Chasing the God of Bitcoin: A Journalist's Fifteen-Year Long Investigation into Satoshi Nakamoto
Satoshi Nakamoto has been found?Original Title: In Pursuit of the Bitcoin God
Author: Benjamin Wallace
*Translated by: * Riley ， ChainCatcher
Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Benjamin Wallace's book The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: The Genius Behind the Curtain of the Crypto World Unraveled Over Fifteen Years. Benjamin Wallace—one of the first journalists to report on Bitcoin—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 Nakamoto.
TL;DR:
- The author first reported on Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011 and has undergone a 15-year investigation and search, believing he has now cracked the mystery.
- Sahil Gupta emailed the author, speculating that Musk "is very likely" Satoshi Nakamoto. Gupta believes the public is ready to accept that Nakamoto and Musk are the same person. He claims to be "99% sure" and attributes external doubts to "bias against Musk."
- The author describes the details of Nakamoto's founding of Bitcoin. After Gavin Andresen informed Nakamoto that he would be explaining Bitcoin to the CIA but received no response, Nakamoto completely disappeared in 2011, leaving only a suspected forum post and never reappearing.
- The author discovered that Nakamoto'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 locked onto James Donald through multiple clues, but when questioned, this prime suspect of Nakamoto ended the conversation with "I can't disclose."
- Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence will help us confirm Nakamoto's identity. But unless the government declassifies some unpredictable secrets, we may never know his true identity beyond reasonable doubt.
If Satoshi Nakamoto—the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin—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 about 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 under his name have not moved a dime. No one in the history of science has ever done this: create a revolutionary technology without taking credit or making a dime from it.
Believers, unable to worship a flesh-and-blood figure, have cast a legendary aura around this pseudonym. In 2022, Kanye West stepped out of a luxury car in Beverly Hills wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with "Satoshi Nakamoto"; Budapest erected the first bronze statue of Nakamoto—a hooded ghost; a group of libertarians bought a decommissioned cruise ship named "Satoshi" and recruited residents to establish the first Bitcoin sovereign society; 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 had no idea that over 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 home. Even 60 Minutes, with top resources, 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, and the truth I have uncovered 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, clues pointed to a seaside town on the east coast of Australia.
While I was anxious about this, I had dinner with my sister. She had been a television news producer for 20 years and had witnessed an FBI raid on the home of a "college 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."
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 come in from time to time.
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 didn't 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 SpaceX's rocket factory. Musk was in the office three days a week, and they often ran into each other in the hallways. Sahil majored in computer science, and his thesis proposed a central bank digital currency called "Federal Coin," thanking "Satoshi Nakamoto, a true legend."
During his research, he delved into cryptocurrency literature, including Nakamoto's nine-page white paper. He noticed that Nakamoto's style of wording was strikingly similar to Musk's: both loved expressions like "order of magnitude" and "bloody." Nakamoto discussed currency in an abstract way, just as Musk did during his time at PayPal. Moreover, both were proficient in C++ and cryptography. Sahil began to wonder: could the father of Bitcoin have been hiding in plain sight?
After graduation, Sahil tried to work for Musk. After several self-recommendation emails, he landed 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 Might Have Invented Bitcoin," arguing that the Bitcoin community needed the founder's return. Although Musk tweeted a denial ("False news. 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 once said the company's original intention was to create a currency free from banks; both Nakamoto and Musk habitually leave two spaces after a period; Musk frequently travels through Van Nuys Airport, while an early Bitcoin email inadvertently exposed an IP address located north of Los Angeles; early developers described Nakamoto as "arrogant," and Musk is too.
By the end of 2021, Musk had just been named Time 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 Nakamoto and Musk were the same person.
He claimed to be "99% sure" and attributed external doubts to "bias against Musk."
"But Musk isn't 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 cleverness."
I couldn't say whether Sahil was correct, but I could understand his obsession. At that time, Bitcoin's price 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 Nakamoto's identity seemed irrelevant, but now it remained 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, Nakamoto described a new type of currency—it operates on a network of volunteer computers, relying on a transparent public ledger maintained collectively by the entire network, rather than a banking or government lending record system. Nakamoto attached a more detailed formal specification link—later known as the Bitcoin White Paper.
Several members of the mailing list provided feedback on the software Nakamoto wrote, which he gladly accepted. "Thank you for your questions," he wrote in an email, "My approach is actually a bit backward: I must finish all the code first to ensure it solves all problems before going back to write the paper." In early January 2009, Nakamoto released the initial version of Bitcoin on the open-source platform SourceForge. According to early participants, the first day's download count was only 127.
Many of the early users were programmers who believed "currency needs an upgrade." Paper currency can fade, wrinkle, tear, and harbor germs; it has fixed denominations, is easy to counterfeit, and large transfers are difficult. Bitcoin, on the other hand, offers durability, counterfeiting resistance, and nearly infinite divisibility, promising to achieve the ideal of small internet payments—any amount can be instantly transferred 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 Nakamoto's creation is blockchain—a continuously expanding system of transaction records (buying, selling, etc.). About every ten minutes, the latest transaction records are packaged into a "block" 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 jointly stored and updated by computers of global volunteers, each running Bitcoin software.
Although Bitcoin is an open-source project (a "many hands make light work" collaboration), someone needs to coordinate it. For the first 20 months, Nakamoto took on this role. He released code, other developers suggested modifications, and he integrated the accepted parts.
Software developer Gavin Andresen earned Nakamoto's trust after participating in the Bitcoin project for four months due to his contributions and computer science expertise. Nakamoto first granted him direct access to the source code and then informed Gavin around September 2010 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 open-source projects, these two were nearly "the leader's scepter"; thus, Gavin officially became the chief developer of Bitcoin, leading a team of five volunteer programmers.
In the following months, Nakamoto still occasionally participated in technical discussions, but Gavin's high-profile interactions with the outside world began to clash with his hermit 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!" Nakamoto sternly 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 show his real name, filling the "Bitcoin ambassador" role that Nakamoto had never played. But this seemed to make Nakamoto 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 said he had "not communicated with Nakamoto for months." On April 26, Gavin had emailed Nakamoto informing him that he would be going to CIA headquarters (in Langley, Virginia) to explain Bitcoin to intelligence personnel, but received no response. On the same day, Nakamoto 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 (which is difficult to verify), Nakamoto never reappeared.
Gavin and other early Bitcoin developers reached a few consensus points about Nakamoto's identity. The second channel through which Nakamoto released the white paper was the P2P Foundation website—a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting various peer-to-peer networks. He filled in his location as Japan on that site, but no one believed he was truly 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."
Nakamoto guarded his identity closely. When registering the domain bitcoin.org, he hid information through the anonymous service anonymousspeech.com, which itself was registered by a short-term rental agency in Tokyo. This service provided him with a vistomail.com email address (which could forge email sending times), and he also used the free email service gmx.com. In communications, he exhibited carefully trained ambiguity: answering only technical questions and avoiding personal topics altogether.
His programming style seemed somewhat outdated, suggesting he might be older. For example, he used "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 rare in Bitcoin software. However, some have questioned: the smooth operation of Bitcoin in its early days does not seem like the work of an individual alone. Additionally, the white paper frequently uses "we," suggesting that "Satoshi Nakamoto" could be a team or organization.
Even before Nakamoto's withdrawal, he had 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, 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 directly translated as "central intelligence," perhaps suggesting the involvement of a spy agency in the birth of Bitcoin. For instance, the NSA might have laid a long-term plan: to create a financial network free from regulation, used for global agent funding and also 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 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 Forge Anonymous Electronic Cash" (later made public), detailing the principles of cryptocurrency.
Another interpretation breaks down "Satoshi Nakamoto" into a combination of tech giants' 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 potential internet-destroying vulnerability, believes Nakamoto may 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 Nakamoto's identity "is not important to the essence of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has long surpassed Nakamoto." This echoes a mainstream view: Nakamoto's design to quietly exit as an anonymous entity is the foundation of Bitcoin's decentralized spirit—his disappearance allowed this technology to become a global experiment that does not require a leader.
"We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is."
At the 2022 Miami Bitcoin Conference, Nakamoto, though absent, was everywhere. The main stage was named the "Satoshi Nakamoto Hall," and the screens on either side cycled through his quotes, much like Scientology's Dianetics—mundane to outsiders but revered as scripture by believers.
"Imagine gold being stolen and turning into lead."
"Twenty years from now, Bitcoin's transaction volume will either be huge 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, tossing 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 people "extensions of state power," while Bitcoin "has no board; we don't even know who Satoshi is"—the last sentence he emphasized.
"We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is." In 2011, he was just an anonymous programmer in the fringe geek circle; ten years later, he had become the "myth maker" 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 estimated through early blockchain analysis that Nakamoto held Bitcoin worth about $40 billion at that time (now even more), firmly placing 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 Nakamoto's identity" as a risk factor. It is not hard to imagine the potential crisis: if Nakamoto 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 hides to evade taxes or for self-defense, the mainstream view shapes him as a "selfless martyr." The most fervent believers see the exploration of his identity as sacrilege, 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 my office wall 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. There were also some obscure names from adjacent fields like mathematics, cryptography, and economics. Some were programmers who had participated in early Bitcoin software projects. Others were creators of new cryptocurrencies. Many were just famous smart people: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Musk.
For years, Nick Szabo, Adam Back, and Hal Finney have been widely regarded as the main 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 has the necessary technical skills, and his writing style superficially resembles Nakamoto's. However, he has always denied being Nakamoto, and there is no concrete evidence linking him to Nakamoto or the early development of Bitcoin. Additionally, Adam Back, mentioned in the Bitcoin white paper as the creator of another precursor cryptocurrency, Hashcash, was also one of the first people Nakamoto contacted. He too denies being Nakamoto, and his writing style does not match Szabo's as closely. Hal Finney was a legendary programmer and cryptographer who received the first-ever Bitcoin transaction from Nakamoto. But Finney also denied being Nakamoto; he was diagnosed with ALS in 2009, and his condition rapidly deteriorated, ultimately rendering him unable to work. If Nakamoto were to be revealed, Finney would be the candidate Bitcoin enthusiasts most hoped to see, due to his tragic hero story and his aura of kindness—also because he had already passed away (he died in 2014), making it impossible for him to create any scandalous news.
Throughout, there has been opposition within the Bitcoin community to the investigation of Nakamoto'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 has made valuable contributions, and thus his desire for anonymity should be respected. What matters is not the person but the ideas and the code.
But Nakamoto 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 meticulously combed through the 60,000 words left by Nakamoto. 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 suspect "Satoshi" archives, scan for Nakamoto's terminology, and generate statistics. I could rank the archives in real-time using a dozen standards, including users of Nakamoto's terms, users of electronic cash terminology, and discussers of the software tools Nakamoto used.
One day in late April 2023, I found myself thinking about a word I had seen in Nakamoto's writings: "hosed."
Given Nakamoto's writing style tends to eschew personality or connection to any specific context, the word "hosed" stood out. 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 re-examined my archive data, carefully noting each instance where this word was used. In the Metzdowd mailing list, from October 31, 2008 (the day Nakamoto first released the Bitcoin white paper) and for three years prior, 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 public discussions about Bitcoin, he left a brief glimpse in Bitcoin's early history—he was the first person to respond to Nakamoto on the mailing list. At that time, he raised technical questions about Bitcoin's scalability and exited the discussion after several rounds of exchanges with Nakamoto. He was just an ordinary member of the 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 C++-proficient cypherpunk and libertarian. But drawn in by the coincidence of the word "hosed," I revisited the rare word list generated by the "Satoshi Fingerprint Analyzer" to see if Donald had used any other rare Nakamoto-style expressions.
Sure enough. In the corpus I collected spanning two decades, Donald was the only person to use the word "fencible" (meaning "able to be fenced"), a word that Nakamoto had once appeared in his writings as "non-fencible" (not able to be fenced). More shockingly, Donald's use of the word can be traced back to a statement he made in the cypherpunk mailing list in October 1998. My brain began to ring alarm bells. While "fence" as a verb meaning to sell stolen goods is common slang, the adjective form "fencible" is quite rare. Google search results are sparse, and even when I searched the New York Times historical database, which contains 13 million articles dating back to 1857, the word appeared zero times in that semantic context.
Unlike conventional terms in digital currency or cryptography like "trusted third party" or "zero-knowledge proof," "fencible" and "hosed" are not technical terms in computer science or cryptography; they are more like fingerprints reflecting personal language style.
I began to investigate Donald further. 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, details were scattered throughout. He came from Australia but lived in Silicon Valley, and like Nakamoto, 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 use higher mathematics to destroy the state apparatus. The method is to replace the current corporate institutional framework with cryptographic mechanisms, allowing more people to evade and resist taxes."
He showed a special 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 Nakamoto-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. Source code obtained from the Internet Archive shows that Crypto Kong shares multiple commonalities with Bitcoin: both support Windows systems; both use Nakamoto's preferred Hungarian notation; code partitions use prominent slash separators; both employ elliptic curve cryptography to generate public and private key pairs.
Digging deeper into personal information revealed that Donald was born in 1952 and is now over seventy, which aligns with the early Bitcoin developers' observation that "Nakamoto's coding style suggests he is older." He has not been active under his real name on mainstream social platforms, and his Palo Alto home worth $2.8 million and his $400,000 property in Austin are both blurred in Google Street View (this feature requires a formal request to Google or internal access like that of Donald's son who works at Google). Public channels yield no photos of him, and like Nakamoto, he uses the Swiss privacy email service Proton Mail and operates an anonymous blog called "Jim's Log," claiming to have "long lived in seclusion." The clues clicked together like gears.
Reassessing Donald's significance as the first responder, I recalled Nakamoto in 2008: throwing a groundbreaking work into the world but receiving no inquiries, thus orchestrating technical doubts to both promote 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 buried in the Bitcoin genesis block was "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."
More clues surfaced: Donald owns multiple properties in Hawaii. On June 19, 2008 (just months before Nakamoto announced his invention to the world), the Honolulu Star-Bulletin published an obituary for a WWII veteran named "Satoshi Nakamoto," who died at the age of 84. Could this be an identity theft for the sake of finding a pseudonym?
Although "James" rarely exposed personal information, his ideological trajectory is clear in his blog posts: he was an early radical leftist, joined the Trotskyist Spartacist League at 15, and later distanced himself due to "disillusionment with participatory democracy and no fondness for representative democracy." At 17, he joined anarcho-socialist and Maoist organizations, "only because these two factions were most despised by Trotskyists." He ultimately concluded that property rights equate to freedom, evolving 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, recalled that this applicant from Melbourne "had a bit of a bohemian vibe"—when asked about accommodation arrangements, Donald claimed he was "prepared to sleep under a bridge." While he left a "friendly yet eccentric" impression, his doctoral thesis, Assumptions of the Singularity Theorems and the Rejuvenation of Universes, was rejected for being "unintelligible," and he ultimately left without a degree.
His career trajectory shows that Donald first wrote software for Apple, then moved to the U.S. to develop video games for Epyx, and later transitioned to databases. His blog reveals profound insights into the essence of Bitcoin: "This is just a prototype system, yet it has been prematurely treated as the final solution." He has always 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 Nakamoto must be a benevolent figure. I have always felt that those who mythologize Nakamoto as a demigod are merely projecting their wishes: fantasizing that he is selfless, humble, and a prophet from the future come to save humanity. Hal Finney's appeal as a candidate for Nakamoto is precisely because he perfectly fits this idealized image.
Donald, however, is entirely different. In his blog, he promotes a dark ideology called "new reactionism"—a mindset that has captivated some in Silicon Valley. New reactionaries believe society has been hijacked by what they call the "temple" (a group composed of academia, media, and bureaucratic elites). They disdain efforts to pursue social justice, advocating for the abandonment of democratic systems and the restoration of monarchy as the best path forward for humanity. Donald's variant of new reactionism is further mixed with raw Christian fundamentalism and excessive paranoia: he blames the COVID-19 pandemic on a Jesuit conspiracy.
In addition to complex political declarations, Donald has continuously output racist, homophobic, misogynistic rhetoric, and various offensive expressions. His sharp words led to his banning from Slate Star Codex in 2014—a heavyweight blog in Silicon Valley known for inclusive discussions on taboo topics like IQ science. But under a relatively uncensored domain in Laos, he openly advocated "making women submissive through whipping their buttocks or upper backs," claiming "most rape accusations are false." Donald has a large following in the "woke" and alt-right blogosphere.
If Donald is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto, his motivation for choosing to publish Bitcoin under a pseudonym would be glaringly obvious. He would want the world to accept this genius invention purely based on the value of the work itself, rather than being stifled by biases against his identity. His anonymity would not be due to Bitcoin potentially endangering himself, but rather out of fear that his existence would jeopardize Bitcoin's future.
I wonder if anyone within the circle knows or suspects that Donald is Nakamoto. If Nakamoto were an innocuous ordinary citizen like "Dorian Nakamoto," "respecting Nakamoto's privacy" would at least be a defensible position; if he were a dissident living under a repressive regime, I would also wish to protect that secret. But if Nakamoto is indeed Donald? This would completely dismantle the narrative of the Bitcoin inventor as a "crypto messiah"—the one who sacrificed fame and fortune for noble ideals. Among those who shout "respect Nakamoto'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 the real Satoshi), hinted on Twitter: "Perhaps we should be prepared to cut ties with Satoshi. For safety's sake, it's best to erase this pseudonym completely."
"The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is irrelevant," wrote Ray Dillinger, who co-reviewed Bitcoin's code with 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 with a phone while crossing the Biltaviller desert, or a cart vendor in Nairobi, this protocol is no different from that created by an NSA cryptanalyst, a GRU-funded 'internet troll,' a well-known security researcher, or a cypherpunk. 'Satoshi Nakamoto' 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's simply not important."
"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 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 yet to agree to a real-time dialogue. Should I travel to Australia to meet him in person? What made me doubt the hypothesis that Donald is Nakamoto is that Nakamoto exhibited a rich emotional spectrum in past communications. He would express gratitude ("thank you very much"), show compassion ("poor guy"), display 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, a word of apology, or a moment of camaraderie—all I found was an emotional desert.
But among all the cypherpunks obsessed with digital currency, only one person claimed to know Nakamoto's true identity. "I know who Satoshi Nakamoto 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 insider left. I was determined to meet this person.
Although Donald has spent much of his career in California, he evidently owns or once owned property in Australia. By checking property assessment records for his various properties in the U.S., I found that at some point in the early 2000s, a property he owned in Austin was registered to an address on a street in northeastern Australia. In recent assessments, his U.S. property remains registered to the same Australian town, only 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 a plaque commemorating her in the cemetery of that town. Five years later, he posted a photo on his blog that appeared to be taken from a terrace: in the foreground were glasses and jars of homemade liquor, and in the distance, the shimmering horizon of the sea dotted with a few islands. Comparing this scene with other seaside photos from the same town, the geographical features matched perfectly.
I contacted private investigator Daniel Quinn, who lived in an area with a reasonable driving distance from the seaside town where Donald was suspected to be. 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 the bushes are wild; this person is certainly not a flower lover." The accompanying photo of the house showed a structure that shared a driveway with two other homes, with a solitary palm tree standing next to it, and a raised bungalow on the hillside. Through the overgrown vegetation, a wooden terrace facing the Coral Sea could be seen.
Though I did not see James in person that day, a few weeks later, I received good news in the 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 plump nose matched perfectly. Three days later, I was on a flight to Australia.
"I have a problem of talking too much."
There was no doorbell on the screen door, so I knocked on the door frame of James's house. Nervousness made my throat dry. While I wasn't sure if James himself was Nakamoto, I suspected he might be part of the collective identity of "Satoshi." Regardless, he was the only person I knew who publicly claimed to know Nakamoto'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 at his computer in the living room, wearing headphones. A few hours earlier, he had just published a new blog post, a lengthy discourse about "Georgians unwilling to let their churches be destroyed or turned into a sanctuary for Gaia worship and homosexual love, unwilling to watch ancient beautiful buildings be bulldozed and replaced by demonic postmodern monsters."
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 unnoticed, I knocked on the front door. Moments later, James opened the door, dressed in a red camouflage long-sleeve shirt and black thermal underwear.
I immediately began to explain. I had emailed him—"Oh, I rarely check emails," 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 dereliction of duty 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 claimed to know Nakamoto's identity and his socio-political goals. Could he elaborate? "No, sorry."
"Well… do you really know? Or do you just have strong suspicions?" "I have a good guess about who it might be, but actually—uh, I can't be sure."
"Do you think it could be Hal Finney?" "I can't answer that question."
"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 we grab a beer. James declined, "How about lunch instead?" I continued to propose. James laughed. "Listen," he said, "I have a problem of talking too much, and after a few drinks, I become even more indiscreet, so let's skip that."
I tried to keep the conversation going—handing him my contact information and the book I had previously written—but his responses became short and dismissive. "Living here is indeed appealing," I said, pointing at 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 Nakamoto's identity. For this, I learned programming, hired machine learning experts, stylistic analysts, and private investigators, and traveled 37 hours for just three minutes of meeting. I am convinced no one has been as dedicated to unraveling this puzzle as I have. I am beginning to understand why Sahil Gupta firmly believes Elon Musk is Satoshi Nakamoto. It may be time to stop.
Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence will help us confirm Nakamoto's identity. But at this moment, I am convinced that unless the government declassifies some unpredictable secrets, we may never know his true identity beyond reasonable doubt. Memories will fade, witnesses will 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 passes, even if there were clues, the traces become increasingly blurred.
Accepting this fact has relieved me. I am still dazzled by Nakamoto's creation—but equally shocked by how perfectly he vanished. As a utopian idea, Bitcoin had no chance of success; but as an emerging asset class, it has shown remarkable resilience. Prices rise and fall, reaching new highs, breaking through $109,000 in January (and falling back to $85,000 at the time of writing). Fidelity Investments now recommends retail investors allocate a small amount of cryptocurrency in their portfolios. The proliferation of blockchain technology is unstoppable.
Nakamoto has become an existence that his behind-the-scenes figure can never reach—this idea, free from flesh and historical burdens, will ultimately live on forever.
(Excerpted from Benjamin Wallace's The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: The Genius Behind the Curtain of the Crypto World Unraveled Over Fifteen Years, Crown Publishing, released on March 18.)
