The MOST COMPREHENSIVE LIST of potential Satoshi candidates

[tokeweed]

you forgot to put elvis.

[herzmeister]

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/history-misidentifying-satoshi-nakamoto/

"Chris Belzingam" (I actually know the real name of this guy as he's part of our meetup group but I won't put it here  )

[UsernameBitcoin]

you forgot to put elvis.

I know, I know. I also didn't include God, everyone, ....

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/history-misidentifying-satoshi-nakamoto/

"Chris Belzingam" (I actually know the real name of this guy as he's part of our meetup group but I won't put it here  )

Well, yeah, he sounds pretty legit. Anyway, why not let us know the real name of this comedian?

[freequant]

How ironic that the real Satoshi is only in the second list

[nextgencoin]

I went through many posts and articles about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and made a list of the suspects,
divided into 1) prime suspects, 2)others, and 3) group/institutions
I know some sound very unlikely but I still mention them because I didn't want to make any prejudgments.
Please let me know about other potential candidates. Happy Birthday Bitcoin!

1)
Adam Back
Charles Bry
David Chaum
Michael Clear
Wei Dai
Hal Finney
Neal J. King
Martti Malmi
Shinichi Mochizuki
John Nash
Tatsuaki Okamoto
Vladimir Oksman
Nick Szabo

2)
Gavin Andresen
Andreas Antonopoulos
Peter Bachman
John Perry Barlow
Doug Barnes
Michel Bauwens
BCNext
Tim Berners-Lee
Jim Bell
Kay Bell
Tamas Blummer
Nicholas Bohm
S. Boxx
Stefan Brands
Eli Brandt
Greg Broiles
Patrick Byrne
Jan Camenisch
Arthur Chandler
Jim Choate
Igor Chudov
Bram Cohen
Nick Collision
Matt Corallo
Geoff Dale
Luke Dashjr
L.Detweiler
Whitfield Diffie
Ray Dillinger
Jamie Dinkelacker
James A. Donald
Dooglus
Barry Downey
Evan Duffield
Vincent Durham
Tony Eng
Dan Fabulich
Niels Ferguson
Paul Ferguson
Amos Fiat
Art Forz
Matthew Franklin
Patri Friedman
Curtis D. Frye
Tony Gallippi
Jeff Garzik
Matthew Gaylor
John Gilmore
David Gordon
James Orlin Grabbe
Ron Gross
Ashish Gulhati
Laszlo Hanyecz
Mike Hearn
Martin Hellman
Michael Hendrix
Eyal Hertzog
Robert A. Hettinga
Eric Hughes
Mike Ingle
David Irvine
Douglas Jackson
Victor K.
Jeff Kane
Mark Karpeles
Sunny King
Steve Klingsporn
Con Kolivas
Dave Krieger
Nick Lambert
Matthew B. Landry
Laurie Law
Charles/Charlie Lee
Vili Lehdonvirta
Hendrik Lenstra
Romana Machado
Michael Marquardt
Yossi Matias
Gregory/Greg Maxwell
Timothy C. May
Jed McCaleb
Stanton McCandlish
James McCarthy
Jim McCoy
Alfred J. Menezes
Perry E. Metzger
Jude Milhon
Max More
David Naccache
Daniel A. Nagy
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto
Moni Naor
Satoshi Obana
Kazuo Ohta
Donald O'Mahony
Jackson Palmer
Torben Pedersen
Michael Peirce
Jean-Marc Piveteau
Naval Ravikant
Ben Reeves
Ron Rivest
Meni Rosenfeld
Nikolay Rozhok
Gary Rowe
Susan Sabett
Mayank Sahu
Steve Schear
Andreas Schildbach
Nils Schneider
Berry Schoenmakers
Adi Shamir
Carol Shaw
Charlie Shrem
Barry Silbert
Jerry Solinas
Markus Stadler
Bill Stewart
Patrick Strateman
Aaron Swartz
Amir Taaki
Yael Tauman
Hitesh Tewari
Will Thomas
Peter Todd
Zhou Tong
Dustin D. Trammell
Patrick P. Tsang
Ross William Ulbricht
Wladimir J. van der Laan
Thomas Vartanian
Roger Ver
Paul Vernon
Sebastiaan von Solms
Erik Voorhees
Michael Weber
Russell E. Whitaker
Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn
Peter Wuille
Moti Yung
Phil Zimmerman
Haibin Zhang

3)
Group of above mention persons and/or others
NSA
Samsung/Toshiba/Nakamichi/Motorola

Thanks, you've really narrowed it down for us. I think a top 10 is order of likleyhood would be better. My number one would be Nick Szabo.

[runpaint]

2)
Gavin Andresen
Andreas Antonopoulos
Peter Bachman
John Perry Barlow
Doug Barnes
Michel Bauwens
BCNext
Tim Berners-Lee
Jim Bell
Kay Bell
Tamas Blummer
Nicholas Bohm
S. Boxx
Stefan Brands
Eli Brandt
Greg Broiles
Patrick Byrne
Jan Camenisch
Arthur Chandler
Jim Choate
Igor Chudov
Bram Cohen
Nick Collision
Matt Corallo
Geoff Dale
Luke Dashjr
L.Detweiler
Whitfield Diffie
Ray Dillinger
Jamie Dinkelacker
James A. Donald
Dooglus
Barry Downey
Evan Duffield
Vincent Durham
Tony Eng
Dan Fabulich
Niels Ferguson
Paul Ferguson
Amos Fiat

If Bitcoin was created by Fiat, we wouldn't have all these libertarians.

[Trance]

I went through many posts and articles about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and made a list of the suspects,
divided into 1) prime suspects, 2)others, and 3) group/institutions
I know some sound very unlikely but I still mention them because I didn't want to make any prejudgments.
Please let me know about other potential candidates. Happy Birthday Bitcoin!

1)
Adam Back
Charles Bry
David Chaum
Michael Clear
Wei Dai
Hal Finney
Neal J. King
Martti Malmi
Shinichi Mochizuki
John Nash
Tatsuaki Okamoto
Vladimir Oksman
Nick Szabo

2)
Gavin Andresen
Andreas Antonopoulos
Peter Bachman
John Perry Barlow
Doug Barnes
Michel Bauwens
BCNext
Tim Berners-Lee
Jim Bell
Kay Bell
Tamas Blummer
Nicholas Bohm
S. Boxx
Stefan Brands
Eli Brandt
Greg Broiles
Patrick Byrne
Jan Camenisch
Arthur Chandler
Jim Choate
Igor Chudov
Bram Cohen
Nick Collision
Matt Corallo
Geoff Dale
Luke Dashjr
L.Detweiler
Whitfield Diffie
Ray Dillinger
Jamie Dinkelacker
James A. Donald
Dooglus
Barry Downey
Evan Duffield
Vincent Durham
Tony Eng
Dan Fabulich
Niels Ferguson
Paul Ferguson
Amos Fiat
Art Forz
Matthew Franklin
Patri Friedman
Curtis D. Frye
Tony Gallippi
Jeff Garzik
Matthew Gaylor
John Gilmore
David Gordon
James Orlin Grabbe
Ron Gross
Ashish Gulhati
Laszlo Hanyecz
Mike Hearn
Martin Hellman
Michael Hendrix
Eyal Hertzog
Robert A. Hettinga
Eric Hughes
Mike Ingle
David Irvine
Douglas Jackson
Victor K.
Jeff Kane
Mark Karpeles
Sunny King
Steve Klingsporn
Con Kolivas
Dave Krieger
Nick Lambert
Matthew B. Landry
Laurie Law
Charles/Charlie Lee
Vili Lehdonvirta
Hendrik Lenstra
Romana Machado
Michael Marquardt
Yossi Matias
Gregory/Greg Maxwell
Timothy C. May
Jed McCaleb
Stanton McCandlish
James McCarthy
Jim McCoy
Alfred J. Menezes
Perry E. Metzger
Jude Milhon
Max More
David Naccache
Daniel A. Nagy
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto
Moni Naor
Satoshi Obana
Kazuo Ohta
Donald O'Mahony
Jackson Palmer
Torben Pedersen
Michael Peirce
Jean-Marc Piveteau
Naval Ravikant
Ben Reeves
Ron Rivest
Meni Rosenfeld
Nikolay Rozhok
Gary Rowe
Susan Sabett
Mayank Sahu
Steve Schear
Andreas Schildbach
Nils Schneider
Berry Schoenmakers
Adi Shamir
Carol Shaw
Charlie Shrem
Barry Silbert
Jerry Solinas
Markus Stadler
Bill Stewart
Patrick Strateman
Aaron Swartz
Amir Taaki
Yael Tauman
Hitesh Tewari
Will Thomas
Peter Todd
Zhou Tong
Dustin D. Trammell
Patrick P. Tsang
Ross William Ulbricht
Wladimir J. van der Laan
Thomas Vartanian
Roger Ver
Paul Vernon
Sebastiaan von Solms
Erik Voorhees
Michael Weber
Russell E. Whitaker
Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn
Peter Wuille
Moti Yung
Phil Zimmerman
Haibin Zhang

3)
Group of above mention persons and/or others
NSA
Samsung/Toshiba/Nakamichi/Motorola

some names are part of the group that created it

[bornil267645]

A lot of names and a lot of possibility. But no certainty. One thing with Bitcoin is that nothing is certain, Not the price, not even the creator.

[indiemax]

NSA/CIA  wouldn't surprise me

[Cryddit]

I'll give you an A for the effort OP but he's the guy who invented world's first crypto-currency, you can't find him unless he wants to be found.

Eggs Ackley.  Satoshi did something nearly impossible; he spearheaded a major development, worked with people over an extended period of time, managed to do it without leaving a single shred of evidence linking to the government's name for him, and GOT AWAY WITH IT.  "Satoshi Nakamoto" is the single hottest nym in the world in terms of making trouble for anyone who can ever be proven to have been the guy who used it.

Why the hell would he ever use the single hottest nym in the world again?  It would just give people a chance to catch him.

I say again.  We are all little fish swimming around in an aquarium, constantly watched.  But Satoshi knew the whole system, worked around it, and  HE GOT AWAY WITH IT.  Getting associated with that nym now would blow the whole effort he put into keeping it a secret, and if you understand how much surveillance we're under you know that was a HELL of an effort to do.

[Blinken]

Reminder: my 2011 guess is Hettinga based on language analysis of known forum posts (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49751.0)

Note that Hettinga knows Chaum so it is possible he used Chaum's code.

[ebliever]

Reminder: my 2011 guess is Hettinga based on language analysis of known forum posts (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49751.0)

Note that Hettinga knows Chaum so it is possible he used Chaum's code.

Interesting, I hadn't heard that before. Anyone have a photo of Hettinga or other real-world info? (Nothing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hettinga) My own favorite has been Nick Szabo, with the caveat that "Nick Szabo" itself seems to be a pseudonym as he seems to have no real-life presence and based on a comment of his in the early 90's that imply it was a pseudonym. So I wouldn't be surprised if Satoshi was Nick who was someone like Hettinga.

Half of me hopes we never figure it out. The other half wants answers...

[UsernameBitcoin]

Updated List
added: red color
I put Robert A. Hettinga and Jim McCoy to the first group

1) prime suspects
2) others
3) group/institutions

1)
Adam Back
Charles Bry
David Chaum
Michael Clear
Wei Dai
Hal Finney
Robert A. Hettinga
Neal J. King
Martti Malmi
Jim McCoy
Shinichi Mochizuki
John Nash
Tatsuaki Okamoto
Vladimir Oksman
Nick Szabo

2)
Gavin Andresen
Andreas Antonopoulos
Peter Bachman
John Perry Barlow
Doug Barnes
Ashley Barr
Michel Bauwens
BCNext
Tim Berners-Lee
Jim Bell
Kay Bell
Tamas Blummer
Nicholas Bohm
S. Boxx
Stefan Brands
Eli Brandt
Greg Broiles
Patrick Byrne
Jan Camenisch
Arthur Chandler
Jim Choate
Igor Chudov
Bram Cohen
Nick Collision
Matt Corallo
Geoff Dale
Luke Dashjr
L.Detweiler
Whitfield Diffie
Ray Dillinger
Jamie Dinkelacker
James A. Donald
Dooglus
Barry Downey
Andrew Dubinsky
Evan Duffield
Vincent Durham
Tony Eng
Dan Fabulich
Niels Ferguson
Paul Ferguson
Amos Fiat
Art Forz
Matthew Franklin
Patri Friedman
Curtis D. Frye
Tony Gallippi
Jeff Garzik
Matthew Gaylor
John Gilmore
Ian Goldberg
Oded Goldreich
David Gordon
James Orlin Grabbe
Ian Grigg
Ron Gross
Ashish Gulhati
Timo Hanke
Laszlo Hanyecz
Mike Hearn
Martin Hellman
Michael Hendrix
Eyal Hertzog
Eric Hughes
Mike Ingle
David Irvine
Joichi Ito
Douglas Jackson
Victor K.
Jeff Kane
Mark Karpeles
Sunny King
Steve Klingsporn
Paul Kocher
Con Kolivas
Andrew Krieger
Dave Krieger
Masatoshi Kumagai
Ryan Lackey
Nick Lambert
Matthew B. Landry
Ben Laurie
Laurie Law
Charles/Charlie Lee
Vili Lehdonvirta
Hendrik Lenstra
Sergio Lerner
Li Xianglin/David X. Li
Romana Machado
Dahlia Malkhi
Michael Marquardt
Yossi Matias
Gregory/Greg Maxwell
Timothy C. May
Jed McCaleb
Stanton McCandlish
James McCarthy
Patrick Meier
Alfred J. Menezes
Perry E. Metzger
Jude Milhon
Ulf Moeller
Max More
David Naccache
Daniel A. Nagy
Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto
Moni Naor
Satoshi Obana
Kazuo Ohta
Donald O'Mahony
Jackson Palmer
Torben Pedersen
Michael Peirce
Jean-Marc Piveteau
Naval Ravikant
Ben Reeves
Michael Reiter
Ron Rivest
Meni Rosenfeld
Nikolay Rozhok
Gary Rowe
Susan Sabett
Mayank Sahu
Len Sassaman
Steve Schear
Andreas Schildbach
Nils Schneider
Berry Schoenmakers
Adi Shamir
Carol Shaw
Adam Shostack
Charlie Shrem
Barry Silbert
Jerry Solinas
Markus Stadler
Bill Stewart
Patrick Strateman
Bjarne Stroustrup
Aaron Swartz
Amir Taaki
Yael Tauman
Hitesh Tewari
Will Thomas
Peter Todd
Zhou Tong
Dustin D. Trammell
Patrick P. Tsang
Ross William Ulbricht
Wladimir J. van der Laan
Variety Jones/cimon
Thomas Vartanian
Roger Ver
Paul Vernon
Sebastiaan von Solms
Erik Voorhees
Michael Weber
Russell E. Whitaker
Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn
Peter Wuille
Moti Yung
Phil Zimmerman
Haibin Zhang

3)
Group of above mention persons and/or others
NSA
Samsung/Toshiba/Nakamichi/Motorola

[S4VV4S]

Can I ask why Variety Jones is on the list?
He was a cannabis seeds seller on Silk Road, and apparently Ross Ulbright's mentor.

How did speculate that he could be Satoshi?

[jacktheking]

Out of list 1 and 2. I only know three people.

1. Nick Szabo
2. Gavin Andresen
3. Tim Berners-Lee

And I dont think any of them is Satoshi Nakamoto.

[anderson00673]

Wait what about that article that says he was found in California?  Is that just an April fools joke or something?  Or is it that we like to have our conspiracy theories regardless of the truth

[Hollingsworth]

I don't see Al Gore mentioned?

[UsernameBitcoin]

Can I ask why Variety Jones is on the list?
He was a cannabis seeds seller on Silk Road, and apparently Ross Ulbright's mentor.

How did speculate that he could be Satoshi?

I don't believe it either. There are many other who sound quite ridiculous.
I just put anyone on the list who got mentioned by someone in some forum and as long as it was not meant to be a joke.
Someone might have thought that because of his brilliancy and mystery, he also qualifies for Satoshi.

I don't see Al Gore mentioned?

He isn't SN. Proof: he would have named it Ecocoin.

Wait what about that article that says he was found in California?  Is that just an April fools joke or something?  Or is it that we like to have our conspiracy theories regardless of the truth

Well, for some, Newsweek is indeed a long lasting joke

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

I like the idea of David Irvine being Satoshi. Maidsafe is an older project than Bitcoin, therefore there is a solid possibility there that something spawned Bitcoin while developing Maidsafe.

[WhatTheGox]

I went through many posts and articles about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and made a list of the suspects,
divided into 1) prime suspects, 2)others, and 3) group/institutions
I know some sound very unlikely but I still mention them because I didn't want to make any prejudgments.
Please let me know about other potential candidates. Happy Birthday Bitcoin!


Mark Karpeles

oh god please no...  i would also place a very small % chance on this being possible.  If it was what a way to alienate the community from bitcoin overnight.  Keep it quiet if so mark.