“Satoshi Nakamoto” has offered up his cryptographic key as proof.
The creator of the bitcoin virtual currency, who has long been known by the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”, has come out of the shadows. His name is Craig Wright.
Wright, an Australian entrepreneur and prominent bitcoin backer, had previously been identified by Wired and Gizmodo, but their stories were met with some skepticism , as previous attempts at unmasking Nakamoto had not gone so well.
Now Wright has gone to the BBC, the Economist and GQ with proof that he says ties him to the identity of Nakamoto: He signed an encrypted message with the cryptographic key that was associated with the first bitcoin transaction.
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“Some people will believe it, some people won’t, and to tell you the truth, I don’t really care,” Wright told the BBC , explaining that he was stepping into the light to stop people hounding him and people he cares about.
Jon Matonis, the founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation, is convinced that Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, and has written a blog post in which he says previous interactions with Wright had left him with that suspicion:
Matonis sat in on a meeting in London where Wright demonstrated that he was Nakamoto.“During the London proof sessions, I had the opportunity to review the relevant data along three distinct lines: cryptographic, social, and technical. Based on what I witnessed, it is my firm belief that Craig Steven Wright satisfies all three categories,” Matonis wrote .Of course, not everyone’s sold on Wright’s claim just yet:The Wired and Gizmodo stories in December were swiftly followed by a raid by the Australian tax authorities, though they claimed it had nothing to do with bitcoin. Wright now says he is cooperating with them on working out […]
