Nick Szabo has been potentially mentioned as Satoshi for sometime [1] due to him working on decentralized currencies since 1998 with Bit Gold [2].
Elon Musk mentioned Nick Szabo on Lex Fridman's podcast as Szabo was also doing Bit Gold prior and is heavy into crypto and currencies. [3]
> "Obviously I don't know who created bitcoin ... it seems as though Nick Szabo is probably more than anyone else responsible for the evolution of those ideas," said Musk, adding, "he claims not to be Nakamoto ... but he seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind it than anyone else."
> Szabo is best known as the inventor of one of bitcoin’s predecessors, Bit Gold, and digital smart contracts—which eventually evolved to become a key part of the ethereum blockchain. Szabo has previously denied he's Satoshi Nakamoto, telling financial author Dominic Frisby in 2014, "I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it."
Szabo's full name is Nicholas Szabo [4]. Just seems quite a bit like Satoshi Nakamoto. It feels like there is something there potentially.
I don't understand why, when satoshi used UK english very consistently, including quite obscure references tucked away in source code etc, and was active in GMT compatible hours (more so than US hours!) - nonetheless every theory ignores all this and has him being American.
1. Satoshi has proven they had tight skills at keeping their identify secret.
2. If Satoshi were from the US, the easiest misdirection would be to pretend to be British. Learning the spelling and grammatical differences is not hard (or maybe test against a British spelling/grammar checker). Making sure you appear to be in a different timezone is basic operational security.
3. I would expect references to be intentional misdirections.
He would use terms like "bloody hard" or "wet blanket" which I would doubt are taught to foreigners learning English even with British spelling.
However - his spelling was a bit inconsistent. The "Len Sassaman" theory is interesting - as he was known to write in a somewhat British style (for whatever reason) - but not consistently - and was in the right timezone at the time. Or perhaps Satoshi was a synthesis of multiple different people which would explain a lot of the inconsistency as well.
Is there a theory for why Nick Szabo would be public about Bit Gold but go to great efforts to hide himself when creating Bitcoin?
It seems unlikely to me that someone who previously had no issue being public would suddenly be so secretive, especially given how unlikely it was for Bitcoin to turn out the way it did.
As unlikely as traction to Bitcoin was/is, surely he would have understood the implications it could have to the practitioner of this idea? "bitcoins can not be manipulated by governments or financial institutions and bitcoin transactions occur directly between two parties without a middleman." If he figured that he could make it functionally work with Bit Gold, why would you expose yourself to that.
There is a counterargument to that: Craig Wright. He openly claims to be Satoshi (almost certainly fraudulently), and he seems to be doing kinda OK. [1]
1. It is post factual - it couldn't have been predicted beforehand.
2. Craig Wright would only be attacked by those that believe Craig is Satoshi. That could be a very small subset of those who would want to attack Satoshi.
Bit Gold was maybe to test out interest, then when the real one was made it would be more anonymous. If you think about it, bitcoin being anonymous is a feature as it makes it seem less centralized eventhough Satoshi owns a large chunk of it. Today companies or individuals will control a large chunk of other coins/platforms and it feels more centralized or even autocratic. At any time those big fish could wreak havoc. Satoshi seems more hands off.
Another potential reason is the money it would generate and the recognition would attract too much attention. The successful decentralized currency like bitcoin might have been foreseen as a threat to the creator after it takes off and gains in value.
From the wiki on Nick Szabo, he is more 'reclusive' and not wanting to be known. On his blog he mentioned his intent on creating a live version of the currency as Bit Gold was more of a prototype/demo and was never launched. Even the name Bit Gold and bitcoin are very similar as is the name Nicholas Szabo (N.S.) and Satoshi Nakamoto (S.N.) in a few ways. Satoshi Nakamoto always seems like a purposeful shroud of a name, looking for someone by that name is probably not going to find them:
> Nathaniel Popper wrote in The New York Times that "the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo." In 2008, prior to the release of bitcoin, Szabo wrote a comment on his blog about the intent of creating a live version of his hypothetical currency. [1]
Hal Finney was the first to receive 10 bitcoins from Satoshi Nakamoto [2]. Hal Finney was the next employee after Phil Zimmermann at PGP. So he knew the potential for being pursued by governments for software creations. Hal, who died in 2014 unfortunately, probably knew Satoshi and would have known he was shrouding/anonymous for good reasons as seen in the PGP history just before that and around the same time bit gold was being created.
The very likely people to be Satoshi Nakamoto are Nick Szabo and Hal Finney due to the early interactions and transactions, and potentially Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, but that seems unlikely they would use their real name [3]. Maybe it was all three or someone else entirely, these guys are just around the early days and some of the first transactions. Either that or someone or some group saw the need for decentralized currency from their efforts and then front ran them and made it seem more like them to help shroud themselves.
Maybe it took the first failed project to realize that should the project succeed, there could be a financial incentive to kidnap/coerce/blackmail the founder.
> Elon Musk mentioned Nick Szabo on Lex Fridman's podcast as Szabo was also doing Bit Gold prior and is heavy into crypto and currencies. [3]
>> "Obviously I don't know who created bitcoin ... it seems as though Nick Szabo is probably more than anyone else responsible for the evolution of those ideas," said Musk, adding, "he claims not to be Nakamoto ... but he seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind it than anyone else."
Why do Elon Musk's speculations have any credibility here? It's not his field, and even in his field he has a track record of making confident public statements that turn out to be wildly wrong.
He was one of the creators of PayPal, so digital money is his field. If you read the quote carefully, he is also not speculating on Nakamoto. Elon instead states that Nick Szabo contributed to the ideas behind cryptocurrencies. This generally is not disputed.
> He was one of the creators of PayPal, so digital money is his field.
He was one of four people listed as founders of X.com, which merged with Confinity, which changed its name to PayPal where he was fired as CEO; PayPal was then purchased by EBay, whereupon Musk took a big payday.
Judging by his involvement with Tesla Motors Inc -- he became chairman and CEO by investing 6.5 million into the existing company; a lawsuit brought by an incorporating founder resulted in an agreement whereby Musk and four others can call themselves founders -- makes me wonder what his contribution to X.com actually was.
Whatever else he may be, he's an extraordinarily good investor.
I think no matter how you feel about Elon Musk, I feel it can sort of be universally appreciated how insane of a pivot/second act he's had where being a part of paypal's early days is basically a footnote.
> Why do Elon Musk's speculations have any credibility here? It's not his field, and even in his field he has a track record of making confident public statements that turn out to be wildly wrong.
Actually it's very much his field. Elon Musk was one of the founders of X.com which eventually merged to become PayPal. He was interested in digital currency since the '90s and has been active in the cryptocurrency space as well.
Elon Musk mentioned Nick Szabo on Lex Fridman's podcast as Szabo was also doing Bit Gold prior and is heavy into crypto and currencies. [3]
> "Obviously I don't know who created bitcoin ... it seems as though Nick Szabo is probably more than anyone else responsible for the evolution of those ideas," said Musk, adding, "he claims not to be Nakamoto ... but he seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind it than anyone else."
> Szabo is best known as the inventor of one of bitcoin’s predecessors, Bit Gold, and digital smart contracts—which eventually evolved to become a key part of the ethereum blockchain. Szabo has previously denied he's Satoshi Nakamoto, telling financial author Dominic Frisby in 2014, "I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it."
Szabo's full name is Nicholas Szabo [4]. Just seems quite a bit like Satoshi Nakamoto. It feels like there is something there potentially.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Szabo#Satoshi_Nakamoto_sp...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Szabo#Bit_gold
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2021/12/28/elon-...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Szabo