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Adam Back, a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. Credit: Alexleso75 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0A year-long probe by writer John Carreyrou identifies Adam Back, a 55-year-old British machine scientist, arsenic the antheral who created cryptocurrency nether the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous fig who introduced Bitcoin successful 2008.
Back is the CEO of Blockstream, 1 of the astir influential companies successful the Bitcoin industry, and the inventor of Hashcash, a computational anti-spam instrumentality that Bitcoin’s mining process straight borrows from.
Carreyrou’s probe began aft watching an HBO documentary successful precocious 2024 that tried, and failed, to place Bitcoin’s founder. Back appeared visibly uncomfortable erstwhile his sanction came up arsenic a suspect. That absorption sparked a deeper inquiry.
Adam Back emerges arsenic the crypto creator Satoshi Nakamoto
Carreyrou combed done thousands of posts crossed 3 cryptography mailing lists dating backmost to 1992, gathering a database of much than 34,000 users.
After filtering for penning habits shared with Satoshi, including the usage of treble spaces betwixt sentences, circumstantial hyphenation errors, and the inclination to spot the connection “also” astatine the extremity of sentences, the excavation narrowed from 620 candidates down to a azygous name: Adam Back.
JUST IN: The New York Times reportedly claims Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto aft an 18-month investigation
If confirmed, this could rewrite the root communicative of Bitcoin entirely. pic.twitter.com/7xJWfmnb0x
— Pi News (@PiNewsMedia) April 8, 2026
Back besides shared astatine slightest 3 uncommon linguistic markers with Satoshi. Both hyphenated the word “proof-of-work” arsenic a compound noun, a signifier lone 8 radical had utilized crossed the mailing database archives.
Both referenced an obscure Russian online currency called WebMoney. And some utilized the operation “partial pre-image” successful transportation with Hashcash. Back was the lone idiosyncratic successful the database who matched each three.
Back denies each claims but refuses to supply cardinal evidence
Beyond penning patterns, Back outlined the foundational architecture of what would go Bitcoin betwixt 1997 and 1999, a afloat decennary earlier it launched. He projected a distributed physics currency strategy with built-in scarcity, publically verifiable transactions, and ostentation controls that reflector Bitcoin’s plan precisely.
Carreyrou confronted Back successful idiosyncratic astatine a Bitcoin league successful El Salvador successful aboriginal 2025. Back denied being Satoshi Nakamoto much than six times during a two-hour meeting.
However, erstwhile Carreyrou quoted Satoshi saying helium was “better with codification than with words,” Back appeared to respond arsenic though the words were his own, noting that helium had done a batch of talking connected those lists for idiosyncratic who preferred code. Back aboriginal said it was conscionable a casual conversational response.
Back besides acknowledged that helium possessed the method expertise and nonrecreational past accordant with Bitcoin’s creator, adjacent arsenic helium maintained that helium was not Satoshi Nakamoto.
He declined to supply the metadata from emails helium exchanged with Satoshi, which Carreyrou had requested arsenic portion of the investigation.
@nytimesBitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, has remained hidden for 17 years. A way of clues — and a twelvemonth of digging by our reporter, John Carreyrou — led america to a 55-year-old machine idiosyncratic successful El Salvador named Adam Back. At the nexus successful our bio, work our afloat exclusive communicative connected the hunt for Bitcoin’s creator — and however we unraveled the enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto. Video by By John Carreyrou, Sutton Raphael, James Surdam, Coleman Lowndes and Joey Sendaydiego #bitcoin #investigation
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