Satoshi Nakamoto continues to fascinate. The mysterious, anonymous and now legendary creator(s) of Bitcoin may be an almost mythological figure to some, but Satoshi Nakamoto was just a human being. You can read everything Satoshi Nakamoto wrote online: the brilliant insights, how questions were answered, cooperated and helped, but also about Satoshi’s insecurities and fears.

Who was Satoshi Nakamoto?

We still don’t know who was hiding behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It is unknown if Satoshi Nakamoto was male or female, and it could also be a group of people. The age, origin, geographical place of residence have also never been determined. We don’t actually know anything about Satoshi’s real life.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous and mysterious creator of Bitcoin, launched the Bitcoin network in 2009 and directed the Bitcoin project for a while. In 2011, Satoshi disappeared without a trace and no one has ever heard from him, her or them since.

The bitcoin developer disappeared, but a legend was born. The name ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ is now known worldwide and for some Bitcoiners, Satoshi Nakamoto enjoys an almost mythological status. However, Satoshi Nakamoto was just a human being, and everything Satoshi wrote can be read online.

For example in the collection Kicking the Hornet’s Nest or on websites such as the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Below we highlight a number of interesting excerpts that give a glimpse of the person(s?) behind the pseudonym.

Cypherpunks

October 31, 2008, ten past six. An email arrives via the Cryptography Mailing List:

“I am working on a new electronic money system that is completely peer-to-peer, with no trusted intermediary. The paper is available at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf”

With those words, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the Bitcoin whitepaper 12 years ago to a small group of cypherpunks , who were loosely connected through the mailing list. Bitcoin is described in the eight-page document.

Satoshi Nakamoto was unknown to them. Initial reactions to the Bitcoin whitepaper were skeptical. Questions about scalability, security and especially feasibility, which Satoshi answered.

“You won’t find a solution to political problems in cryptography,” one wrote. Satoshi replied, ?ǣYes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain new ground for freedom in a few years. Governments are good at chopping heads off centrally run networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to hold themselves up.”

Bitcoin community

Satoshi Nakamoto not only shared the white paper, but was also an active part of the Bitcoin community in the early years. First via the mailing list, but later mainly via the Bitcoin Talk forum. Satoshi answered questions, commented, collaborated and engaged in forum discussions.

“How long have you been working on this design Satoshi? It looks very well thought out” , forum user Laszlo asked once. He would later acquire the famed 10,000 BTC pizzas; the ‘most expensive pizzas ever’.

“Since 2007 ,” Satoshi replied. ?ǣAt one point I became convinced that there had to be a way to do this without requiring any trust and I couldn’t resist thinking about it. A lot more work went into the design than in programming. Fortunately, all the issues that have been noted are things that I had previously considered and taken into account.”

In response to another question, Satoshi elaborated on the design process: “I appreciate your questions. I actually did it a bit backwards. I wrote all the code first before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, and then I wrote the paper. I think I can release the code faster than I can write a detailed spec.”

What is Bitcoin?

One of the hardest things about Bitcoin is explaining what it is. Satoshi Nakamoto also found that difficult: “Coming up with a description for the general public is ‘bloody hard’. There’s nothing you can relate it to” .

Another time, Satoshi wrote, “It’s very attractive from the Libertarian point of view if we can explain it properly. I’m better with code than words though.”

Yet Satoshi often got to the point: ?ǣThe core problem with conventional currency is all the trust it takes to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to devalue the currency, but the history of fiat currency is full of breaches of that trust.”

?ǣBanks need to be trusted to hold our money and send it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We need to trust them with our privacy, trust that they won’t allow identity thieves to drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.”

Questions

Everyone who comes into contact with Bitcoin for the first time has questions. Satoshi frequently replied: “To answer Sepp’s question, there is indeed no one acting as a central bank or federal reserve to adjust the money supply as the number of users grows. That would require a trusted third party to determine the value, because I don’t know any way software can know the value of things in the real world.”

A little further on, Satoshi continued: “In that sense, it is more like a precious metal. Instead of the quantity changing to keep the value the same, the quantity is predetermined and the value changes. As the number of users grows, the value per coin will increase. It has the potential to create a positive feedback loop; as the number of users grows, the value goes up, which can attract new users who want to take advantage of the increasing value.”

“How does everyone feel about the B symbol with the two lines through the outside? Can we live with that as our logo?” – Satoshi Nakamoto, BitcoinTalk

Another time, Satoshi reflected, “You know, I think a lot more people were interested in [digital money] in the 90s, but after more than a decade of failed systems based on trusted third parties (Digicash, etc. .), they see it as a lost cause. I hope they can discern that as far as I know this is the first time we’ve tried a system that isn’t based on trust.”

?ǣThe real trick will be,?ǥ one commented, ?ǣto get people to value BitCoins in such a way that it becomes a currency. ?ǥ

Satoshi replied: “I’d be surprised if we’re not using electronic money in some way in ten years’ time, now that we know a way that isn’t inevitably blunted when third parties have to get cold. It could start in a small niche such as reward points, donation tokens, currency for a game or micropayments for 18+ services. You can already use it for pay-to-send email.”

After some technical clarification, Satoshi continued: “Maybe it’s wise to just own some, just in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once it gets going, its there are as many applications as you can simply pay a few cents to a website, with the same ease with which you put a few coins in a vending machine.”

“I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.” – Satoshi Nakamoto, BitcoinTalk

WTF?

Sometimes things went wrong. When 184 billion new bitcoins emerged in the early stages due to a critical inflation bug, a patch had to come quickly. Satoshi asked for feedback on the forum: “Here’s the preliminary change. Does it look good? I have more tweaks to do, this isn’t all.”

Another time, the emails from the wiki were blocked because the website had entered an anti-spam list. “WTF? How did we come up with that?” , wrote Satoshi, “AFAIK, the only email [we have] is when you set the forum to notifications, and I’m guessing the wiki registration as well. I would consider turning off the forum notification emails, I know not why we have that.”

“If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.” – Satoshi Nakamoto, BitcoinTalk

Kicking the hornet’s nest

In late 2010, someone suggested informing WikiLeaks about Bitcoin, as the organization was facing financial censorship. “Bring it on!” , some thought, but Satoshi expressed concern.

“No, not ‘bring it on’ ,” Satoshi wrote. “The project should grow gradually so that the software can strengthen along the way. I am making this request to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small childhood beta community. At most, you can raise pocket money with it, and the smear that unleashing it would probably destroy us at this stage.”

Six months later, WikiLeaks nevertheless started accepting bitcoin donations. “It would be nice to get this attention in a different context,” Satoshi wrote about it, “WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed our way.”

Fellow Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen, meanwhile, had joined a radio show to talk about Bitcoin. “I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about me like I was a mysterious shadow figure,” Satoshi responded by email. “The press is twisting that into a story about a currency for internet pirates. Maybe make it about the open source project instead and give more credit to the developers; that helps motivate them.”

Andresen announced a little later that he had made an appointment to give a presentation about Bitcoin at the American intelligence agency CIA. Satoshi didn’t respond.

Sometime around this time, Satoshi Nakamoto has disappeared. One of Satoshi’s last messages was to Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn. Hearn asked, “Do you ever plan to come back to the community (for code reviews, for example), or is your plan to step out of the spotlight permanently?” . Satoshi replied, “I’m busy with other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and the rest.”

“That means a lot coming from you, Hal. Thanks.” – Satoshi Nakamoto’s second to last post on Bitcoin Talk

The Mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto

No one knows how the story will continue after that. Did Satoshi Nakamoto sometimes get too hot under his or her feet? Was Satoshi really working on something else? Maybe something happened to Satoshi? Some speculate that Satoshi may have died, as Satoshi’s alleged 1 million bitcoins never showed any activity in the years since and to this day. At the moment the value would be about ??32 billion.

Over the years, the stories surrounding the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto and his or her disappearance sometimes took on almost mythological proportions. However, if you read what Satoshi wrote, one thing is clear: Satoshi Nakamoto was only human; just one of us.

If you want to read more, you can. In the collection Kicking the Hornet’s Nest you will find almost everything Satoshi Nakamoto ever wrote in chronological order (correspondence starts on page 20) and you will also find a collection on the website of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. For those looking for something more bite-sized, there is also a list of famous quotes.

Curious about the history of Bitcoin? Then read our articles about the history of Bitcoin and how the idea of Bitcoin is much older than ten years. The Last Days of Satoshi article on Bitcoinmagazine.com is also worth checking out.