The mysterious inventor of Bitcoin pseudonymously known as Satoshi Nakamoto may be a 44-year-old Australian named Craig Steven Wright.
Writing in a report in Wired Magazine, Andy Greenberg and "Gwern Branwen" say they have obtained "the strongest evidence yet" of Nakamoto's identity that points them to Wright, though they caution that there's no way to be absolutely certain.
"Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he’s a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did," the pair writes.
Who is behind the cryptocurrency that has exploded in popularity since its launch in 2009 has been a source of investigation among enthusiasts and media outlets alike for quite some time. Most notably a California man named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto was outed as its creator by Newsweek in 2014, a claim he has "unconditionally" denied.
According to the Wired report, an anonymous source leaked documents to Branwen in November, which include a number of blog posts, emails, transcripts, and accounting forms that corrobate at least a substantial link between Wright and the creation of Bitcoin.
In one now-deleted blog posted right before Bitcoin went live in Jan. 2009, Wright apparently wrote, "The Beta of Bitcoin is live tomorrow. This is decentralized... We try until it works."
Interestingly, Wired is not the only publication on the trail. Gizmodo also received a cache of leaked documents and published a competing report on Tuesday, which apparently links Wright and his now-deceased friend Dave Kleiman to the creation of Bitcoin.
"I hacked Satoshi Naklamoto [sic]," an anonymous emailer wrote in their first message to Gizmodo. "These files are all from his business account. The person is Dr Craig Wright."
Not among the leaked documents but an interesting find among the evidence: Wright tried to start a Bitcoin-based bank called Hotwire, backed by $23 million in Bitcoin he owned, which Wired writes, is "a strangely large stash for an unknown player in the bitcoin world."
You can see Wright speaking in this video from the Bitcoin Investor Conference in Las Vegas.
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