MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Seventeen years ago, a person presenting themself as Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper online. It ran nine pages. It was titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-To-Peer Electronic Cash System," and it outlined a vision for a decentralized currency system that did not rely on a central bank and that allowed participants to stay anonymous. Well, for all these years, Satoshi Nakamoto has also remained anonymous, a state of affairs that New York Times investigative reporter John Carreyrou decided to do something about. His investigation led him to a 55-year-old computer scientist named Adam Back, who not only had the right background to build something like bitcoin, Adam Back also, according to Carreyrou's investigation, wrote like Satoshi Nakamoto.
JOHN CARREYROU: I noticed that they shared a lot of writing ticks, but in particular, they were both pathologically terrible at using hyphens.
KELLY: Carreyrou used artificial intelligence models to test his suspicions, and every time he kept coming up with the same name, Adam Back. Now, Back for his part, denies he is Satoshi Nakamoto. So I asked Carreyrou, how certain is he?
CARREYROU: I'm pretty certain. Might say somewhere between 99 and 100% certain. Adam Back has the background and all the skills you would need to have created bitcoin. On top of that, he was one of the most vocal proponents of finding a way to create what the cypherpunks (ph) used to call electronic cash, a digital version of physical cash that is untraceable and anonymous.
KELLY: So you do all this reporting. You flew to El Salvador because there was a bitcoin conference and Adam Back was going to be there. You confront him with what you think you figured out. How'd he react?
CARREYROU: Well, he continued to deny, but there were moments in the interview where his body language told a different story. When I pressed him on some of the things that I'd found that were harder to explain away, his face reddened, and it was really noticeable because he was tan, and his blushing went right through the tan. He also fidgeted, moved uncomfortably in his seat, and he didn't have good explanations for some of these points I brought up with him.
One of them was that when Satoshi suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the cryptography mailing list in late 2008, Adam Back disappeared. And then Satoshi remained active on this list and on other forums on the internet for 2 1/2 years. And during that whole period, Adam Back was nowhere to be found. And yet, bitcoin was the closest manifestation to the electronic cash vision Adam Back had laid out. And for some reason, or I think for a reason that's very clear, he did not pipe up in this instance and stayed away the whole time Satoshi was active. It's like Bruce Wayne and Batman. When Batman comes out, Bruce Wayne is nowhere to be seen.
KELLY: Never in the same room. I mean, I suppose if you were looking for definitive proof, which you clearly are, like a smoking gun for your investigation, there's a development that's worth mentioning, which is Adam Back has cofounded a bitcoin treasury company. It is in the process of going public. You write that U.S. securities law would compel him to disclose anything that might be material, any information material to investors, such as, oh, I don't know, say a huge stash of bitcoin that he would own if he is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto.
CARREYROU: That's right. And he hasn't disclosed such a stash. And so if I am right that Adam Back is Satoshi, he's omitting some very material information, and under U.S. law, that's a prosecutable crime. Now, of course, you would need the SEC to look into this, and I don't know if they will under our current administration. This is a super crypto-friendly administration, so I'm not convinced that the SEC is actually going to look into this question.
KELLY: Here's a very basic question. Why does it matter? Why do we need to know who Satoshi Nakamoto really is?
CARREYROU: Well, bitcoin has been a pretty big development in the past 17 years. It's given rise to $2 1/2 trillion industry. And it is being used, you know, by people like Argentines as a store of wealth. It's being used by criminals to launder money. The crypto industry was leveraged by President Trump to win the election and come back to power. And he's now making - he and his family are making money off of various crypto ventures. I mean, this invention has had a huge impact in our world, and I think it's in the common interest - in the public interest to know who this person was who invented this thing and what their motivations were. And now we know it's Adam Back. He was a cypherpunk. He was very concerned about privacy. He was very concerned about surveillance and censorship. He had huge distrust in the government, and he wanted to create this thing called electronic cash to operate without having to deal with fiat currencies and outside of the realm of governments.
KELLY: John Carreyrou, thank you.
CARREYROU: Thank you.
KELLY: He's a reporter with The New York Times. His piece is headlined "My Quest To Solve Bitcoin's Great Mystery." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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