Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Likely Nick Szabo, Suggests Elon Musk

Image: bits media

Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently joined the Lex Fridman podcast to discuss some interesting topics. The engineer suggests that the true creator of Bitcoin, who is known as Satoshi Nakamoto, is actually Nick Szabo.

Satoshi Nakamoto's name has been shrouded in mystery since the Bitcoin white paper was released in 2008. Over the years, people have tried to identify and speculate who might be hiding behind this name. However, no one came to a clear conclusion, and the creator of Bitcoin himself wants to remain anonymous even after many years and the achievement of incredible success by the cryptocurrency. Now Elon Musk, during a podcast with Lex Fridman, voiced his guess about who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

During a podcast, Fridman asked Musk who Nakamoto really is, to which the head of the most disruptive companies of our time replied that, in his opinion, it is Nick Szabo. Sabo is the crypto expert who founded BitGold and coined the term "smart contracts."

Investor Place offers to consider several facts that can show who Sabo is and whether he could be Satoshi Nakamoto:

1. Nick Szabo graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in computer science. He later received a law degree from George Washington University Law School.
2. Szabo created BitGold in 1998. The project was never fully completed, but many see it as a precursor to Bitcoin. Szabo detailed that the inspiration for BitGold was to solve inefficiencies he saw in the traditional financial system.
3. In 2014, The Aston University Center for Forensic Linguistics conducted a linguistic study on Bitcoin’s white paper to determine the identity of Nakamoto. The group concluded that Nick Szabo was Nakamoto based on linguistic similarities.
4. Furthermore, one of the similarities was that the white paper was drafted using Latex, an open-source document platform. Szabo uses Latex for his public publications as well. A large number of phrases on the Bitcoin white paper are present in Szabo's writings, too.
5. Szabo has refuted claims that he was the Bitcoin creator, though. He said in 2014, “I’m afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I’m used to it.”
6. Musk added that: “Obviously I don’t know who created Bitcoin...it seems as though Nick Szabo is probably more than anyone else responsible for the evolution of those ideas. He claims not to be Nakamoto...but he seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind it than anyone else."
7. The reason for the creator of Bitcoin to stay anonymous may tie into the value of decentralization. For example, Ethereum (CCC: ETH-USD) co-creator Vitalik Buterin has tried to limit his influence over the cryptocurrency.
8. Szabo has a Twitter presence with over 300,000 followers.

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