Ripple’s David Schwartz saw the headline and could not resist. “Finally we have the definitive answer that will certainly end the debate forever,” the Ripple CTO wrote on X after the New York Times published what it described as an 18-month investigation into the identity of Bitcoin’s creator.
Whether that was genuine acknowledgement, dry sarcasm or something in between is genuinely unclear. Schwartz did not elaborate. The crypto community has been debating the tone of it ever since, which may have been exactly the point.
What the Investigation Actually Claims
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Carreyrou spent 18 months investigating the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, and concluded that Adam Back, the British cryptographer and CEO of Blockstream, is the most likely candidate.
The report drew on analysis of over 134,000 messages from cypherpunk mailing lists, examining writing styles, technical ideas, timelines and communication patterns across hundreds of early contributors.
The response across crypto was mixed. One XRP community account said that Back has been a leading suspect for years without definitive proof ever materialising. Another replied to the thread simply with “It’s David,” pointing at Schwartz himself, which drew its own share of engagement.
A second reply pushed further, questioning whether Satoshi himself would even hold the same views today: “You think Satoshi wouldn’t have changed any of his views on what bitcoin should be based on what’s happened in the space over the past 15 years,” David said.
Carreyrou’s original post framing the investigation as ending the debate forever drew over 214,000 views, with replies ranging from genuine curiosity to flat dismissal.
Back Says No
Adam Back has denied being Satoshi, describing the findings as a coincidence and natural overlap among people who shared the same cypherpunk background and influences. He also pointed out that his large body of published work makes random stylistic similarities statistically more likely to appear in any sufficiently detailed analysis.
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