Satoshi Nakamoto is by no Means a Japanese

[daweller1]

Obviously he is not Japanese... because he is Craig Wright!

[rina aulia]

He knows that his position as the founder of bitcoin must convey information clearly in a language commonly known by people all over the world. If he is Japanese, then does the information have to be in Japanese?

[jake zyrus]

You can't just simply conclude that he's not a Japanese based on his english ability. Just because someone is a Japanese, it doesn't mean he's not already good at English. There are Japanese and other East Asian people who are really good at English although most are not really fluent.
Also we can't really say that he's a Japanese because we never know what his real name.

[kryptqnick]

Forget about what his wiki page is saying or whatever we have read about him. Reading through Satoshi's post on this forum, anyone with common sense and good understanding of English language could see clearly that the Bitcoin founder is by no means a Japanese. I spent the whole day reading through them, and here are some outstanding posts he made prior to his disappearance. The perfect use of English is telling and undeniable.

"Perfect use of English" does not exclude people for whom English is a second language. For example, the great writer Vladimir Nabokov is native to Russia, but I find that his command of the English language is better than most native English speakers.

I agree that some people can write texts in English that is indistinguishable from that of native speakers. Not to mention that some native speakers can be so bad at writing that one might assume that English is their second language... And while the op asks us to forget the stuff from Wikipedia, I'd like to point out a fair argument available there, regarding the time zone.

Stefan Thomas, a Swiss coder and active community member, graphed the time stamps for each of Nakamoto's bitcoin forum posts (more than 500); the resulting chart showed a steep decline to almost no posts between the hours of 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. This was between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Japanese time, suggesting an unusual sleep pattern for someone presumably living in Japan. As this pattern held true even on Saturdays and Sundays, it suggested that Nakamoto was asleep at this time.[8]

Surely, a Japanese guy can live in Europe, but I think that it makes it unlikely that the person we call Satoshi lived in Japan in 2009 and 2010. I think there's a good chance it's someone from Britain, though.

[Lucius]

Does it matter what nationality it is Satoshi Nakamoto? I think that's one trivial thing, which even being known would mean nothing if someone wanted to discover the true identity of the Bitcoin inventor.

Language is something that can be learned very well, and maybe Satoshi is of Japanese origin, but he spent most of his life in UK or USA. Maybe that would be a logical explanation why some people think he is Japanese, and others dismiss it because of his proficiency in English.

One of the first associates who work with Satoshi Nakamoto says this about him :

Today, Satoshi's true identity has become a mystery. But at the time, I thought I was dealing with a young man of Japanese ancestry who was very smart and sincere. I've had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.

I personally respect Hal Finney opinion, and I think that only people who were close to Satoshi can give some good info about him, everything else is just speculation.

[dantee1]

I don't think he was a Japanese either, but for different reasons.

If he wants to hide his identity, he would naturally hide his nationality as well. Every piece of information he gives about his personal life can be linked together, reducing his chances to stay anonymous.

I don't understand why so many people are worried about who is Satoshi.

It really doesn't matter to me, and if one day someone appears providing some cryptography proof of his identity (like a signed message from the first coinbase tx), it would definitely be bad for bitcoin, because it would be a way to centralize it. Like Vitalik's blockchain.

I think he made a good decision by staying private for his own safety and for peace of mind. Imagine how many million times his name would have been mentioned, and how many times people would have been trying to sue him for one flimsy reasons or the other, just to try and extract some Bitcoin from him. That also added to the Bitcoin's credibility as it helps people see it as truly decentralized.

[dantee1]

Does it matter what nationality it is Satoshi Nakamoto? I think that's one trivial thing, which even being known would mean nothing if someone wanted to discover the true identity of the Bitcoin inventor.

Language is something that can be learned very well, and maybe Satoshi is of Japanese origin, but he spent most of his life in UK or USA. Maybe that would be a logical explanation why some people think he is Japanese, and others dismiss it because of his proficiency in English.

One of the first associates who work with Satoshi Nakamoto says this about him :

Today, Satoshi's true identity has become a mystery. But at the time, I thought I was dealing with a young man of Japanese ancestry who was very smart and sincere.[/i][/u] I've had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.

I personally respect Hal Finney opinion, and I think that only people who were close to Satoshi can give some good info about him, everything else is just speculation.

I think the quotation you mentioned just said a whole lot.

1. He is not a Japanese but "a young man of Japanese Ancestry" meaning he's likely a USA or UK citizen of Japanese descent.

2. He is a "young man" probably in his early thirties.

How such a young man was able to keep it together and keep away from the wealth and fame that could have come from his invention is a true testament to his character and virtue.  Funny, he may be somewhere reading all these stuffs we are making about him and laughing about it

[leftgirly]

This is not enough justification to conclude that Satoshi Nakamoto  was not a Japanese. Remember there are many Japanese who speak and write very good English. The world is a global village  and  sometimes is even difficult to predict the nationality of an individual just  by using the language he/she speaks or writes.

[SirLancelot]

Is there anyone that has real information satoshi? Even the claims that you are making here is just based on assumption and based on what you believe, you have never met satoshi or any of his relatives for you to really confirm that he is not Japanese. whatever it is that Wikipedia recorded must have been based on some findings if they claim that satoshi is a Japanese, then let’s leave it for those that will believe it, whoever does not believe should leave it then based on his own personal believe, I know that a time will come that the real identity of satoshi will be revealed.

I know that he is not dead as people believe; he is fully alive and once the system is completely adopted, he will surely reveal himself to each and every one of us, there is so many other things to be concerned about other than this argument.

[coin-investor]

There are Japanese in forex forum I sometimes visit and I can see they write perfect grammar. Nothing unusual for a person to learn English as 2nd language.

There is no real information about Satoshi but just the things he created. He may not be an American either nor a European unless he will prove himself.  No matter what his nationality may be, the crypto community will still be grateful to his product.  

The first time I read about Bitcoin and Satoshi Nakamoto I thought a Japanese created Bitcoin, and all the people believe it's a Japanese because the media thought a guy name Satoshi Nakamoto which they found is the real creator not thinking it's only a pseudonym.

Now we have many people coming claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto and none of them are Japanese, the latest is a Pakistani.
For me the real Nakamoto is not yet found and I'm pretty sure he is not a Japanese.

 

[Darker45]

Satoshi could be Japanese. He could also be not. He could be half Japanese, or 1/4, or even has an 8th percentage of this blood. We cannot tell. There must surely be a reason though why he/she/they chose the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a good name, by the way. It kind of adds another layer of mystery behind the person/s behind it. What I am sure of is that you simply cannot tell his nationality, ancestry, and residence by his/her/their use of language. That it is American English or looks like western English is by no means indicative of anything except the fact that he/she/they must be well-versed with the language. Even in the US alone, written and spoken English must vary from one place to another.