WHO IS SATOSHI NAKAMOTO?
965,970 BLOCKS. NOBODY KNOWS WHO BUILT THE FIRST ONE.
In 2008 somebody published a paper describing Bitcoin. They signed it Satoshi Nakamoto. In January 2009 they started the machine. In 2011 they stopped writing and left. Nobody has ever shown who they were, and the machine has not needed them once since.
- BLOCKS SINCE THE FIRST ONE
- 965,970
- YEARS WITHOUT STOPPING
- 17.7
- HALVINGS SINCE THEY LEFT
- 4
- COMPUTERS KEEPING A COPY
- 26,634
- GUESSES PER SECOND
- 931QUINTILLION
- COINS THAT EXIST NOW
- 20,081,156BTC
WHAT IS ACTUALLY KNOWN
On 31 October 2008, a nine page paper was posted to a mailing list for people who work on cryptography. It was called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. It was signed Satoshi Nakamoto.
On 3 January 2009 that person ran the software and built the first block. They put a line of text inside it: a newspaper headline from that morning, about banks being rescued. The line is still in the block. Anyone can read it, and it proves the chain did not start earlier than the day that paper was printed.
For two years they wrote code, answered questions on forums and by email, and handed pieces of the work to other people. In 2011 they sent a last message and stopped.
That is the list. Everything else said about them is a guess.
THE COINS THAT NEVER MOVED
In 2009 almost nobody was mining. One machine was building most of the blocks, and it was very probably theirs.
Researchers have gone through those early blocks and put the total at roughly a million coins. That is an estimate. Nothing in a block says who mined it, so it can never be more than an estimate.
Here is the part that is not an estimate. Those coins have not moved. Not one payment, not once. The addresses are public, anyone can watch them, and thousands of people do. Fifteen years, nothing.
Why, nobody knows. The keys may be lost. The person may be dead. They may have simply decided not to touch them. Anyone who tells you which one it is, is guessing.
THE NAMES
Journalists have named people. A few people have named themselves. One of them went to court over it.
None of it has ever settled anything, and there is a simple reason why.
Whoever mined the first blocks holds the keys to them. A key can sign a message. One signature from one of those keys would end the question in about ten seconds, and anybody in the world could check it for themselves without asking permission.
That has never happened. Until it does, a name is just a name.
WHY IT DOES NOT MATTER
This is the part people skip, and it is the whole point.
You do not have to trust Satoshi Nakamoto to use Bitcoin. You do not have to trust anybody at all.
Every computer on the network checks every rule for itself. A block that pays its miner too many coins is thrown away. A payment without a valid signature is thrown away. It makes no difference who wrote the rule, and no difference who sent the block.
That is why losing the author did not even slow it down. There was never a head office to lose.
Look at the numbers near the top of this page. Every one of them was made by a network that has had nobody in charge for over a decade.
A thing that still needs the person who made it is not finished. That was the point.
QUESTIONS
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
It is the name on the paper that described Bitcoin in 2008, and on the software that started it in 2009. Nobody has ever shown who was behind it. Several people have been named over the years, by journalists and by themselves, and none of them has produced the one proof that would settle it: a signature made with the keys that mined the first blocks.
Is Satoshi Nakamoto dead?
Nobody knows, and there is no way to find out. No proof exists either way. The untouched coins are the only thing people point to, and they settle nothing: a living person can leave money alone.
How many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamoto own?
Nobody can say for certain. Researchers who studied the earliest blocks put it at roughly a million coins, out of the 20,081,156 that exist today. It stays an estimate: nothing in a block records who mined it.
Have Satoshi Nakamoto's coins ever moved?
No. Not one payment since 2009. The addresses are public and thousands of people watch them, so the day one of them moves, the world will know within minutes.
Why did Satoshi Nakamoto disappear?
They never said. The last messages were in 2011, handing the work to other people. Since then the network has built 965,970 blocks and been through 4 halvings with nobody in charge of it.
Could Satoshi Nakamoto change Bitcoin?
No, and they could not have done in 2011 either. The rules only change if the people running the software choose to run different software. There is no key, no account and no switch that belongs to the author.
Where can I read the Bitcoin white paper?
On this site, in full. All nine pages, the seven diagrams, the code and the references, taken straight from the original file rather than retyped.
SEE IT RUNNING
The paper is standing in the hall, and the machine it describes is running all around it. The tour stops in front of the page and tells you this in about forty seconds.
WHAT TO READ NEXT
- THE WHITE PAPERthe nine pages they signed, in full
- NODESwho applies the rules now that nobody is in charge
- SUPPLYthe 21,000,000 they fixed in 2009, and why it holds
SMALL PRINT
This page says they, not he. Nobody knows, so nothing here pretends to. There are no named candidates on it either, for the same reason: printing a name would be repeating a guess with the authority of a site that says only checkable things everywhere else. The live figures are read from the network. The figure for the early coins comes from published research on the pattern of the 2009 blocks, and it stays an estimate.