Who is Satoshi?

1. 01 Someone else Default hypothesis 42%

   An unknown figure never suspected, or a small group

   for The flawless opsec, the million bitcoins never touched and the complete disappearance all point to someone who never appeared on any list. The cypherpunk community numbered hundreds of active members.

   against Unprovable by construction: it is the wager of avowed ignorance, not a lead one can follow.

2. 02 Nick Szabo Denied it 23%

   Legal scholar and computer scientist, inventor of bit gold and the smart contract

   for Stylometric studies (the Aston team, 2014) identify him as the most likely author of the whitepaper. Bit gold is the closest precursor to Bitcoin, and the only major precursor left uncited, which some read as the modesty of an author erasing himself.

   against Has always denied it, with no material evidence nor any signature of the early blocks. A stylistic caveat: his blog is in American English (« favor », « defense », « behavior »), whereas Satoshi writes British English (« favour ») — unless one assumes a deliberate spelling disguise. It is deep stylometry, not spelling, that places him at the top.

3. 03 Hal Finney Denied it · died in 2014 12%

   Cryptographer, creator of RPoW, first Bitcoin contributor

   for First recipient of a transaction (12 January 2009), the very first active supporter, an expert in reusable proof of work. A striking coincidence: he lived in Temple City, a few streets away from a certain Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto.

   against Denied it until his death (ALS, 2014). Exchanges show Satoshi and Finney active in parallel.

4. 04 Michael Niklaus Weber Person of interest no.1 8%

   Operator of AnonymousSpeech and Vistomail, the anonymity services Satoshi used

   for The strongest material lead in the file. All of Satoshi's anonymity tooling comes out of his ecosystem: bitcoin.org is registered through his AnonymousSpeech service (registrar eNom), and the address satoshi@vistomail.com preceded satoshin@gmx.com — yet Vistomail belongs to him (admin wwwmichi@gmx.ch decoded on the archived Plesk page, « Michi » = Michael, Swiss GMX). Business Insider (2014) additionally documented a Bank Weber « Swiss Internet Bank », a Swiss account in the name of « Mike Weber » and Western Union transfers to « Michael Niklaus Weber ». A Swiss-German profile, mastery of servers and anonymity, cash payments hard to manage: his need for an anonymous online payment is exactly the first sentence of the whitepaper. Motive, means and opportunity all present.

   against But motive is not proof, and the trap remains whole: selling anonymity does not make you the author of Bitcoin. Above all, the only test of authorship available works against him: the English of AnonymousSpeech (Wayback) is non-native, typically German-speaking (« Domain » capitalised, « a japanese registar »), whereas Satoshi's is perfectly native and British. Business Insider already concluded there was "no evidence Weber authored the code"; there is neither a trace in the code nor a signature of the early blocks.

5. 05 Adam Back Denied it 6%

   British cryptographer, inventor of Hashcash (reference 6 of the whitepaper)

   for Hashcash is at the heart of Bitcoin's consensus; Satoshi contacted him among the very first, in August 2008. British English, like Satoshi.

   against Stylometry does not point to him: his Hashcash paper writes « favor » (American) where Satoshi writes « favour ». Has always denied it.

6. 06 Wei Dai Denied it 4%

   Cryptographer, author of b-money (reference 1) and of the Crypto++ library

   for b-money is the very first reference of the whitepaper; Satoshi contacted him before publication.

   against Satoshi was asking him for basic information about b-money, which a sole author would not do. Different style, and he denied it.

7. 07 Elon Musk Denied it 2%

   Founder of X.com / PayPal, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX

   for On the brink of bankruptcy in late 2008, exactly at the birth of Bitcoin; a background in online payments; writes « favour » (Commonwealth English).

   against No cryptographer background, consumed in 2008 by the survival of Tesla and SpaceX, denied it in 2017. The « favour » spelling is shared by hundreds of millions of speakers.

8. 08 Dorian Nakamoto Wrongly accused 2%

   American-Japanese engineer, wrongly accused by Newsweek in 2014

   for Legally bears the name Satoshi Nakamoto; an engineering background; a low-key profile.

   against Almost solely a coincidence of name. Denied it, showed no cryptographic skill, and the community refuted the accusation.

9. 09 Craig Wright Refuted in court (2024) 1%

   Australian computer scientist who has claimed to be Satoshi since 2016

   for Claims the identity; a few associates supported him at first.

   against Never signed with the keys of the early blocks. The High Court of London (COPA v Wright, March 2024) ruled that he is NOT Satoshi and that his evidence was forged.

The leads in detail in the chapter Stylometry, time zones, candidates, and the style analysis in the whitepaper.