London, April 8, 2026, 12:14 BST
On Wednesday, The New York Times named British cryptographer Adam Back as the leading candidate for Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s mysterious creator. Back, who runs Blockstream, was quick to deny the report on X, posting: “i’m not satoshi.” MarketWatch
The timing is key here: Back is leading BSTR, a bitcoin treasury vehicle currently merging with Cantor Equity Partners I, a SPAC—essentially a blank-check shell. In a transcript filed with the SEC from a CNBC interview, Back said the deal was set for approval “about April.” That puts a direct market spin on the identity battle. SEC
Satoshi-linked wallets are believed to control some 1.096 million bitcoin. With bitcoin changing hands near $71,483 as of Wednesday, that pile comes to approximately $78.6 billion.
John Carreyrou’s story relied on stylometric tools—basically, a comparison of writing styles—plus old email trails, mailing-list archives, British spelling and hyphenation oddities, and a two-hour sit-down with Back in El Salvador. Computational linguist Florian Cafiero, who conducted the analysis, did find Back’s writing the closest match to Satoshi’s in one test, but called the evidence inconclusive.
Back’s reputation in bitcoin circles isn’t new. He came up with Hashcash in 1997—a proof-of-work mechanism originally meant to tackle spam—and his invention got a direct nod in the 2008 bitcoin white paper as inspiration for the mining process that underpins the network.
Back argued the overlap pointed to “confirmation bias” rather than actual authorship. He noted that after years spent covering privacy, cryptography, and electronic cash, some similarities were bound to show up. BeInCrypto
Still, that’s the catch here. The case is circumstantial, and Cafiero pointed out that a separate method turned up a different set of rankings. There’s also no cryptographic proof yet to put the matter to rest.
BSTR is angling to carve out a spot among the world’s top publicly listed bitcoin holders, right as the identity debate swirls. In the SEC-filed transcript, Back said the company’s goal is to be about No. 3 by holdings and, with approvals and sufficient redemptions, could scoop up as many as 21,000 additional coins. A lower initial price, he noted, would actually help BSTR snap up more bitcoin—“to our advantage,” as he put it. SEC
Competition is fierce. As of Monday, Strategy reported 766,970 bitcoin in its reserves. Twenty One Capital, back in December when it started trading on the NYSE, disclosed a stash of more than 43,500, ranking it as the third-biggest publicly traded corporate holder then.
Some well-known bitcoin developers pushed back against the Times’ approach. Jameson Lopp argued Satoshi “can’t be caught with stylometric analysis,” cautioning that the report painted “a huge target” on Back. Previous attempts to unmask Nakamoto have run aground: in 2024, a London judge decided Australian computer scientist Craig Wright was not Satoshi, so the question remains unanswered. Bitcoin News
