'Bitcoin Founder' Satoshi Nakamoto, Was It Really Two People?

▲ Satoshi Nakamoto statue/Source: Bitcoin Archive X account ©

A new documentary's claim that Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, was not one person but two cypherpunks, is once again drawing market attention.

According to DL News on April 24 (local time), the documentary 'Finding Satoshi,' based on over four years of research and numerous interviews, suggested the possibility that Hal Finney and Len Sassaman were the individuals who created Bitcoin (BTC). However, there is no decisive evidence; it is a claim that connects data analysis and circumstantial evidence.

The documentary analyzed six main candidates: Adam Back, Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Len Sassaman, Paul Le Roux, and Wei Dai. Alyssa Blackburn, a data scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, explained that her analysis of Satoshi's posting times, mining activities, and periods of silence showed that only Finney and Sassaman met the criteria.

The work identified Finney as a key figure in the code. He was the first person to receive Bitcoin from Satoshi in January 2009 and was the developer who created Reusable Proofs of Work (RPOW), a precursor to Bitcoin. The documentary claims that there was about a two-month gap in Finney's work records between the white paper's release in October 2008 and the creation of the Genesis Block in January 2009, and that he may have been involved in Bitcoin development during this period.

However, there is a temporal contradiction in the theory of Finney as the sole founder. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Casa, presented an instance where Satoshi was active via email at a time when Finney was running a marathon. The documentary suggests Sassaman explains this gap. The logic is that if Finney handled code development and Sassaman managed communications under Satoshi's name, the time conflict is resolved.

Sassaman was described as skilled in anonymity, privacy, and white paper writing. He was a Ph.D. student mentored by David Chaum and was reportedly proficient in 'stylometric anonymization,' changing writing styles to conceal identity. Sassaman's acquaintances and family confirmed that he was in contact with Finney in 2008, and Finney's wife, Fran Finney, also said after seeing the documentary's content, "I don't think he wrote the white paper, but he could have helped."

Ultimately, the documentary could not conclusively determine Satoshi's identity. However, it presented a strong narrative that Bitcoin might have been the result of collaboration between two developers who dreamed of a better digital financial system, not a single genius, even amidst illness and personal suffering in their later years. DL News assessed that while there is no decisive cryptographic evidence, it is one of the most convincing claims among the Satoshi investigations to date.

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