Pinning the Tail on Satoshi Nakamoto — How Journalists Erroneously Used Circumstantial Evidence Over the Years to Identify Bitcoin’s Creator – Bitcoin News

The search for Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s mysterious inventor, has been an ongoing hunt for the last 13 years. Since 2014, dozens of so-called candidates have appeared, but none of them have convinced the greater community that they are Bitcoin’s creator. Furthermore, journalists from publications like Newsweek have pointed to a few specific individuals, and nearly every one of them has denied playing a role in the creation of the world’s leading crypto asset. In October 2011, a journalist thought he discovered Nakamoto’s identity, or felt like he offered enough compelling evidence about his discovery to suggest the person he found may have created the first digital currency.

Putting the Wrong Face on the Person Behind Bitcoin

Over eight years ago, Newsweek journalist Leah McGrath Goodman published a story called “The Face Behind Bitcoin,” and in the article, she claims Satoshi Nakamoto was a retired physicist named Dorian Nakamoto. Despite Dorian’s denial from the beginning, the Newsweek reporter published an exposé about Dorian’s life. She claimed that there were several similarities between Dorian and Bitcoin’s anonymous inventor.

Dorian wasn’t happy with the exposé and he told the public he felt victimized and highlighted that he misunderstood Goodman’s questions. Bitcoiners were not too pleased with Goodman’s Newsweek story, and the community backed Dorian’s victim commentary by noting the Newsweek journalist doxxed Dorian by showing a photograph of his home in California. Goodman received a great deal of backlash for her story, but she wasn’t the only journalist who tried to pin Nakamoto’s identity on a specific individual.

‘I’m Not Satoshi — But Even if I Was I Wouldn’t Tell You’

Roughly two and a half years before Goodman’s exposé on Dorian Nakamoto, a journalist from the New Yorker tried to do the same thing. On October 3, 2011, when bitcoin (BTC) was trading for $5.03 per unit, the New Yorker’s Joshua Davis claimed to have discovered the mysterious inventor, and his name was Michael Clear.