New York Times Investigation Spurs Adam Back to Deny Being Bitcoin’s Creator

British cryptographer Adam Back has denied claims that he is Bitcoin’s inventor — man (or woman) of mystery, Satoshi Nakamoto. Back’s denial came in reaction to an investigative piece published by The New York Times (NYT) on April 8 that pointed the finger at him.

Back posted on X the same day to say “I am not satoshi” — a claim he’s denied multiple times in the past. Back acknowledged he took an early, active interest in e-cash through online forum discussions that helped inform his efforts to develop Hashcash — a proof-of-work system that influenced the functionality of Bitcoin. 

NYT journalist John Carreyrou said he had no doubt Satoshi and Back are one and the same after spending a year digging into old emails, papers and internet postings — in addition to interviewing Back in person. 

He wrote that his quest began after seeing Back in a documentary that also explored Nakamoto’s possible identity called Hard Fork, in which he believed Back’s demeanour was “shifty” and “fishy”.   

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The main method used to try and uncover Satoshi’s identity was an analysis of writing style and language. Carreyrou created a list of suspects from a group of people involved in several cryptography mailing lists between 1992-2008, based on who had posted about digital money in ways that matched Satoshi’s writings, including tics like putting two spaces between sentences, hyphenating certain words, and ending sentences with ‘also’. 

Over 500 ‘people of interest’ including Len Sassaman, Ian Grigg, Wei Dai, and Nick Szabo, were narrowed down to Adam Back.

Back Says It’s Mostly Coincidental 

In his X posts in response to the story, Back said that his high volume of activity on the forums on the topic of ecash — compared to others who were less talkative — represented a form of confirmation bias that the journalist’s analysis should have been corrected for. 

“The rest is a combination of coincidence and similar phrases from people with similar experience and interests,” he said.

I also don’t know who satoshi is, and i think it is good for bitcoin that this is the case, as it helps bitcoin be viewed a new asset class, the mathematically scarce digital commodity.

Adam Back

People have long speculated about the identity of the creator of the world’s biggest and most well-known crypto. Some argue the pseudonym represents a team of people who worked on the Bitcoin network rather than a single individual. 

While Back continues to back away from a connection to Satoshi Nakamoto, Australian man Craig Wright infamously sought to prove himself as the pseudonymous Bitcoin founder in 2024. After a lengthy court case, a London judge was emphatic in his judgement that Wright was not the creator of Bitcoin. 

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Michael Saylor, of Bitcoin investment company Strategy, weighed in to point out that there’s evidence of email exchanges between Satoshi and Black, which suggest they are not the same human. 

Until someone signs with Satoshi’s keys, every theory is just narrative.

Michael Saylor, Strategy

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