Newsweek famously turned a man's life upside-down in March 2014 when it claimed to have tracked down the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the mysterious entity that created Bitcoin. That man, coincidentally named Satoshi Nakamoto, claimed to have no knowledge of the cryptocurrency and has maintained that stance ever since.
Both Gizmodo and Wired, meanwhile, believe they may have found the true Nakamoto. His name is Craig Steven Wright and according to the publications, the 44-year-old Australian who has never made it onto any public Nakamoto hunters' lists fits the profile of Bitcoin's creator in nearly every detail. Wright allegedly worked closely on the project with an American named Dave Kleiman who died in 2013.
Wired concludes that it can't say with absolute certainty that Wright is their man despite the massive trove of evidence but maintains that two possibilities outweigh all others: either Write is the elusive Nakamoto or he's pulling off an excellent hoax.
Having combed through both reports over the past couple of hours, I can say that this is no Newsweek wild goose chase. From what I can gather, a hacker tipped off both publications with hoards of "hacked" e-mails. Follow-up investigations into the people involved and the stories in the e-mails have panned out, according to both sites.
If you're at all interested in the history of Bitcoin, both articles are certainly worth reading. If accurate, it seems that Wright knew this day would eventually arrive and again, if accurate, it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out in the coming days.
Lead image courtesy Adam Voorhes, Gil Anderson, Joe Newton. Secondary image courtesy Gizmodo.