Overview
- The New York Times, which published an 18‑month investigation Wednesday, named British cryptographer Adam Back as the most likely person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.
- Back rejected the claim on X, writing "I'm not Satoshi" and arguing the evidence reflects confirmation bias rather than fact.
- Reporters used stylometry and AI filters on decades of cypherpunk emails to flag quirks like shifting UK–US spellings, unusual hyphenation, "also" at sentence ends, and a reported 67 shared hyphen rules versus 38 for the next closest candidate.
- The investigation offered no on‑chain proof, and only moving coins from early addresses or signing a message with the corresponding private keys would settle the question.
- Satoshi‑linked wallets are widely estimated to hold about 1.1 million bitcoin worth roughly $70 billion, so a verified identity could have legal and market effects, yet past attributions have faltered without cryptographic proof.