Last month, Newsweek claimed that it discovered who the real creator of bitcoin is: Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a 64-year-old Japanese-American living in Temple City, California, who had been part of a media chase across Los Angeles. It took only a couple of weeks for other news outlets and the bitcoin community to debunk the reports.
One month later, according to a study by researchers and students at Aston University in Birmingham, England, a linguistics analysis of published material has shown that Nick Szabo, a former law professor at George Mason University, is the most probable creator of the virtual currency.
The group of nearly four-dozen participants studied the writing trends of 11 candidates and found that Szabo’s writings have many similarities to the very first 2008 white paper on bitcoin written by Satoshi Nakamoto.
Rather than conclusively arguing that Nakamoto is Szabo, the researchers say that it’s not definitively sure and are only noting that of all the people in the study Szabo is the likelier candidate to be the bitcoin developer.
“Our study adds to the weight of evidence pointing towards Nick Szabo,” said Dr. Jack Grieve, a lecturer in forensic linguistics at the university and the study’s lead author, in a statement.
“The case looks pretty clear-cut. Szabo is an expert in law, finance, cryptography and computer science…Did Nick Szabo create Bitcoin? We’re not sure, but we think he probably wrote the paper so it’s certainly worth a closer look.”
This fantastic revelation hasn’t caused Szabo to make a public statement. A few media outlets have sought comment but they have failed to reach him.
Nick Szabo Resources:
