What Is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Satoshi Nakamoto shared the paper titled 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' on a cryptography mailing list in October 2008. In January 2009, Nakamoto created the first Bitcoin block, the genesis block, and released the first software. A headline from a British newspaper of the time about bank bailouts was embedded in this block; this note is the source of interpretations that Bitcoin was born as a reaction to the financial crisis.

In the early years, Nakamoto was actively present on forums and mailing lists and developed the software together with other developers. Toward the end of 2010, Nakamoto gradually handed over their role in the project to other developers and soon cut off public communication entirely. On-chain analyses show that the early mining rewards believed to belong to Nakamoto have largely never been spent.

To date, many people have claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto or have been linked to the name; however, none has proven the claim cryptographically, for example by signing with keys belonging to early blocks. The absence of a founder is also seen as a symbol of Bitcoin's decentralized structure, which does not depend on a single leader. The satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, is also named after this person.