Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

A name signed to a nine-page paper, a block reward nobody has ever moved, and a silence that has now outlasted the project itself. This page collects what is known, what is guessed, and what is .

Known facts

On 31 October 2008, a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" was posted to a cryptography mailing list under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The genesis block was mined on 3 January 2009. Roughly one million bitcoin, believed to belong to the earliest miner, has never been spent.

Nakamoto corresponded by email and forum post for a little over two years, then went quiet in 2011, handing the network off to other developers. No verified photo, voice recording, or legal name has ever surfaced.

Candidates on record

Hal Finney — received the first transaction. denied it publicly.

Dorian Nakamoto — misidentified by the press in 2014.

Nick Szabo — prior work on "bit gold." denies it.

Craig Wright — claimed it. a UK court disagreed, 2024.

Working theory

This site does not claim to know. It exists because the question is more interesting unanswered — and because someone, somewhere, still holds the first private key ever generated for this system. If that is you, or if you'd simply like to fund the inquiry, the address below has been open since this page went live.

Exhibit A

Contribute to the file

Bitcoin address

bc1qr32fmtsq9gx422kj03releu84s68aeucqqgel3

checking on-chain balance…