Judge Mellor of the High Court in London is not in the habit of handing down his decisions as soon as the hearings are over. Usually, he is more of the type to take the time to think. But on March 14, he seems in a hurry to get it over with. It must be said that the defendant before him, an Australian engineer, Craig Wright, lied to the court for six weeks and produced false documents. In the eyes of the magistrate, there is no doubt: this 53-year-old man cannot claim to be the inventor of bitcoin, known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
The Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), an association of cryptocurrency professionals, was therefore right to see him as an impostor and to initiate proceedings against him. “The evidence is overwhelmingthe judge believes. Craig Wright is not the person who operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright is not the person who created bitcoin.
In the process, COPA is quick to salute a “definitive victory of truth”. The “truth”? Not quite, though… Because, if Wright’s name is erased from history, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown, to the point of constituting one of the greatest mysteries of the Internet era: who is he, this inventor of bitcoin? He has not given any sign of life for thirteen years; thirteen years that the enigma has given rise to countless theories, that “crypto” enthusiasts – a whole small world of insiders – have been tracking down the slightest clues to try to uncover its secret.
“I would be so happy, so joyful, so excited, to know who it is! I have a reverence for Nakamoto”enthuses Manuel Proquin, a blockchain enthusiast, the technology behind bitcoin. This spring evening, in a bar in downtown Nantes, this engineer by training joined about twenty other crypto enthusiasts, brought together by Blockchain et Société, an association whose goal is to bring together local players in the sector and introduce their world to the public. Even if the identification of “Satoshi”, as they call him among themselves, is not their main concern, they all admire this tutelary figure, who was able to overcome the technical obstacles to the creation of a digital currency, in 2009. Manuel Proquin rents his “intellectual prowess”in “worldview, which protects humanity in its fundamental rights” and, above all, its “ability to disappear, in a society in perpetual search of glory”.
In this Nantes bar, as everywhere else among crypto enthusiasts, everyone has their own hypothesis on the Satoshi myth. “I wish it was actually a women’s groupadvance Manuel Proquin, It would be a middle finger to our prejudices.”
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