The biggest mystery behind Bitcoin is still the question of who is behind its inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Was it one person? A group or an intelligence agency after all? As long as the private key of the wallet that definitely belonged to Satoshi Nakamoto is not used we will never know.
Nevertheless, there are many people trying to find out Satoshi Nakamoto’s real identity. Some, like BSV founder Craig Wright, claim to be him and others, like Elon Musk strongly deny, but are in the picture as “suspects.
Is Elon Musk Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto?
To interpret all the evidence, it is important to know that Elon Musk is also one of the co-founders of payment services company PayPal. The author who has been coming out with the theory that Elon Musk is behind Satoshi Nakamoto since last December is Sahil Gupta, a former intern at another of Musk’s companies, Space X. He claims to have seen the light during this internship.
Although Gupta himself states that the evidence is not conclusive, there are a number of remarkable similarities between Elon Musk and Satoshi Nakamoto that, according to Gupta, add up to proof that we are talking about the same person here. We list the evidence Gupta claims.
Elon Musk. (Image: EPA / Britta Pedersen)
Elon Musk and Satoshi Nakamoto in time and place
One of the things Gupta presents is that Elon Musk and Satoshi Nakamoto both resided in the same Los Angeles suburb (VanNuys). Satoshi was pinned there by the IP address he was using. Elon Musk has indicated in interviews that he comes there and owned several homes.
Another important similarity is that Satoshi programmed Bitcoin in C++ programming language. This same language Elon Musk said he used in the 1990s.
Also, both the code Satoshi Nakamoto used for Bitcoin and that Musk used at his start-up Zip2 are described as “monolithic,” or massive.
In doing so, Satoshi Nakamoto stated in a 2008 interview that he had worked on the code primarily in 2006 and 2007. Elon Musk stated in a 2007 interview that he spent about 2-3 days with work for Tesla during that period and also worked mostly on SpaceX. This is striking because SpaceX’s history shows that he only made small chunks of his plans during that period. So that would leave plenty of room to work on another project….
Language and word choice of Elon Musk and Satoshi Nakamoto
In addition, Gupta notes that there are striking similarities in language, spelling and word usage of Satoshi Nakamoto and Elon Musk. For example, both use a double space after a punctuation mark such as a period or a question mark.
Also, both men frequently use the striking phrase “order of magnitude” in their communications.
Finally, it appears that the original mission of PayPal, which Elon Musk thus co-founded, does look very similar to the Bitcoin mission that Satoshi Nakamoto included in the white paper.
You can read the entire blog with all the evidence and excerpts in support here. The question, of course, is whether these proofs provoke a reaction from Elon Musk.
Has Elon Musk responded yet?
Gupta has long sought the media with his claims. In 2017, he made headlines in India. A Twitter user then asked Elon Musk pointedly if he was the creator of Bitcoin. Elon Musk’s answer was not too convincing according to many, but a denial nonetheless.
Twitter is not loading because you did not give permission.
Not true. A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I don’t know where it is.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2017
Something tells us we’re not done with all the speculation about Satoshi Nakamoto’s true background for now.
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