The pursuit of the god of Bitcoin: A reporter's long investigation into Satoshi Nakamoto for fifteen years

Original title:In Pursuit of the Bitcoin God

Author: Benjamin Wallace

Compiled by: ChainCather, Riley

Editor's note: This article is excerpted from "The Mysterious Mr. Satoshi Nakamoto: The Road to the Genius Behind the Scenes of the World of Decryption and Encryption" by Benjamin Wallace, one of the earliest reporters to report on Bitcoin, spent fifteen years in-depth investigations, from technical analysis, cultural and sports identification to cross-border tracking, trying to uncover Satoshi Nakamoto's true face. Finally, the clue pointed to a programmer over 70 years old - James A. Donald. However, after meeting and talking with Donald, Wallace chose to put down his pen and gave up on continuing to investigate Satoshi Nakamoto.

TL, DR:

1. The author first reported on Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011 and has gone through 15 years of investigation and search. Now I believe that I have solved this puzzle.
2. Sahil Gupta sent an email to reveal to the author that it was speculated that Musk was "very likely" to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Sahil believes that the public is ready to accept that Satoshi Nakamoto and Musk are the same person. He claimed to be "99% sure" and blamed the outside world's doubts on "bias against Musk."
3. The author described the details of the process of Satoshi Nakamoto founding Bitcoin. After Gavin Andresen told him that he would go to the CIA to explain Bitcoin but received no reply, Satoshi completely retired in 2011, leaving only one suspected forum post and never appeared again.
4. The author found that Satoshi's idiomatic word "hosed" appeared only four times on the early mailing list of Bitcoin, two of which came from the first questioner, James Donald, and became the key language fingerprint to lock his identity.
5. The author used multiple clues to lock James Donald, but in the face of the questioning, the Satoshi Nakamoto's number one suspect only ended the conversation with "can't be disclosed".
6. Perhaps one day, artificial intelligence can help us confirm Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. But unless the government decrypts some unpredictable secrets, we will most likely never know his true identity beyond reasonable doubt.

If Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, was really the person I guess, he would never admit it. He may not even want to talk to me. To see him, I need to take a 20-hour flight and another 8-hour drive. But I had to 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 wrote the first in-depth coverage of Bitcoin for a magazine. This currency is outside the government and banking system. Twelve years have passed, and the founder of Bitcoin is still a mystery, and his wealth worth tens of billions of dollars has not yet been moved. No one in the history of science has ever been able to create a revolutionary technology without taking credit for it, nor earning a penny from it.

Believers cannot worship a flesh and blood body, so they add the legendary aura to this pseudonym. In 2022, Kanye West walked off the luxury car in Beverly Hills wearing a baseball cap printed with "Samoto"; Budapest erected the first bronze statue of Satoshi Nakamoto - a ghost in a hood; a group of liberals bought the retired cruise ship "Samoto" and recruited residents to establish the first Bitcoin sovereign society; more than one technical expert called for the award of him the Nobel Prize.

When I first reported Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011, I did not expect that his identity will remain an unsolved mystery more than ten years later. Since then, countless attempts to reveal the secrets have failed, and some have even become farces. In 2014, Newsweek pointed out that California system engineer Dorian Nakamoto was accused of several days of siege on his residence. Even "60 Minutes", which has top resources, was helpless and said that this task was "impossible". However, at this moment, I was sure that I had solved the puzzle.

I was a little nervous. This man spent all his time hiding his movements, and the truth I found was unsettling - he was completely different from the people imagined Satoshi Nakamoto. He repeatedly called himself a "dangerous person" and had a gun hidden in his home.

He also owns at least four properties on two continents. I thought he was hiding somewhere on the Big Island of Hawaii, but in the summer of 2023, the clue pointed to a small seaside town on Australia's east coast.

Just as I was anxious about this, I had dinner with my sister. She has been a TV news producer for 20 years and has personally witnessed the FBI raid on the residence of a "College Bomber" with the "48 Hours" column team. She suggested that I bring professional security personnel, put on body armor, and notify the local police in advance. "Thank you." I muttered.

That night she sent a text message: "I can't sleep, I don't know why." It was 4:09 am. "Two suggestions: If the target goes out, try to block him in public places; it is best to arrange for people to record videos from a long distance to keep a certificate."

Could it be Elon Musk?

On New Year's Eve in 2021, my email received an email titled "New Clues About Satoshi Nakamoto".

Since writing early reports on Bitcoin, such emails have appeared from time to time.

Sender Sahil Gupta posted a blog four years ago, speculating that Musk was "very likely" to be Satoshi Nakamoto. This time he provided new "evidence": a conversation with Musk's chief of staff, Sam Taylor. The content is vague and I did not respond.

Two days later, Gupta's detailed argument was sent to the same email address. The arguments vary from fuzzy to technical flow. I decided to reply. Sahil told me that in 2015, he went to the SpaceX Rocket Factory for an internship when he was studying for an undergraduate degree at Yale. Musk is at the office three days a week, and the two often meet in the corridor. Sahil majored in computer science and his graduation thesis proposed a central bank digital currency called "Federal Coin". The article thanked "Samoto, a real legend".

During his research paper, he read in-depth cryptocurrency literature, including Satoshi Nakamoto’s nine-page white paper. He noticed that Satoshi Nakamoto's vocabulary style is surprisingly similar to Musk: both of them love to use expressions such as "order of magnitude" and "bloody". Satoshi Nakamoto talks about currency in an abstract way, just as Musk did when he was in PayPal. In addition, both of them are proficient in C++ language and cryptography. Sahil began to doubt: Is the father of Bitcoin always hiding in the spotlight?

After graduation, Sahir tried to work for Musk. After several emails, he received a telephone interview with Chief of Staff Taylor.

At the end of the interview, he mustered up the courage to ask, “Is Elon Satoshi Nakamoto?”

Sahil recalled: "Taylor was silent for 15 seconds and said, 'What can I say?'" This was seen as a key clue by him. In the same year, he wrote an article titled "Elon Musk May Invent Bitcoin", believing that the Bitcoin community needs the return of its founder. Despite Musk's tweet denied ("Fake news. A few years ago, my friend gave me a little bit of Bitcoin, but I don't know where it was lost"), Sahil still firmly believes in his theory.

He listed more "evidence": PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek once said that the company's original intention was to create a currency that was separated from the bank; Satoshi Nakamoto and Musk were both used to being two spaces after the end; Musk often went to and from Vannez Airport, and the IP address of Bitcoin's accidental email was located in northern Los Angeles; early developers commented on Satoshi Nakamoto's "powerfulness", and Musk was the same.

At the end of 2021, Musk was just elected as the "Times" Person of the Year, SpaceX successfully connected with the International Space Station, and he even joked about Dogecoin on Twitter (the coin subsequently rose and fell sharply). Sahil believes that the public is ready to accept that Satoshi Nakamoto and Musk are the same person.

He claimed to be "99% sure" and blamed the outside world's doubts on "bias against Musk."

"But Musk is not humble, why deny it?"

Sahil explained this: "Businesses need marketing, but Bitcoin is different. The mystery of the early anonymous founder made it stronger and faster -that's what Musk is smart about."

I dare not assert that Sahir is correct, but I can understand his obsession. At that time, the unit price of Bitcoin soared to nearly $70,000, and its total market value exceeded $1 trillion. El Salvador has designated it as a fiat currency. In 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto's identity seemed irrelevant, but it was still an unsolved mystery.

Half a year later, I quit my job and devoted myself to this puzzle that had entangled me for more than ten years.

The Disappeared Founder

In this paper, Satoshi Nakamoto describes a new type of currency that runs in a network of volunteer computers and relies on transparent public ledgers maintained by the entire network, rather than a bank or government lending record system. Satoshi Nakamoto attached a more detailed link to the official description—later known as the Bitcoin White Paper.

Several members on the mailing list gave feedback on the software written by Satoshi Nakamoto, and he readily accepted it. "Thank you for your question," he wrote in an email, "I'm actually a bit inverted: I have to write all the code first to make sure it can solve all the problems, and then write the paper back." In early January 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto released the initial version of Bitcoin on the open source platform SourceForge. According to early participants, the number of downloads on the first day was only 127 times.

Many of the first users were programmers who believed that "currency needs to be upgraded in a hurry." Paper money will fade, wrinkle, break, and be contaminated with bacteria; the face value is fixed, easy to forge, and it is difficult to transfer large amounts. Bitcoin has durability, non-forgery, and almost unlimited splitting, and is expected to realize the ideal of Internet micro-payment - any amount can be instantly received worldwide.

As a digital currency maintained by ordinary individuals, Bitcoin is not subject to central authority intervention. Gold may be confiscated, bank accounts may be frozen, fiat currencies may depreciate due to central bank decisions or be subject to capital controls by dictators, but Bitcoin does not need to rely on these traditional systems.

The core of Satoshi Nakamoto’s creation is blockchain - a set of continuously expanding system transaction records (buying and selling, etc.). About every ten minutes, the latest transaction records are packaged into "blocks" and linked to the previous block through exquisite mathematical algorithms, making tampering with the content almost impossible. In traditional finance, such ledgers are maintained by banks or government agencies; while in the Bitcoin network, ledgers are stored and updated by computers from volunteers around the world, and each device runs Bitcoin software.

Although Bitcoin is an open source project (a collaboration between "people are picking up firewood"), someone still needs to coordinate it. In the first 20 months, Satoshi Nakamoto took on this role. He released the code, other developers made suggestions for modification, and he integrated the approved parts.

Software developer Gavin Andresen won the trust of Satoshi Nakamoto after four months of his involvement in the Bitcoin project. Satoshi first granted him permission to access the source code directly, and then told Gavin around September 2010 that he would be busy with other projects and would hand over control of the SourceForge code base and the project's "alert key" in the next few months - this key can broadcast emergency messages to all devices running Bitcoin software. For open source projects, these two are almost "the scepter of the leader"; at this point, Gavin officially became the chief developer of Bitcoin, leading a team of five volunteer programmers.

In the following months, Satoshi Nakamoto still occasionally participated in technical discussions, but Gavin's high-profile interaction with the outside world gradually rubbed against his hermit style. When PayPal and Visa freeze WikiLeaks accounts, some Bitcoin supporters advocated supporting the controversial organization with cryptocurrencies. Someone shouted on the BitcoinTalk forum: "Let them do it!" Satoshi Nakamoto sternly opposed: "No! Don't let them do it. The project needs to grow gradually so that the software can be improved synchronously. I beg WikiLeaks not to use Bitcoin... The attention at this moment will ruin us."

For journalists covering Bitcoin, Gavin has become the first choice for interviews. He is gentle and rational, willing to show himself to others in his real name, filling in the role of "Bitcoin Ambassador" that Satoshi Nakamoto never played. But this seemed to disturb Satoshi Nakamoto. In late April 2011, he sent an email to remind Gawen: "I hope you don't describe me as a mysterious black shadow anymore - the media will only hype Bitcoin into a label of 'black market currency'."

This became the last email Gavin received. When I first contacted Gavin in July of the same year, he said that "it has not been communicated with Satoshi Nakamoto for several months." On April 26, Gavin once told Nakamoto that he would go to the CIA headquarters (Linley, Virginia) to explain Bitcoin to intelligence personnel, but he received no reply. On the same day, Satoshi Nakamoto sent an email to at least one project partner programmer.

After that, he was completely silent. Except for a forum with a suspected account post many years later (it is difficult to tell whether it is true or false), Satoshi Nakamoto never appears again.

Gavin reached several consensuses with other early Bitcoin developers about Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. The second channel for Satoshi Nakamoto to publish his white paper is the P2P Foundation website, an idealistic non-profit organization dedicated to promoting various peer-to-peer networks. He filled in the website's profile that he lives in Japan, but no one believed he was really Japanese. His English is flawless, with English-style words: Bitcoin source code and BitcoinTalk forum posts, he prefers British spellings such as "colour" and "optimise".

Satoshi Nakamoto is strictly guarding his identity. When registering the domain name bitcoin.org, he hides information through anonymous service anonymousspeech.com, which itself is registered by a Tokyo short-term rental apartment agency. This service provides him with a email address for vistomail.com (can fake email sending time), and he has also used the free email address gmx.com. In the communication, he showed a carefully trained ambiguity: answer only technical questions and avoid all private topics.

His programming style is slightly outdated, suggesting that he may be older. For example, he adopted the "Hungarian Nomenclature" - a variable naming rule that was popular among Windows programmers in the 1990s.

Gavin believes that the Bitcoin code may be done by a small team or even a single person. When programmers collaborate, they usually add comment instructions to the code, but there are very few such comments in Bitcoin software. However, some people questioned: Bitcoin’s initial operation was too smooth and not like it was done independently by individuals. In addition, the use of "we" (we) multiple times in the white paper implies that "Samoto" may be synonymous with teams or institutions.

Before Satoshi retired, he had already begun to be deified. On April 16, 2011, BitcoinTalk user Wobber pointed out the complexity of his knowledge system and the abnormal behavior of his behavior - creating such disruptive technology without taking credit or making profits, and quietly getting out of it. Some people liken him to Zorro, or the masked David who aimed with a slingshot at the bank and the government "Goliath" (Goliath, a giant warrior among the Philippines, here symbolizing overwhelming power).

Is there a clue in the name? "Satoshi Nakamoto" can be interpreted as "Central Intelligence", which may imply that spy agencies are involved in the birth of Bitcoin. For example, the National Security Agency (NSA) may set up a long game: to build a financial network that is out of regulation, which is used for global agent funds scheduling and acts as a "honeypot" - allowing opponents to expose their whereabouts in self-safe transactions and allow them to be monitored by the NSA.

This is not entirely absurd. The US Naval Research Laboratory once developed an anonymous software "Onion Router" (TOR), which gave birth to the dark web; the FBI secretly launched an encrypted mobile phone and communication service ANOM, which was misused by criminal groups, and eventually led to more than 800 arrests; in the summer of 1996, the NSA cryptography department even published an internal paper "How to Crime Anonymous Electronic Cash" (later published), detailing the principles of cryptocurrencies.

Another interpretation dismantles "Samoto" into a splicing of the names of tech giants - SAMSUNG (Samsung), TOSHIba (Toshiba), NAKAmichi (Qindao), MOTOrola (Motorola) - implying that the corporate cabal manipulates everything. Reddit users have a big brainstorm and reorganize their letters into absurd sentences such as "Ma, I took NSA's oath" or "So a man took a shit".

Dan Kaminsky, a programmer who emerged in 2008 after discovering technical loopholes that could destroy the Internet, believes that Satoshi Nakamoto may be the internal team of the bank. “I suspect he is a squad of financial institutions,” Dan told me, “that’s the gut.”

But he added that Satoshi Nakamoto's identity "is not important to the nature of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has long surpassed Satoshi Nakamoto." This echoes a mainstream view: Nakamoto's design of quietly exiting as an anonymous entity is the foundation of Bitcoin's decentralized spirit - his disappearance has made this technology truly a global experiment without leaders.

"We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is"

At the 2022 Miami Bitcoin Conference, Satoshi Nakamoto did not show up, but was everywhere. The main stage is named after "Samoto Hall", and his text clips are carouseled on both screens, just like the "Denite" of the Scientific Church - outsiders read it plainly, but believers regard it as a proverb.

"Imagine gold is stolen and turned into lead."
“Twenty years later, Bitcoin transaction volume will be either extremely large 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 and threw a stack of 100 dollar bills into the front row: "This thing is still useful, isn't it crazy?" He claimed that Bitcoin is the ultimate warning to the fiat currency system and named the "enemy of the crypto revolution" - Warren Buffett, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and Black Rock CEO Larry Fink. Thiel called these people "an extension of state power" and Bitcoin "without a board of directors, we don't even know who Satoshi Nakamoto is" - the last sentence was deliberately emphasized by him.

"We don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is." In 2011, he was also an anonymous programmer who was paid attention to by the fringe geek circle; ten years later, he became the "myth creator" of a trillion-dollar market capitalization project, and Bitcoin ranked among the ninth largest asset in the world, second only to Tesla, surpassing Meta. No matter who he is, he has huge wealth. Computer scientist Sergio Demian Lerner speculated through analyzing early blockchain that Satoshi Nakamoto held a Bitcoin valued at about $40 billion (now higher), firmly ranking as the richest man in Bitcoin.

In the spring of 2021, when the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was listed, its prospectus submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission listed "Samoto's identity exposure" as a risk factor. It is not difficult to imagine a potential crisis: if Satoshi Nakamoto is proven to be an agent, extremist or financial criminal in a certain country, the legitimacy of Bitcoin may collapse. But the Bitcoin community has gradually regarded this mystery as a necessary design - decentralization requires the "birth of purity." Only by not having specific personalities can we avoid splitting due to disputes in the identity of the founder, thereby maximizing universal acceptance.

Therefore, the pseudonym "Samoto" was sacred. Although some people think that he hides it for tax avoidance or self-defense, mainstream views shape it as a "selfless martyr." The most ardent believers regard exploring their identity as blasphemy, as asking the Scientists 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 office wall listing more than a hundred candidates who were proposed as Satoshi Nakamoto. Most of the main candidates belong to the crypto-punk field, and their names have been proposed several times over the years as candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto. There are also some inconspicuous names from neighboring fields such as mathematics, cryptography and economics. Some were programmers who were early on participating in Bitcoin software projects. There are also some who are the creators of new cryptocurrencies. Many people are just famous smart people: Bill Gates Steve Jobs Musk.

Nick Szabo, Adam Back and Hal Finney were widely believed to be recognized as major candidates for years. Saab is a programmer who advocated decentralized currencies a few years before Bitcoin appeared. In the late 1990s, he conceived a Bitcoin predecessor called "Bit Gold". He has the necessary technical skills, and his writing style also has superficial similarities with Satoshi Nakamoto. But he has always denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto and there is no definite evidence that he was associated with the early development of Satoshi Nakamoto or Bitcoin. In addition, the Bitcoin white paper mentioned that Adam Back was the creator of Hashcash, the predecessor of another cryptocurrency. His email address was also one of the earliest people Satoshi Nakamoto contacted. He also denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, and his writing style was not as consistent as Sabo. Hal Finney is a legendary programmer and cryptographer who received his first ever Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto. But Finney also denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2009, and his condition deteriorated rapidly and eventually lost his ability to work. If Satoshi Nakamoto is exposed, Finney is the candidate most wanted to see for Bitcoin enthusiasts, because of his tragic heroic story and his aura of kindness-and because he has passed away (he died in 2014), he cannot create disgraceful news with disgraceful behavior or connection.

There have always been opposition parties in the Bitcoin community to investigate Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. Last fall, when a HBO documentary believed that liberalist, Canadian computer programmer and crypto enthusiast Peter Todd was the most likely candidate, the Bitcoin community's reaction was not only to express strong doubts about the documentary's conclusions, but also tormented at carrying out such a project. He made valuable contributions, so his desire for anonymity should be respected. It’s not people that matter, but ideas and code.

But Satoshi Nakamoto has placed his invention on the public square, so I think it is reasonable to explore who placed it here and the reasons behind it.

I carefully sorted out the 60,000 words left by Satoshi Nakamoto. His writing is simple and plain, and he rarely expresses his personal opinions or expresses his personality. Whenever I catch a trace of a unique style, I add it to the "Samoto Language Library" - this list finally accumulated more than 200 special vocabulary and phrases. "wet blanket", "sweet", "clobbering".

I wrote a computer program called "Satoshitizer" that can browse various archived articles suspected of "Satoshi", scan the Satoshi terminology in it, and generate statistics tables. I can use more than a dozen criteria to rank files instantly, including those of Satoshi Nakamoto’s term, users of electronic cash term, and discussers of software tools used by Satoshi Nakamoto.

One day in late April 2023, I found myself thinking about a word I saw in Satoshi’s article: hosed.

The word “hosed” stands out because Satoshi’s writing style tends to abandon personality or connect with any particular environment. I haven't heard of the word lately, it means screwing or destroying, and I vaguely reminiscent of the 1990s surfing or fraternity jargon.

I re-crushed my archive data and carefully marked each instance of the word that has been used. In the Metzdowd mailing list, the word "hosed" has been used four times in total in the three years before October 31, 2008 (i.e. Satoshi Nakamoto's first release of the Bitcoin White Paper). Two of them came from the same person: James A. Donald.

Although Donald is not active in the public discussion of Bitcoin, he has left a glimpse in his early history of Bitcoin—as the first person on the mailing list to respond to Satoshi Nakamoto. At that time, he raised technical questions about the scalability of Bitcoin and withdrew from the discussion after several rounds of exchanges with Satoshi Nakamoto. He is just an ordinary member of many crypto-punks who are interested in digital currencies.

At that time, Donald was only ranked No. 42 in my suspect spreadsheet, not only far behind the three popular candidates, but his reason for being shortlisted is also limited to his identity as a crypto-punk and libertarian who is proficient in C++ programming. But attracted by the coincidence of the word "hosed", I re-read the uncommon vocabulary list generated by the "Samoto Fingerprint Analyzer" in an attempt to verify whether Donald has used other rare Satoshi expressions.

As expected. In the twenty-year corpus I have collected, Donald is the only one who has used the word "fencible" (meaning "stolen goods") - a word Satoshi Nakamoto has appeared once in his works in the form of "non-fencible". Even more shocking is that Donald's record of using the word goes back to his October 1998 speech on the cipher-punk mailing list. My brain started to make a bell. "fence" is a common slang term for selling stolen goods as a verb, but "fencible" in the form of adjective is rare. There are very few Google search results, and even when I searched the New York Times historical database (dating back to 1857) with 13 million articles, the word appeared zero under the relevant semantics.

Unlike conventional terms in digital currencies or cryptography such as "trusted third parties" or "zero knowledge proof", "fencible" and "hosed" are not professional terms in computer science or cryptography, they are more like fingerprints that embody a personal language style.

I began to investigate Donald in depth. His whereabouts of the Internet are erratic: various websites claim that he is Canadian, say he has passed away, and point out that "James A. Donald" is not his real name. Although he almost never reveals personal information in his posts, the details are still scattered. He comes from Australia but lives in Silicon Valley for a long time. He is similar to Satoshi Nakamoto. His writing is sometimes spelled in American style and sometimes in Commonwealth.

On the ideological level, Donald blends extreme liberalism (which is inherently anarchic capitalism) with a fanatical belief in the power of cryptography change. In 1996, he wrote: "Everyone, this is our plan - we want to use advanced mathematics to destroy the state machine. The method is to replace the current corporate system with cryptography mechanisms, so that more people can have the opportunity to evade and resist taxes."

He showed a special interest in digital currencies. In 1995, it was predicted that "people will eventually bypass banks and transfer funds directly." Between 2006 and 2009, Donald used Satoshi's electronic cash terms in the Metzdowd mailing list far more than other participants.

When examining his programming style, he found that in the late 1990s, Donald promoted a communication encryption software called "Crypto Kong". The software is written in the same C++ language as Bitcoin. Source code obtained through the Internet Archives shows that Crypto Kong and Bitcoin have multiple commonalities: both support Windows systems; both adopt the Hungarian nomenclature preferred by Satoshi Nakamoto; the code partition uses eye-catching slash separators; both use elliptic curve passwords to form public-private key pairs.

Deeply digging into personal information and discovering: Donald was born in 1952 and is now over 70 years old, which coincides with the "Samoto code style that implies his older" characteristics pointed out by early Bitcoin developers. He is not active in mainstream social platforms under his real name. The $2.8 million Palo Alto home and $400,000 Austin property are both blurred in Google Street View (this feature needs to be formally applied to Google, or has internal permissions like a son of Donald who works for Google). It is difficult to find photos of him through public channels, similar to Satoshi Nakamoto. He uses the Swiss private email Proton Mail, and runs anonymous blog "Jim Log", which says he has "has been separated for a long time." The clue clicks like a gear.

The significance of reexamining Donald as the first responder at this moment, Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008: throwing his shocking work to the world but no one cares about it, so he directed and acted to throw out technical questions, which not only promoted discussion but also created misleading.

And his blog leaked more clues: On the eve of October 31, 2008, Donald was paying close attention to the financial crisis. The opening of its blog post "The Roots of Crisis" on October 11 asserted that "the rescue of the market will surely fail", and the title of the Times sealed in the Bitcoin Genesis block is "The Chancellor of the Exchequer is about to implement the second round of rescue plan."

More clues emerge: Donald owns multiple properties in Hawaii. On June 19, 2008 (a few months before Satoshi announced his invention to the world), the Honolulu Star published an obituary of World War II veteran "Satoshi Nakamoto", the deceased at the age of 84. Is this an identity theft to find a pseudonym?

Although "James" rarely reveals identity information, his ideological trajectory is clearly identifiable in his blog post: he was a radical left in his early years, joined the Spartacus alliance at the age of 15, and later broke away because of "disillusioned with participatory democracy and no good impression of representative democracy." At the age of 17, he joined anarchist socialist and Maoist organizations, "just because these two factions are most hated by Trotskyists." Finally, property rights are determined to be freedom and transform into anarchic capitalist.

To verify his academic background, I contacted an insider at the University of Sydney School of Physics. Professor Bob Hewitt, who participated in the interview, recalled that the Melbourne applicant "has a bohemian temperament" - when asked about accommodation arrangements, Donald declared "ready to sleep under the bridge." Although he gave people the impression of being "friendly but weird", his doctoral thesis "Assumptions of the Singularity Theorems and the Rejuvenation of Universes" was rejected because "no one can understand it" and eventually dropped out of school.

Career trajectory shows: Donald first wrote software for Apple computers, then went to the United States to develop electronic games for Epyx, and then moved to the database field. His blog reveals a profound insight into the nature of Bitcoin: "This is just a prototype system, but it is used too early as the final solution." He always looks at Bitcoin from a historical perspective and regards it as a stepping stone toward an ideal future.

I never agree with the assumption that is common in the Bitcoin world -Satoshi Nakamoto must be a benevolent personified. I always feel that those Bitcoin believers who deified Satoshi Nakamoto as a half-human and half-god are just wishful projections: Imagine that he is selfless, humble and low-key, and are prophets who travel to save mankind from the future. The reason why Hal Finney became the attractive Satoshi Nakamoto was because he perfectly fitted with this ideal image.

Donald is completely different. In his blog, he promotes a dark ideology called "neo-reactionary" - a trend that has fascinated some people in Silicon Valley. Neo-reactionists believe that society has been hijacked by what they call the "Temple" (a group of academics, media and bureaucratic elites). They despise their efforts to pursue social justice and advocate that abandoning democratic systems and restoring monarchy are the best path for mankind to move forward. Donald's new reactionary variant is more mixed with naked Christian fundamentalism and excessive paranoid delusions: he blames the COVID-19 pandemic on the Jesuit conspiracy.

In addition to the complex political declarations, Donald continues to export racist, homophobic, misogynistic rhetoric and various offensive words. His harsh words made him banned by Slate Star Code in 2014 - a heavyweight Silicon Valley blog known for inclusive discussions on taboo topics such as IQ science is unbearable. But under a relatively uncensored domain name in Laos, he openly advocated "to make women compliant by whipping their hips or upper backs", claiming that "the rape allegations are mostly untrue." Donald has a large number of fans in the "Awakening" and the alt-right blogosphere.

If Donald was Satoshi Nakamoto, wouldn’t his motivation for choosing to release Bitcoin under a pseudonym be obvious? He hopes that the world will accept this genius invention purely based on the value of the work itself, rather than stifle it because of its identity bias. He was hiding his identity not because Bitcoin might endanger himself, but because he was afraid that his existence would endanger the future of Bitcoin.

I doubt whether anyone in the circle has known or suspected that Donald is Satoshi Nakamoto. If Satoshi Nakamoto is a harmless ordinary citizen like "Dorian Nakamoto", "respecting Satoshi Nakamoto's privacy" is at least a tenable position; if he is a dissident living under an autocratic regime, I would also like to protect this secret. But if Satoshi Nakamoto is really Donald? This will completely disintegrate the narrative of Bitcoin inventors as the "crypto-messiah" - the sacred image of giving up fame and fortune for the noble ideals. Among those who shout "respect for China's privacy", is anyone already aware that if the creator of Bitcoin is proven to be a far-right lunatic, it will inevitably lead to a public relations disaster. What they really want to protect is the reputation of this belief system and the value of their own investment portfolio? In June 2020, Hash Cash founder Adam Barker (long suspected of being Satoshi Nakamoto) hinted on Twitter: "Perhaps we should be mentally prepared to cut off from Satoshi Nakamoto. To be on the safe side, it is best to completely erase this pseudonym."

"Samoto's identity is irrelevant," wrote Ray Dillinger, who had worked with Hal Finney for code reviews for Bitcoin. "The protocol itself exists. Whether the creator is a third world dictator, a homeless man under the Belize bridge hole, a Bedouin riding a camel through the Biltavell Desert on a cell phone, or a trolley vendor in Nairobi, the agreement is no different from what the NSA crypto analyst, a GRU-funded 'cyber navy', a well-known security researcher or a crypto-punk. 'Samoto' does not exist outside the protocol. He is just a hat someone wore during the development process. As for whom the hat is worn - it doesn't matter at all."

" I know who Satoshi Nakamoto is"

I wrote to James Donald for an interview. A few days later, he received his reply unexpectedly. "Email communication is more convenient," Donald wrote, but also said he might be willing to communicate with phone or video. He will need a few days to confirm the schedule.

Two months passed and Donald never agreed to the real-time conversation. Should I go to Australia to search in person? What makes me hesitate about Donald, Satoshi Nakamoto's hypothesis, is that Satoshi Nakamoto has shown a rich emotional spectrum in his past communications.他会表达感激（"万分感谢"），流露怜悯（"可怜的家伙"），展现谦逊（"深表歉意"）与自谦（"我擅编程胜于文字"）。当我翻阅唐纳德经年累月的文字档案，试图寻觅同理心、感恩或热忱的蛛丝马迹时——哪怕是一个感叹号、一句致歉、片刻的同理心或伙伴情谊——目之所及却只有情感的荒漠。

但在所有痴迷数字货币的密码朋克中，唯有一人声称知晓中本聪真身。"我知道中本聪是谁，"詹姆斯·唐纳德在其博客某篇帖子的评论区曾写道，"也洞悉他的政治与社会诉求。"若此言非虚，他将是现存唯一可信的知情者。我决意必须见到此人。

尽管唐纳德职业生涯多在加州度过，但显然在澳大利亚拥有或曾拥有房产。通过查阅其在美国多处房产的房地产评估记录，我发现本世纪初的某段时间，他名下位于奥斯汀的某处房产登记地址竟指向澳大利亚东北海岸某街道。近年评估中，其美国房产仍注册于同一澳洲小镇，只是地址变更为邮政信箱。已知其妻2016年离世，通过"寻墓网站"我找到了该镇墓地中纪念她的牌匾照片。五年后，他在博客发布过一张疑似露台视角的照片：前景是盛着自酿私酒的玻璃杯与陶罐，远方碧海粼粼的地平线上点缀着几座小岛。将该景象与同镇其他海景照片比对，地理特征完全吻合。

我联系了私家侦探丹尼尔·奎因，他居住在与疑似唐纳德所在海滨小镇车程相宜的区域。向奎因提供了房屋地址及二十年前的老照片——这张摄于唐纳德之子废弃大学博客的照片，是能找到的唐纳德最近期影像。

数日后，丹尼尔发来监视报告。"庭院荒草丛生灌木疯长，此人绝非爱花之人。"随信附上的房屋照片显示，这栋与另两户共享车道的房屋前，孤零零的棕榈树旁，山坡上矗立着架高的平房。透过疯长的植被，可见面向珊瑚海的木质露台。

当日虽未得见詹姆斯本尊，但数周后清晨收到捷报：丹尼尔成功抓拍到立于屋门前的男子。与二十年前照片相比，尽管须发尽白，浓密络腮胡、金属框眼镜与丰腴鼻梁的特征完美契合。三日后，我已踏上飞往澳大利亚的航班。

“我这人有个毛病，就是话太多”

纱门上没有门铃，于是我敲了敲詹姆斯家的门框。紧张让我的喉咙发干。虽然我不确定詹姆斯本人是否就是中本聪，但我怀疑他可能是"中本聪"这个集体身份的一部分。无论如何，他是我所知的唯一公开声称知晓中本聪真实身份的人。

我担心他会如何接待我。詹姆斯显然费尽心思让自己难以被找到。

穿过门廊走向正门时，我看见唐纳德正戴着耳机坐在客厅电脑前。几小时前他刚发布的最新博文，是一篇关于"格鲁吉亚人（指国家格鲁吉亚）不愿让教堂被摧毁或变成盖亚崇拜与同性性爱的圣地，不愿看着古老美丽的建筑被推土机铲平、被恶魔般的后现代怪物取代"的长篇大论。

西方非政府组织正试图让"格鲁吉亚被同性恋化，然后投入对抗俄罗斯的绞肉机"。

见我敲击门框没有反应，我直接敲响了正门。片刻后詹姆斯开门走出，身穿红色迷彩长袖衫和黑色保暖内衣。

我立即开始解释。我曾给他发过邮件——"哦，我很少查看邮件。"詹姆斯说。我提醒他去年的通信往来，以及我正在撰写的书。并向他表示如果我未尽一切努力与他对话，将是我的失职。

詹姆斯说，"简而言之，我不能告诉你任何我不能透露的事。"他的语气温和，带着困惑的幽默感。

我指出他曾公开坚称自己知道中本聪的身份及其社会政治目标。能否详细说明？"不，抱歉。"

"好吧......你是真的知道？还是说你只是有强烈怀疑对象？""我对可能是谁有很好的推测，但实际上——呃，不能确定。"

"你认为会是哈尔·芬尼吗？""这个问题我无法回答。"

"是因为要尊重他的隐私吗？""我被禁止向任何人透露任何信息，包括已经说过的话。"

我提议请他喝杯啤酒。詹姆斯拒绝了，"可以共进午餐吗？"我继续提议。詹姆斯笑了。"听着，"他说，"我有个毛病就是话太多，喝几杯后更是口无遮拦，所以还是算了。"

我试图延续对话——递上我的联系方式和之前写的书——但他的回应变得简短敷衍。"住在这里确实令人向往。"我指着壮丽的海景说道。"是啊。"詹姆斯低头应道。道谢后，我转身走下山坡。

比特币没有DNA检测

我用了十五年追寻中本聪的身份。为此我学会了编程，聘请了机器学习专家、文体分析专家和私家侦探，历经37小时旅程只换来三分钟会面。我确信没人像我这样执着于解开这个谜题。我开始理解为何萨希尔·古普塔坚信埃隆·马斯克就是中本聪。是时候该停手了。

或许终有一天，人工智能能帮助我们确证中本聪的身份。但此刻我确信，除非政府解密某些难以预料的机密，否则我们很可能永远无法超越合理怀疑地知晓他的真实身份。记忆会褪色，证人会离世。比特币没有亲子鉴定，要证明谁是中本聪，除非本人现身并展示相关私钥，或至少提供未经伪造的同期文件佐证。随着岁月流逝，即便曾有线索，踪迹也愈发模糊。

接受这个事实让我如释重负。我仍为中本聪的创举目眩神迷——但几乎同样震撼于他消逝得如此完美。作为乌托邦式构想，比特币本无成功可能；但作为新兴资产类别，它却展现出顽强生命力。价格起起落落，再创新高，今年一月突破109,000美元（截稿时回落至85,000美元）。富达投资如今建议散户在投资组合中配置少量加密货币。区块链技术的普及势不可挡。

中本聪已成为其幕后之人永远无法企及的存在——这个无需肉身与历史负累的理念，终将永生不灭。

（节选自本杰明·华莱士所著《神秘的中本先生：十五年解密加密世界幕后天才之路》，皇冠出版社，3月18日上市）