After his identity remained a mystery to everyone, the potential founder of the world’s leading crypto-currency, bitcoin, is an unimposing 64-year-old Japanese American called Satoshi Nakamoto.
In the report published by Newsweek, the man was tracked down to Temple City in California where he was found in what can only be described as an appearance not befitting of a man that supposedly created a multi-billion dollar virtual currency.
When the journalist in question, Leah McGrath Goodman, met Nakamoto, he was seemingly paranoid over what might happen as he had brought two members of the local police force to watch over him before he met the journalist.
Living in a modest house with no signs of sitting on a potential gold mine, Nakamoto has never been seen before up until now and was only found because of a 2008 proposal that was found online with Nakamoto’s name proposing the online currency.
Bitcoin’s chief scientist, Gavin Andresen was also interviewed and, according to him, he has never met but worked closely online through private messages and email over the course of two to three years but was always a shadowy figure: “He was the kind of person who, if you made an honest mistake, he might call you an idiot and never speak to you again.
“Back then, it was not clear that creating Bitcoin might be a legal thing to do. He went to great lengths to protect his anonymity.”
There still remains doubt however that this is the real founder of Bitcoin.
According to one of the largest forums on Bitcoin, there is much debate over whether Newsweek’s claims are legitimate but his secrecy and evasiveness with both its core team and the general public will make it very difficult to prove without more evidence.
