Back says he did this out of respect for Satoshi’s privacy.
“Perhaps he had made some mistake, left his [internet] address or something, and I didn’t really have the expertise to vet if that’s the case. I thought it was just for the best [not to share them] in case there is something.”
He is happy to discuss the history of internet cryptography at length but divulges few details about his own life, ostensibly out of a strongly held belief in privacy rather than as a cover-up.
During the course of an hour, Back genially takes apart some of the arguments linking him to Bitcoin’s creator.
As a prolific user of mailing lists, there were a large number of posts by him from the era in question. That makes it easier to find supposed linguistic links to Satoshi, he argues.
The hunt continues
Even if he is not Satoshi, one suspects that association with Bitcoin’s fabled founder is not exactly a negative.
Cryptocurrency is an industry that trades on attention after all, and Back remains a key figure in the crypto world, having founded technology company Blockstream and later set up a Bitcoin investment company.
The latter is in the process of listing on the Nasdaq through a deal backed by Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment bank formerly run by Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump’s commerce secretary.
If Bitcoin’s creator is from the UK, the cryptocurrency might go down as another invention, such as the world wide web and jet engine, that a Briton invented but failed to make much money from.
Many have speculated that the real Satoshi is dead, since the online wallet containing his vast crypto fortune has remained untouched since 2010.
The only conclusive proof that he is alive would be if that changed. For now, the hunt goes on.