New research by Monero Outreach has suggested that Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto could have authored the whitepaper of privacy coin Monero.

Satoshi Nakamoto is regarded as one of the most revolutionary minds in the past decade with his development of the first cryptocurrency Bitcoin in 2008.

Monero which was developed in 2012 shares similar attributes in that its founder Nicolas Van Saberhagen is also unknown.

This has sparked debates in recent years regarding the identity of Saberhagen and this latest research has put together some pieces that suggest that Nakomoto could be Saberhagen.

Monero whitepaper suggests that the project is an improvement on Bitcoin

According to the research, Monero could have been developed as an improvement to Bitcoin by Satoshi. In the original whitepaper of the privacy coin titled “CryptoNote 1.0,” Saberhagen defined Monero as a currency focused on privacy and empowerment.

In addition, Monero improved on Bitcoin by changing its blockchain and using a new proof-of-work protocol to address issues that had risen after the invention of Bitcoin.

Also, the research found that there was a number of smaller enhancements to Monero that showed the direct improvements on Bitcoin like simplifying transaction scripts and adjusting block size and rewards.

Nakamoto had hinted on a privacy coin in 2010

Nakamoto had also written on a similar direction in a Bitcointalk forum posted on August 13, 2010, where he posted concepts about privacy within cryptocurrencies that would later appear in Monero whitepaper.

Also, by the time of the CryptoNote Whitepaper, Nakamoto had witnessed the struggles with Bitcoin’s block size changes Nakamoto himself stealthfully inserted a 1 MB block size limit into the Bitcoin codebase in 2010 and mining reward halving that the new whitepaper tackled.

Monero outreach editor Almutasim, also reiterates that Satoshi had enough time to see the flaws of Bitcoin before revising the algorithms when writing Monero whitepaper.

Monero Outreach researchers believe that the historical motivations and scientific analysis of Monero’s whitepaper give compelling evidence that links Satoshi Nakamoto being Nicolas Van Saberhagen.