A new theory regarding the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, suggests the flagship cryptocurrency was created by an Estonian team, or by one of the four individuals that comprise it.
This, as it was found a company in Estonia called Guardtime has been working on blockchain technology since 2008, the year in which it’s widely believed the technology was invented. According to a Medium article, there’s some evidence backing up the theory Guardtime or a team associated with the company created Bitcoin.
The article initially points to Mike Gault, which according to Crunchbase is the founder and CEO of the Estonian software company that’s been around for 10 years. Gault, the author noted, started his career researching quantum devices in Japan, has a Ph.D. in electronic engineering from the University of Wales, and worked as a derivatives trader in Tokyo.
This makes a circumstantial case for him to be Nakamoto: it explains the perfect English used by Bitcoin’s creator, the connections to Japan, and the timing in which BTC was created. It’s worth noting that Nakamoto claimed to a Japanese man, however his software didn’t have Japanese indicators, and his perfect English had British spelling.
Nakamoto claimed he started writing the code for Bitcoin in 2007, years before the flagship cryptocurrency was introduced to the world. Guardtime, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, turned its servers on in 2007 and started working on what’s essentially blockchain technology, which Bitcoin uses.
Others Related to Guardtime
The post also points to Joichi Ito, who was born in Japan and lived in the United States and Canada until he turned 14. He then returned to Japan, attending an American school there. Ito was friends with Gault, and a key member and investors in Guardtime.
He is, in fact, a well-known venture capitalist who invested in various popular companies, including Twitter and Kickstarter. The author quotes more information on the VC:
A vocal advocate of emergent democracy and the sharing economy, Ito is a doctoral candidate in Business Administration focusing on the sharing economy at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University. He is the author of Emergent Democracy.
It also points to Märt Saarepera and Ahto Buldas, who invested the hash calendar and were, according to the article, founding members of Guardtime in 2006. In 2007, they both published a paper that seemingly describes blockchain technology.
While the Medium article’s author, Kimberly Forsythe, is careful to note that this is all just a theory, she did reach out to all those mentioned. Joichi Ito replied to her request for comment with a “ha!”, a comment that doesn’t clarify much.
It’s worth pointing out that throughout bitcoin’s decade-long history various theories surrounding who Satoshi Nakamoto is have emerged. Most individuals believed to be Satoshi deny it.
Craig Wright, the chief scientist at nChain, claims to be Bitcoin’s creator. He backed Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV) in a hard fork of BCH last year, but has failed to so far offer conclusive proof he is Nakamoto. Earlier this year he filed a copyright registration for the Bitcoin whitepaper, but later on so did a Chinese citizen called Wei Liu.
