Martin Shkreli claims to know the real identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto – here’s his proof
Disgraced biotech entrepreneur and hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli has published a discovery that appears to prove who the real person behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto is. But the Bitcoin community is not yet convinced.
The discovery was shared in a blog post published on Tuesday, in which Shkreli decrypted a signature from the first Bitcoin transaction ever made. The decryption can be done using “any decryption tool,” Shkreli wrote in the comments section.
As has been known since Bitcoin’s early days, the first transaction was sent from Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto to American programmer and cypherpunk community Hal Finney.
Shkreli’s blog post said:
The following is the Bitcoin wallet Hal Finney used to receive the first Bitcoin transfer from Satoshi.
1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3
The following signature
HM7vpPSUBNsfDHRX6gv8xxWcVNHEc/3pOk0YrVehaGoUdbWizznfzOdELkLd1EjSXsW1oE5vHAkNAPzrAVzhuoI=
decrypts to:
—–BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE—–
This transaction was made by Paul Leroux to Hal Finney on Jan 12, 2009 #bitcoin
—–EXIT BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Is Paul Le Roux Satoshi?
Given that the wallet address is confirmed to have belonged to Hal Finney, Shkreli’s findings imply that Finney himself wanted to convey that Paul Le Roux is Satoshi Nakamoto.
Paul Le Roux is a programmer, criminal mastermind and informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States, given to him in June 2020 for arranging or participating in seven murders, as well as his role in leading a global illegal business empire.
Interestingly, this is not the first time it has been suggested that Le Roux is Satoshi. In 2019, a Wired article said that several signs point towards Le Roux being Satoshi, although no hard evidence has been presented.
Skeptical community
According to community members commenting under Shkreli’s blog post, it is entirely possible that the signature on the wallet was written by someone other than Hal Finney. The reason for this is that the wallet was last active in 2017, three years after Finney passed away.
According to some commentators, one possibility is that after his passing, Finney’s family sold access to the entire wallet, rather than sending coins on chain to a buyer. It would make sense given that this was in the relatively early days of Bitcoin when a certain level of technical knowledge was required to carry out transactions.
“The address was last used in 2017, while Hal died in 2014. So someone has Hall’s private key for that address and signed the silly message,” wrote a user called BitMax14.
The same user went on to accuse Shkreli of “getting used to spreading that lie,” while asking who sent him the message and signature.
Other users also chimed in, with well-known Bitcoin proponent and author Saifedean Ammous saying:
“Since these private keys have been active after Hal’s death, the most interesting question here is: How did you get hold of this message?”
Shkreli did not answer any of the questions about who told him about the signature and the message, but elaborated a bit more in a follow-up post published Wednesday:
“A few days ago I received a message that I felt was clearly a joke: there is a new signed message from the recipient of the first bitcoin. I get a lot of pranksters calling me “discoveries”. But sometimes they are real: Lil Wayne’s Carter V album showing at a luxury car auction comes to mind.”
“Everything fits”
Although many commentators were skeptical of the idea that Paul Le Roux is Satoshi Nakamoto, some supported the idea.
“It’s all right. He had the motivation, the incentive. Transfer of illegal gains. Very complex character. Conflict. Very intelligent but arrogant,” wrote a user named Bellweirdboy, while adding:
“Satoshi disappeared after Gavin Andresen told him he wanted to talk to the CIA. My thinking is that this scared Le Roux senseless. That is the real reason why ‘Satoshi’ disappeared.”
