Who is the real Satoshi Nakamoto holding 1 million Bitcoins?

Satoshi Nakamoto has always been the most mysterious figure in the Web3 industry and also the most powerful behind-the-scenes big shot. How powerful is he? If one day Satoshi Nakamoto decided to sell his Bitcoin and cause a market crash, many people around the world would be displaced, assets would go to zero. This is the influence Satoshi Nakamoto has.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Is he a man or a woman? What does he do? How old is he? Why did he create Bitcoin and then disappear? These questions about Satoshi Nakamoto are the biggest secrets in the Web3 industry.

Who exactly is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Let’s go back to November 1, 2008, when Satoshi Nakamoto first appeared online. On that day, a mysterious discussion group and cryptography mailing list posted a new message. The post said, “I am developing a new electronic cash system. It uses a fully peer-to-peer network and does not require any trusted third party.” The signature of this post was Satoshi Nakamoto, which is a Japanese name.

Three months later, Satoshi Nakamoto reappeared. He posted the Bitcoin v0.1 white paper on the P2P Foundation website. However, at that time, the website was not fully anonymous; it required registrants to fill in their date of birth. Satoshi Nakamoto filled in April 5, 1975. From this, we can conclude that Satoshi Nakamoto is currently about 49 years old. Of course, this conclusion assumes that the birthday he provided was true.

Some believe that April 5 was a false date, which is very possible. April 5 is a significant date in monetary history. On April 5, 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, making it illegal for Americans to hold gold. Roosevelt confiscated and seized gold from Americans and exchanged it for U.S. dollars. After that, the dollar was devalued by 40%, and the gold price was artificially pushed up to make U.S. debt less burdensome during the Great Depression.

Although this action helped resolve the Great Depression, it had far-reaching consequences: the wealth of the American people was looted by 40%. Many scholars later regarded this as one of the most unconstitutional acts in U.S. history, a direct theft from the people, and one of the least protective actions for citizens’ livelihoods. Therefore, April 5 is a very famous date.

If Satoshi Nakamoto deliberately chose April 5 to mock the government, this date might be a satirical act. Given this context, the idea that Satoshi Nakamoto is 49 years old based on this date might be incorrect.

Beyond this clue, are there other clues about Satoshi Nakamoto? Let’s move forward in time. On December 12, 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto posted his last message on a Bitcoin forum. After that, his public activity and comments gradually decreased. By April 2011, he issued his final public statement, announcing that he had distanced himself from Bitcoin and was focusing on other things. However, he still maintained contact with some key Bitcoin figures, such as the chief technical developer Gavin Andresen, and he also made some other suggestions about Bitcoin.

A year after his last message, Gavin Andresen publicly stated that although Satoshi Nakamoto contacted him, his replies became less and less frequent, and eventually, they lost contact altogether. Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared quietly, leaving the world with a great Bitcoin system.

But everyone knows that as Bitcoin’s price skyrocketed, Satoshi Nakamoto’s mystery became more and more intriguing. The first question is: who is he? The second is: how much Bitcoin does he hold?

If he makes a move, the entire market could become highly volatile. For example, in the genesis block of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto mined 50 BTC. The address is as follows, and there is also a wallet address that is directly related to Satoshi Nakamoto, possibly his holdings.

The total amount of Bitcoin held by all addresses that could belong to Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to be around 1 million BTC. However, this number is just an estimate because, as a master cryptographer, it’s unlikely that Satoshi would expose all his addresses. It’s difficult to verify exactly how many addresses he owns.

Who exactly is Satoshi Nakamoto? We can only infer through relevant evidence. The three most likely candidates are:

First clue: Satoshi Nakamoto – Satoshi is a Japanese name. He claims to be Japanese. However, the white paper he wrote in English is as fluent and native-like as a native speaker. The white paper contains no Japanese words or idioms. In his speeches and code switches, he uses British and American English, and his online activity occurs at all hours of the day.

This suggests two possibilities: one, he is deliberately hiding his nationality and timezone; two, the account is not operated by just one person but by a team, with multiple people posting and commenting under the same account.

If Satoshi is part of such a team, then there are significant issues: which team is it?

If he is an individual: In December 2015, Wired magazine reported that an Australian scholar named Craig might be Satoshi Nakamoto himself, citing numerous pieces of evidence. However, this person was exposed in 2018. He gave a keynote speech called “Lighting Network,” which was immediately criticized by Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, as a scammer.

The industry generally does not believe this person is Satoshi Nakamoto because the real Satoshi would never reveal himself or give public speeches. If he did, he would likely face prosecution by the U.S. government, similar to CZ.

The three most plausible suspects in the industry are:

1. Shinichi Mochizuki, a Japanese mathematician and professor at Kyoto University’s Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences. He is Japanese, but he left Japan with his parents at age five and moved to the U.S. He speaks fluent English. He studied at Princeton. He also has a known acquaintance, Ted, an American information technology pioneer, philosopher, and sociologist. Ted said, “I believe the person I know as Mochizuki Shinichi is Satoshi Nakamoto,” reasoning that Mochizuki is smart enough and his research includes the mathematical algorithms used in Bitcoin.

Mochizuki has denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, but his denial is not conclusive—if he truly were Satoshi, he would not admit it.

2. Nick Szabo: In December 2013, blogger Sky Gray analyzed Satoshi’s writing style using stylometric analysis—comparing word choices and habits to identify authorship. They concluded that Satoshi’s real identity might be Nick Szabo, a former professor at George Washington University. Szabo is passionate about decentralized currencies and wrote a paper on “Bit Gold” before Bitcoin’s white paper, which is considered a precursor to Bitcoin.

Szabo is known for using pseudonyms and online aliases. In a May 2011 article, he discussed Bitcoin’s creator, saying, “Among the people I know, only three are interested enough and capable of implementing this idea,” and later, “Then Satoshi Nakamoto appeared, along with a fourth person.” It’s unclear whether Szabo was hiding his identity intentionally or trying to boast.

In his own paper on “Bit Gold,” Szabo described a solution involving a public registration system, public key signatures, and Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT). This system creates a chain of blocks with new properties, providing a way to verify new coins and timestamps. This architecture is very similar to Bitcoin, making Szabo a very likely candidate. However, he has never officially claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

3. Dorian Nakamoto: In 2014, widespread rumors suggested that Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese-American living in California, was Satoshi Nakamoto. A journalist claimed to have found the real Satoshi, who was a Japanese-American named Dorian Nakamoto, living at home. The article was highly publicized, and the journalist interviewed him, asking many questions about Bitcoin. Dorian answered well, and his responses seemed to confirm his identity.

He said, “I am no longer involved in Bitcoin, and I don’t discuss it. It has been transferred to others, and I have no contact with them.” Such a response seemed very convincing.

This story caused a stir online. Eventually, the account Satoshi Nakamoto used to publish his white paper on the P2P Foundation website responded, saying, “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” That account had been inactive for years, which made it seem suspicious.

The above three are only suspects. The true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown, and some people believe he might be someone else entirely.

For example, some say it could be Hal Finney, who lived in the same community as Dorian Nakamoto for ten years. Finney was the first person to receive Bitcoin through the transaction mechanism. However, he passed away in 2014 due to illness, and during the time when Satoshi was actively writing Bitcoin code, Finney was already seriously ill and unable to code quickly.

So, Finney might have known Satoshi, but it’s unlikely he was Satoshi himself. There are other rumors, but industry consensus suggests only these three are the most plausible.

Regardless of who Satoshi Nakamoto is or whether he is still alive, I believe everyone only hopes for one thing: “If you have a problem, talk it out.” Please, don’t sell your Bitcoin; the market size is too large.

Who do you think Satoshi Nakamoto is? Is he still alive? **$ZBCN **$ZBT