The New York Times published an opinion piece on Tuesday disputing this Adam Backa British author and long-time figure in the Bitcoin community, he is the most trusted person for Satoshi Nakamoto – the founder of Bitcoin.
Back he denied what he said before the story started, he denied it during the story, and he denied it again in a public post on X after it was published.
“I’m not a satoshi, but I was focused on the social benefits of privacy, online privacy and electronic money, so ~ 1992 progressed my interest in using ecash research, privacy technology in a series of cypherpunks that led to hashcash and other ideas,” Back wrote on X.
The Times search they rely on an analysis of old e-mails and forum posts. This method focuses on spelling, including the use of double hyphens and British spelling. The Times reported that early researchers looked at concepts such as peer-to-peer systems, proof-of-work, and virtual tours that looked like prototypes of Bitcoin, and that Back’s earlier writings contained a small amount of this information.
Back, who developed Hashcash in 1997 – a proof-of-work method that was later incorporated into Bitcoin’s structure – accepted surface parity but provided a counter for the structure.
Because he wrote extensively on the cypherpunks’ mailing list about electronic money and privacy from 1992 onward, he argued, his earlier writings are easier to compare to Satoshi’s than the writings of smaller contributors.
“The rest is a random combination of similar words from people with similar experiences and interests,” Return he wrote on X.
He also referred to a passage in a Times article that cited one of his statements in an interview with a reporter as possible. In return he said that the comment was about confirmation bias in the study, not accidental exposure.
Adam Back, Satoshi claims to have doubts
The report did not provide any documentary evidence – no private shows, no direct communication from Satoshi’s wallet address, and no corroborating evidence on the record. The case is based on stylometric analysis and comparison with features, tools that carry real weight but did not, in Satoshi’s research before it, make the points that the Bitcoin community has accepted.
Several reliable voices expressed doubts. Joe Weisenthal, a columnist at Bloomberg and co-host of the Odd Lots podcast, he said he was “not 100% satisfied with the evidence or his statement.” He noted that shared views on privacy and Internet architecture were common in the cypherpunk community and did not exclude one individual. He added that hyphenation habits vary and are a weak basis for adoption.
Nicholas Gregory, who participated in Bitcoin in the UK, said that he did not believe that Back was Satoshi based on human interactions, according to CoinDesk to announce. He also raised a concern: the public recognition of someone with a pseudonym, regardless of who they are, could put the person and their family at risk. According to crypto exchange Arkham, Satoshi’s Bitcoin holdings are worth about $73 billion.
This is not the first time that a large group believes it has solved a mystery. The 2024 document pointed to producer Peter Todd, who also denied the claims and his case failed to gain traction.
