshi or the early development of Bitcoin. Additionally, the Bitcoin white paper mentions Adam Back as the creator of another precursor cryptocurrency, Hashcash, and his email address was one of the first that Satoshi contacted. He also denies being Satoshi, and his writing style is not as closely aligned as Szabo's. Hal Finney was a legendary programmer and cryptographer who received the first-ever Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi. However, Finney also denied being Satoshi; he was diagnosed with ALS in 2009, and his condition rapidly deteriorated, ultimately rendering him unable to work. If Satoshi were to be revealed, Finney would be the candidate that Bitcoin enthusiasts most hoped to see, due to his tragic hero story and his kind and benevolent aura—also because he had already passed away (he died in 2014), making it impossible for him to create scandalous news through disreputable actions or associations.
Throughout, there has been opposition within the Bitcoin community to the investigation of Satoshi's identity. Last fall, when an HBO documentary suggested that libertarian Canadian programmer and cryptography enthusiast Peter Todd was the most likely candidate, the Bitcoin community reacted not only with strong skepticism towards the documentary's conclusion but also with anger at the undertaking of such a project. He made valuable contributions, and thus his desire for anonymity should be respected. What matters is not the person, but the ideas and the code.
However, Satoshi has placed his invention in the public square, so I feel it is reasonable to explore who placed it there and the reasons behind it.
I carefully combed through the 60,000 words left by Satoshi. His writing is plain and straightforward, rarely revealing personal opinions or showcasing personality. Whenever I caught a hint of unique style, I added it to the "Satoshi Lexicon"—a list that ultimately accumulated over 200 distinctive words and phrases. "Wet blanket," "sweet," "clobbering."
I wrote a computer program called "Satoshitizer" that could browse various archived articles suspected of being "Satoshi," scan for Satoshi's terminology, and generate statistical tables. I could rank the archives in real-time using a dozen standards, including users of Satoshi's terminology, users of electronic cash terminology, and discussers of the software tools used by Satoshi.
One day in late April 2023, I found myself thinking about a word I had seen in Satoshi's writings: hosed.
Given Satoshi's writing style tends to eschew personality or connections to any specific context, the word "hosed" stood out particularly. I hadn't heard this word recently; it means to tighten or damage, and I vaguely associated it with surfing or fraternity slang from the 1990s.
I reorganized my archived data and carefully annotated each instance where the word was used. In the Metzdowd mailing list, during the three years prior to October 31, 2008 (the date Satoshi first published the Bitcoin white paper), the word "hosed" was used a total of four times. Two of those instances came from the same person: James A. Donald.
Although Donald was not active in the public discussions about Bitcoin, he left a brief but notable mark in Bitcoin's early history—he was the first person on the mailing list to respond to Satoshi. At that time, he raised technical questions about Bitcoin's scalability and withdrew from the discussion after a few exchanges with Satoshi. He was just an ordinary member among many cypherpunks interested in digital currency.
At that time, Donald was only ranked 42nd on my suspect spreadsheet, far behind the three leading candidates, and his inclusion was limited to his identity as a cypherpunk and libertarian proficient in C++ programming. However, intrigued by the coincidence of the word "hosed," I revisited the list of rare words generated by the "Satoshi Fingerprint Analyzer" to see if Donald had used any other uncommon Satoshi-like expressions.
Sure enough. In the twenty-year corpus I collected, Donald was the only person to have used the word "fencible" (meaning "able to be fenced" or "marketable")—this word appeared once in Satoshi's writings in the form of "non-fencible" (not marketable). Even more shocking was that Donald's record of using the word could be traced back to October 1998, when he spoke on the cypherpunk mailing list. My brain began to ring alarm bells. While "fence" as a verb meaning to sell stolen goods is a common slang term, the adjective form "fencible" is quite rare. Google search results were sparse, and even when I searched the historical database of The New York Times, which contains 13 million articles dating back to 1857, the word appeared zero times in relevant contexts.
Unlike conventional terms in the fields of digital currency or cryptography, such as "trusted third party" or "zero-knowledge proof," "fencible" and "hosed" are not technical jargon in computer science or cryptography; they are more like fingerprints reflecting personal language style.
I began to investigate Donald more deeply. His online presence was elusive: various websites claimed he was Canadian, said he had passed away, and pointed out that "James A. Donald" was not his real name. Although he rarely revealed personal information in his posts, small details were still scattered throughout. He was from Australia but had long resided in Silicon Valley, and like Satoshi, his writing sometimes used American spelling and sometimes Commonwealth spelling.
Ideologically, Donald fused extreme libertarianism (which is essentially anarcho-capitalism) with a fervent belief in the transformative power of cryptography. In 1996, he wrote: "Gentlemen, this is our plan—we will destroy the state apparatus with higher mathematics. The method is to replace the current corporate structure with cryptographic mechanisms, allowing more people to evade and resist taxes."
He showed a particular interest in digital currency. In 1995, he predicted that "people will eventually bypass banks and transfer funds directly." Between 2006 and 2009, the number of Satoshi-style electronic cash terms used by Donald in the Metzdowd mailing list far exceeded that of other participants.
Examining his programming style revealed that in the late 1990s, Donald promoted a communication encryption software called "Crypto Kong." This software was written in the same C++ language as Bitcoin. The source code obtained from the Internet Archive showed that Crypto Kong shared multiple commonalities with Bitcoin: both supported Windows systems; both used Satoshi's preferred Hungarian notation; both employed prominent slash delimiters for code partitioning; and both utilized elliptic curve cryptography to generate public and private key pairs.
Digging deeper into personal information revealed that Donald was born in 1952, making him over seventy years old, which aligns with the characteristic noted by early Bitcoin developers that "Satoshi's coding style suggests he is older." He was not active under his real name on mainstream social platforms, and his Palo Alto home valued at $2.8 million and his Austin property worth $400,000 were both blurred in Google Street View (this feature requires a formal request to Google or internal access like that of Donald's son who worked at Google). Public channels yielded no photos of him, and similar to Satoshi, he used the Swiss privacy email service Proton Mail and operated an anonymous blog called "Jim's Log," where he claimed to have "long lived in seclusion." The clues clicked together like gears.
At this moment, reconsidering Donald's significance as the first responder, I envisioned Satoshi in 2008: throwing a groundbreaking work into the world but receiving no attention, thus orchestrating technical doubts to both stimulate discussion and create misdirection.
His blog leaked more clues: on the eve of October 31, 2008, Donald was deeply focused on the financial crisis. His October 11 blog post titled "The Roots of the Crisis" began with the assertion that "the bailout will surely fail," while the headline preserved in the Bitcoin genesis block was "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."
More clues surfaced: Donald owned multiple properties in Hawaii. On June 19, 2008 (just months before Satoshi announced his invention to the world), the Honolulu Star-Bulletin published an obituary for a WWII veteran named "Satoshi Nakamoto," who passed away at the age of 84. Could this be an identity theft for the purpose of finding a pseudonym?
Although "James" rarely exposed identity information, his ideological trajectory was clearly discernible in his blog posts: he was an early radical leftist, joining the Trotskyist organization Spartacist League at the age of 15, later leaving due to "disillusionment with participatory democracy and a lack of fondness for representative democracy." At 17, he joined both anarcho-socialist and Maoist organizations "simply because these two factions were most despised by Trotskyists." He ultimately concluded that property rights equate to freedom, transforming into an anarcho-capitalist.
To verify his academic background, I contacted an informant from the University of Sydney's physics department. Professor Bob Hewitt, who participated in the interview at the time, recalled that the applicant from Melbourne "had quite a bohemian vibe"—when asked about his accommodation arrangements, Donald claimed he was "prepared to sleep under a bridge." While he left a "friendly yet quirky" impression, his doctoral thesis titled "Assumptions of the Singularity Theorems and the Rejuvenation of Universes" was rejected because "no one could understand it," and he ultimately left the program without a degree.
His career trajectory showed that Donald first wrote software for Apple, then moved to the U.S. to develop video games for Epyx, and later transitioned to the database field. His blog revealed profound insights into the nature of Bitcoin: "This is just a prototype system, yet it is being used too early as a final solution." He consistently viewed Bitcoin through a historical lens, seeing it as a stepping stone to an ideal future.
I have never accepted the assumption prevalent in the Bitcoin community—that Satoshi must be a benevolent figure. I have always felt that those who mythologize Satoshi into a demigod-like figure are merely projecting their wishes: fantasizing that he is selfless, humble, and a prophet from the future here to save humanity. Hal Finney's appeal as a candidate for Satoshi stems precisely from his perfect alignment with this idealized image.
Donald, however, is entirely different. In his blog, he espouses a dark ideology called "New Reactionism"—a mindset that has captivated some individuals in Silicon Valley. New Reactionaries believe that society has been hijacked by what they call the "Cathedral" (a group composed of academia, media, and bureaucratic elites). They disdain efforts to pursue social justice, arguing that abandoning democratic systems and restoring monarchy is the best path forward for humanity. Donald's variant of New Reactionism is further mixed with raw Christian fundamentalism and excessive paranoid delusions: he attributed the COVID-19 pandemic to a Jesuit conspiracy.
In addition to complex political declarations, Donald continuously spewed racist, homophobic, misogynistic rhetoric and various offensive language. His sharp words led to his ban from the blog "Slate Star Codex" in 2014—a prominent Silicon Valley blog known for inclusive discussions on taboo topics like IQ science. However, under a relatively uncensored domain in Laos, he openly advocated "submitting women by whipping their buttocks or upper backs," claiming that "most rape accusations are false." Donald has a large following in the "woke" and alt-right blogosphere.
If Donald is indeed Satoshi, his motivation for choosing to publish Bitcoin under a pseudonym would be glaringly obvious. He wanted the world to accept this genius invention purely based on the value of the work itself, rather than stifling it due to biases against his identity. He concealed his name not because Bitcoin might endanger him, but because he feared that his existence could jeopardize Bitcoin's future.
I wonder if anyone within the circle already knows or suspects that Donald is Satoshi. If Satoshi were a harmless ordinary citizen like "Dorian Nakamoto," "respecting Satoshi's privacy" would at least be a defensible position; if he were a dissident living under a repressive regime, I would also be willing to protect that secret. But if Satoshi is indeed Donald? This would completely dismantle the narrative of the Bitcoin inventor as a "crypto messiah"—the sacred figure who sacrificed fame and fortune for noble ideals. Among those who shout "respect Satoshi's privacy," could there be anyone who already knows: if the creator of Bitcoin is confirmed to be an extreme right-wing lunatic, it would trigger a public relations disaster, and what they truly want to protect is the reputation of this belief system and the value of their investment portfolios? In June 2020, Adam Back, the founder of Hashcash (long suspected to be Satoshi), hinted on Twitter: "Perhaps we should be prepared to cut ties with Satoshi. For insurance, it’s best to completely erase this pseudonym."
"Satoshi's identity doesn't matter," wrote Ray Dillinger, who reviewed Bitcoin's code alongside Hal Finney, "the protocol itself exists. Whether the creator is a third-world dictator, a homeless person under a bridge in Belize, a Bedouin working on a mobile phone while crossing the Biltayville desert, or a cart vendor in Nairobi, this protocol is no different from that created by NSA cryptanalysts, GRU-funded 'internet trolls,' well-known security researchers, or cypherpunks. 'Satoshi' does not exist outside the protocol. He is merely a hat worn by someone during the development process. As for who wore the hat—it doesn't matter at all."
"I know who Satoshi is."
I wrote to James Donald requesting an interview. A few days later, unexpectedly, I received his reply. "Email communication is more convenient," Donald wrote, but he also indicated that he might be willing to engage in a phone or video conversation. He needed a few days to confirm arrangements.
Two months passed, and Donald had not agreed to a real-time conversation. Should I travel to Australia for an in-person visit? What made me doubt the hypothesis that Donald is Satoshi was that Satoshi had shown a rich spectrum of emotions in past communications. He would express gratitude ("thank you very much"), show compassion ("poor guy"), exhibit humility ("I deeply apologize"), and self-deprecation ("I’m better at programming than writing"). As I sifted through Donald's years of written archives, trying to find traces of empathy, gratitude, or enthusiasm—even a single exclamation mark, an apology, a moment of empathy, or camaraderie—all I found was an emotional desert.
Yet among all the cypherpunks obsessed with digital currency, only one person claimed to know Satoshi's true identity. "I know who Satoshi is," James Donald wrote in the comments section of one of his blog posts, "and I understand his political and social aspirations." If this statement is true, he would be the only credible informant still alive. I was determined to meet this person.
Despite spending most of his career in California, it is evident that Donald owns or once owned property in Australia. By reviewing the real estate assessment records of his various properties in the U.S., I discovered that at some point in the early 2000s, one of his properties in Austin was registered at an address that pointed to a street on the northeastern coast of Australia. In recent assessments, his U.S. property is still registered to the same Australian town, but the address has changed to a P.O. Box. It is known that his wife passed away in 2016, and through a "grave-finding website," I found a photo of the plaque commemorating her in the town's cemetery. Five years later, he posted a photo on his blog that appeared to be taken from a terrace: in the foreground were glass cups and ceramic jars filled with homemade liquor, and in the distance, the shimmering horizon of the Coral Sea was dotted with a few small islands. Comparing this scene with other seaside photos from the same town, the geographical features matched perfectly.
I contacted private investigator Daniel Quinn, who lives in an area conveniently located for a drive to the seaside town where Donald is suspected to reside. I provided Quinn with the house address and an old photo from twenty years ago—this photo was the most recent image of Donald I could find, taken from his son's abandoned university blog.
A few days later, Daniel sent me a surveillance report. "The yard is overgrown with weeds and bushes; this person is definitely not a flower lover." The accompanying photo of the house showed that it shared a driveway with two other homes, and next to a solitary palm tree stood a raised bungalow on the hillside. Through the overgrown vegetation, a wooden terrace facing the Coral Sea was visible.
Although I did not see James in person that day, a few weeks later, I received good news one morning: Daniel successfully captured a photo of a man standing at the front door. Compared to the photo from twenty years ago, despite his hair and beard being completely white, the features of his thick beard, metal-framed glasses, and prominent nose matched perfectly. Three days later, I was on a flight to Australia.
"I have a habit of talking too much."
There was no doorbell on the screen door, so I knocked on the door frame of James's house. My throat was dry with nervousness. Although I was unsure if James himself was Satoshi Nakamoto, I suspected he might be part of the collective identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto." In any case, he was the only person I knew who publicly claimed to know Satoshi's true identity.
I worried about how he would receive me. James had clearly gone to great lengths to make himself hard to find.
As I walked through the porch toward the front door, I saw Donald sitting in front of his computer in the living room, wearing headphones. A few hours earlier, he had published a new blog post, a lengthy discourse about "Georgians (referring to the country Georgia) unwilling to let their churches be destroyed or turned into a sanctuary for Gaia worship and homosexual acts, unwilling to watch ancient beautiful buildings being bulldozed and replaced by demonic postmodern monstrosities."
Western NGOs are trying to "homosexualize Georgia and then throw it into the meat grinder against Russia."
Seeing that my knocking on the door frame had gone unanswered, I knocked on the front door. A moment later, James opened the door, wearing a red camouflage long-sleeve shirt and black thermal underwear.
I immediately began to explain. I had emailed him—"Oh, I rarely check my email," James said. I reminded him of our correspondence from last year and that I was writing a book. I expressed that it would be my negligence if I did not make every effort to talk to him.
James said, "In short, I can't tell you anything I can't disclose." His tone was gentle, with a perplexed sense of humor.
I pointed out that he had publicly insisted he knew Satoshi's identity and his socio-political goals. Could he elaborate? "No, sorry."
"Well… do you really know? Or do you just have strong suspicions about someone?" "I have good guesses about who it might be, but actually—uh, I can't be sure."
"Do you think it could be Hal Finney?" "That's a question I can't answer."
"Is it because you want to respect his privacy?" "I am prohibited from disclosing any information to anyone, including what has already been said."
I suggested buying him a beer. James declined, "How about lunch instead?" I continued to propose. James laughed. "Listen," he said, "I have a habit of talking too much, and after a few drinks, I become even more indiscreet, so let's skip it."
I tried to keep the conversation going—handing him my contact information and the book I had written previously—but his responses became short and dismissive. "Living here is indeed desirable," I said, pointing to the magnificent sea view. "Yeah," James replied, looking down. After thanking him, I turned and walked down the hillside.
Bitcoin has no DNA test
I have spent fifteen years pursuing the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. To this end, I learned programming, hired machine learning experts, stylistic analysts, and private investigators, and endured a 37-hour journey for just three minutes of face-to-face time. I am convinced that no one is as dedicated as I am to unraveling this mystery. I began to understand why Sahil Gupta firmly believes that Elon Musk is Satoshi Nakamoto. It was time to stop.
Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence will help us confirm Satoshi's identity. But at this moment, I am convinced that unless the government declassifies some unpredictable secrets, we are unlikely to ever know his true identity beyond reasonable doubt. Memories fade, witnesses pass away. Bitcoin has no paternity test; to prove who Satoshi is, unless he appears in person and shows the relevant private keys, or at least provides unforgeable contemporaneous documents as evidence. As time goes by, even if there were clues, the traces become increasingly blurred.
Accepting this fact was a relief. I am still dazzled by Satoshi's creation—but equally astonished by how perfectly he vanished. As a utopian concept, Bitcoin had no chance of success; yet as an emerging asset class, it has shown remarkable vitality. Prices rise and fall, reaching new highs, breaking $109,000 in January this year (and falling back to $85,000 at the time of writing). Fidelity Investments now recommends that retail investors allocate a small amount of cryptocurrency in their portfolios. The proliferation of blockchain technology is unstoppable.
Satoshi has become an existence that his creator can never reach—an idea that requires neither a physical body nor the burdens of history, destined to live on forever.
(Excerpt from "Mr. Nakamoto: The Mysterious Journey of Unraveling the Genius Behind the Crypto World" by Benjamin Wallace, Crown Publishing, released on March 18)
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