It’s unclear if Satoshi Nakamoto, the modern day Prometheus who introduced humankind to Bitcoins, has suffered a similar fate. No one knows what led Satoshi to create Bitcoin, whether Satoshi is a man or a woman, what race or religious background Satoshi possesses, or even if he or she really goes by the name “Satoshi Nakamoto”. Perhaps Satoshi Nakamoto isn’t a single individual, but an alter ego adopted by a collective, calling themselves “Satoshi” the way others might say “I am Spartacus”.

All we know for sure is that an entity identifying itself as “Satoshi Nakamoto” introduced the idea of Bitcoin to a cryptography mailing list on 31 October 2008. Along with a description, Nakamoto provided a reference implementation, known as Bitcoin Core. From there, the idea of Bitcoin took off, becoming the $15 Billion market cap (as of December 27th 2016) behemoth we know today.