Happy 48th birthday, Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin!
We don’t know who Satoshi is, and we probably never will, but the pseudonymous founder apparently has a birthday. Satoshi entered a date of birth when registering the pseudonym with The P2P Foundation. Satoshi’s birthday is, according to this record, April 5, 1975. (For evidence, Satoshi’s age appeared as 38 on The P2P Foundation on April 4, 2014, and 40 on April 5, 2015, suggesting a birthday on April 5, 1975. )
Of course, Bitcoin believers have concocted all sorts of theories as to why Satoshi chose this date specifically – besides the fact that it’s actually their actual birthday.
One is dealing with the anniversary of Executive Order 6102, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt banned private ownership of gold on April 5, 1933. Americans handed over gold to the government, and with the Gold Reserve Act the following year, the gold content of the US dollar was increased from $20 to $35/oz. Actually, it was just a devaluation of the dollar since it now took more dollars to buy exactly the same amount of gold.
Was Satoshi winking at us about the flaws of a government controlled money? Secure!
Satoshi’s year of birth is apparently 1975, which may be a nod to President Gerald Ford rescinding Executive Order 6102 in 1974 (but it went into effect on December 31, 1974 which is basically 1975, but who’s counting?).
Satoshi blinks, once again.
On this special birthday, I want to shed light on something else about Satoshi: Their real identity or identities. Was it Hal Finney? Nick Szabo? Adam back? Lean Sassaman? John Nash? Was it all together? Was it none of them and another gallivanting group of cypherpunks?
Nobody knows and it doesn’t matter.
Bitcoin is an open source protocol that has grown out of a founder or founders. The fact that Satoshi walked away from Bitcoin when it was barely a toddler in 2011, only to see it grow into a $500 billion global monetary system, raises two thoughts: 1) Satoshi is a gracious founder who knew what Bitcoin would be, but only if the protocol was leaderless and 2) Bitcoin’s rise to notoriety is basically a minor miracle.
Who knows what Satoshi was thinking when they walked away, but it probably wouldn’t have gotten that far.
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter, Bitcoin belongs to everyone now. There is no leader. It might mess some things up, but at least it’s our mess. If it was revealed to us in a collective fever dream who Satoshi was, that person or persons would not be given complete ownership of the project. If it was, there would be many dissenters.
Bitcoin is rules without rulers.
So, happy birthday to you, Satoshi; wherever you may be. We love you, but we don’t miss you.
