Disgraced biotech entrepreneur and hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli has published a finding that appears to prove who the real person behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto is. But the Bitcoin community is not yet convinced.
The finding was shared in a blog post published on Tuesday, where Shkreli decrypted a signature from the one of the first Bitcoin transactions ever made. The decryption can be done using “any decryption tool,” Shkreli wrote in the comments section.
As has been known since the early days of Bitcoin, the first transaction was sent from Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto to the American programmer and cypherpunk community member Hal Finney.
Shkreli’s blog post said:
The following is the Bitcoin wallet Hal Finney used to receive the first Bitcoin transfer from Satoshi.
1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3
The following signature
HM7vpPSUbNsfDHRX6gv8xxWcVNHEc/3pOk0YrVehaGoUdbWizznfzOdELkLd1EjSXsW1oE5vHAkNAPzrAVzhuoI=
decrypts to:
—–BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE—–
This Transaction was made by Paul Leroux to Hal Finney on January 12, 2009 #bitcoin
—–END BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Is Paul Le Roux Satoshi?
Given that the wallet address is confirmed to have belonged to Hal Finney, Shkreli’s finding implies that Finney himself wanted to convey that Paul Le Roux is Satoshi Nakamoto.
Paul Le Roux is a programmer, criminal mastermind, and an informant to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He currently serves a 25-year prison sentence in the US, given to him in June 2020 for arranging or participating in seven murder, as well as his role in leading a global illegal business empire.
Interestingly, it is not the first time it has been suggested that Le Roux is Satoshi. In 2019, a Wired article said several signs are pointing towards Le Roux being Satoshi, even if no hard proof has been presented.
Skeptical community
According to community members commenting under…
