Adam Back denies he’s Satoshi Nakamoto after NYT report claims he’s Bitcoin’s creator
Similarities reflect shared early research, not proof, said Back. Others have questions too.
What to know:
- Adam Back publicly denied being Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto after a New York Times article argued he is the strongest candidate yet.
- Back said that overlaps between his decades of work on cryptography and electronic cash, and Bitcoin’s design, reflect shared cypherpunk ideas and coincidence, not hidden authorship.
- Other commentators, including early Bitcoiner Nicholas Gregory, questioned the evidence and warned that unmasking Satoshi could endanger the person behind the pseudonym.
In a post on X after the article was published, Back said his long record in cryptography, privacy tools and electronic cash research explains why reporters keep finding links between his work and Bitcoin’s design.
“I’m not satoshi,” Back wrote. He said he had been “early in laser focus on the positive societal implications of cryptography, online privacy and electronic cash,” and that his work from about 1992 onward, including discussions on the cypherpunks mailing list, led to Hashcash and other ideas later echoed in Bitcoin.
Back, said NYT reporter John Carreyrou, had found “many interesting bitcoin analogs in early attempts to create a decentralized ecash,” adding that early researchers explored concepts such as peer-to-peer systems, proof-of-work, and routing models that looked like prototypes for Bitcoin.
He also disputed one line in the story that treated a comment he made in an interview as a possible slip. Back’s remark — “I’m not saying I’m good with words, but I sure did a lot of yakking on these lists actually” — referred to confirmation bias. Because he wrote so often about electronic cash, he said, his old comments are easier to match with Satoshi’s than those of others who posted far less.
