Judge Mellor of the High Court in London is not in the habit of issuing his decisions as soon as hearings are over. He is usually the type to take time to think. But on March 14, he seems to be in a hurry to put an end to it. It must be said that the defendant who preceded him, the Australian engineer Craig Wright, lied to the court for six weeks and submitted false documents. For the magistrate, there is no doubt: this 53-year-old man cannot claim to be the inventor of bitcoin, known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Therefore, the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), an association of cryptocurrency professionals, was right to consider him an impostor and initiate proceedings against him. “The evidence is overwhelmingthe judge estimates. Craig Wright is not the person who operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright is not the person who created bitcoin. »
In the process, COPA is quick to welcome a “definitive victory of truth”. The “truth”? Not yet… Because, if Wright’s name is erased from history, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown, to the point of constituting one of the greatest mysteries of the Internet age: who is he? Who is the inventor of Bitcoin? It has been thirteen years since it gave any sign of life; thirteen years that the enigma has given rise to countless theories, that “crypto” enthusiasts – a whole small world of insiders – have been tracking down the slightest clues to try to unravel its secret.
“I would be so happy, so happy, so excited to know who it is! I feel reverence for Nakamoto.”enthuses Manuel Proquin, a fan of blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin. This spring afternoon, in a In a bar in the centre of Nantes, the engineer by training joined around twenty cryptocurrency enthusiasts, brought together by Blockchain et Société, an association whose aim is to bring together local players in the sector and present their world to the public. Although the identification of “Satoshi”, as they call him among themselves, is not their main concern, they all admire this tutelary figure, who was able to overcome the technical obstacles to the creation of a digital currency in 2009. Manuel Proquín rents his “intellectual feat”is “world vision that protects humanity in its fundamental rights” and, above all, its “capacity to disappear, in a society in perpetual search for glory”.
In this bar in Nantes, as elsewhere among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, everyone has their own hypothesis about the Satoshi myth. “I wish it was actually a group of womensays Manuel Proquin, It would be a middle finger to our prejudices. »
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