We still don’t know who invented Bitcoin. But we do know he’s rich
We still don’t know who invented Bitcoin. But we do know he’s rich
by
Bitcoin, the four-year-old virtual currency that approximates cash on the internet, now powers an economy worth more than $1 billion and is widely admired for the technical sophistication that allows it to operate without a central authority. It got its own ticker on CNBC and inspired a legion of startups. And yet, we still don’t know where it came from.
Bitcoin was first introduced to the world by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, a persona that communicated by email and in the official Bitcoin forum before abruptly disappearing. No one has ever met him, or at least no one who will admit to it. No one knows if Nakamoto is male or female. His (or her) early emails even refer to a “we.”
"It's all part of the fun."
Both The New Yorker and Fast Company tried and failed to unmask Nakamoto. The ongoing crowdsourced investigation hasn’t done any better. “People analyze Satoshi’s written words, trying to divine if he speaks native British English, American English, or learned the language as a second language,” said Jeff Garzik, a developer who works on the Bitcoin Project and emailed with Nakamoto in the early days.“They analyze his posting dates, trying to guess his local time zone. It’s all part of the fun.”
But two weeks ago, programmer Sergio Demian Lerner discovered something new about Nakamoto.
Bitcoin is designed to mimic gold in some ways. Anyone can “mine” for new Bitcoins by running the Bitcoin client. The process is designed to get more difficult as more people start mining.