In 2008 the name Satoshi Nakamoto was introduced to the world when the Bitcoin Whitepaper was published and distributed through the Cryptography Mailing List in November of that year.

From that publication throughout 2009 that name (and others) appeared regularly in correspondence and documentation surrounding Bitcoin; until Satoshi Nakamoto faded away in early 2010, leaving Bitcoin to the world as a means of liberation from centuries of financial slavery.

During those few short years Satoshi Nakamoto was visible he/ she/ they worked with various individuals on the open-source team. However, regardless of the open transparency of the invention itself, personal information concerning Satoshi Nakamoto was carefully concealed from the publication of the Bitcoin Whitepaper (dated Halloween 2008) through his /her /their final correspondence in the spring of 2011 when he/ she/ they had "moved on to different things".

'Naka' & 'Moto'

Since that brief, vague introduction to the world everyone has been trying to learn the true identity of the "inventor of Bitcoin". If you translate the name from Japanese into English the work "Satoshi" means "clear thinking or quick-witted", the word "Naka" means “medium, inside, or relationship”; and, the word “Moto” mean’s “origin, or foundation”. The possible combinations of those translations can all be cleverly applied to the one (s) who invented such an ingenious algorithm. However, regardless of the cleverness of the hints the world still only has guesses as to the true identity of this brilliant coder. Many have guessed at his/ her/ their identity.

Variety of names

The New Yorker's Joshua Davis hypothesized that Satoshi Nakamoto was Michael Clear, a graduate cryptography understudy at Dublin and Trinity staff. He reached this conclusion by breaking down 80,000 expressions of Nakamoto's online works and dealing with semantic signs. Interestingly enough, even after that guess, Davis also suspected Finnish financial social researcher and previous diversions designer Vili Lehdonvirta.

Adam Penenberg at FastCompany controversially claimed that as Nakamoto could be three different people: Neal King, Vladimir Oksman, and Charles Bry. He came to that point while tracing the typewriting of particular expressions from Nakamoto's bitcoin paper.

Others in the rapidly growing cryptoshpere seemed to accept that Satoshi Nakamoto was, in fact, Martii Malmi, a designer living in Suomi who had been publicly involved in bitcoin since the beginning, building up its interface. Jed McCaleb was another possible being tossed around. Being the resident of Japan and an adherent of Japanese culture, he set up a tricky bitcoin trading platform Mt. Gox and participated in developing decentralized payment systems Ripple and later Stellar.

Another hypothesis was that either of the tech researchers Donal O'Mahony and Michael Peirce alone, or together, were Satoshi after the detailed comparison of the paper they created in regards to computerized payments along with Hitesh Tewari versus the phrasing in the Bitcoin White Paper. O'Mahony and Tewari studied together at Trinity college, just during the time Michael Clear was Trinity's student.

Israeli understudies from Weizmann Institute Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir (Israeli undergrad students) co-wrote a paper proposing a connection amongst Satoshi and Silk Road, the underground market site that was brought down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in October 2013. Japanese scientist Shinichi Mochizuki was also suspected, though he admitted that the proof is indirect at the best case. In February 2014 Newsweek published a story naming Dorian S. Nakamoto as the true Satoshi Nakamoto. But he officially denied everything about bitcoin.

So, what is Satoshi Nakamoto doing now?

Just as no one knows Satoshi's true identity, likewise, no one knows where that/ those individual (s) are are, not what he/ she/ they are doing today. The final words of this legend, dated April 23, 2011, will forever be known as “I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone." With those words, the world is left with a legacy, Bitcoin, a system, a process, a brilliant piece of math that has given the entire planet a means to store and transfer money; WITHOUT third party intervention or control.

So, to whoever Satoshi Nakamoto may be, the world thanks you for your gift; well thought out and executed from beginning to end; from the White Paper to the code to the fact that you came, bestowed the gift upon us, and disappeared into history, leaving us with only a mystery; and the Bitcoin itself.

Danny Donahue