CIA Refuses To Deny Or Confirm Bitcoin (BTC) Creator’s Identity
One of the biggest mysteries in the virtual currency world is the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Recent attempts by Daniel Oberhaus, a writer at Motherboard, to uncover the mystery were unsuccessful as a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request he sent to spy agency, CIA, only received a ‘Glamor response’ which is neither a denial nor a confirmation. According to Oberhaus, the FOIA request was sent to both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and while he got the Glamor response from the latter, the FBI is yet to respond.
Since Bitcoin was unveiled a decade ago Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity has remained a mystery. There have been multiple attempts to solve the mystery to no avail. The earliest attempt to unmask Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have occurred in October 2011 and this was soon after the Bitcoin (BTC) creator or creators went silent. This was when an article appeared in The New Yorker suggesting that Satoshi Nakamoto was a researcher at Finland’s Helsinki Institute for Information Technology ViliLehdonvirta.
Three years later a Japanese-American Californian with the name Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto was thought by Newsweek to be the creator of Bitcoin but it turned out not to be the case. Two years ago computer scientist based in Australia, Craig Wright, claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto though he couldn’t provide satisfactory evidence to back his claim.
Besides the Central Intelligence Agency it is believed that the National Security Agency of the United States had used stylometry (study of linguistic style to determine authorship) to identify the creator of Bitcoin though they also couldn’t reveal.
The last known of Satoshi’s internet activity was in April 2011. Besides the original white paper it is known that the creator of Bitcon left behind online correspondence he exchanged with the early developers of the flagship virtual currency as well as commentary that appeared on forums. One of the earlier developers of Bitcoin, LasloHanyecz, recently claimed to have corresponded with Satoshi in 2010.
At the time Hanyecz had been mining the cryptocurrency on his laptop and he asked to contribute as a developer, a request Satoshi granted him. Throughout 2010 Hanyecz received several tasks which had been sent to him by Satoshi. One of Hanyecz’s complaints at the time was that Satoshi was sending him too many tasks and it became overwhelming since he had a day job. Additionally Hanyecz claimed that Satoshi urged him to cut down on his mining in order to get more use cases and grow the community first.