Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the unknown person or people who designed bitcoin and created its original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, they also devised the first blockchain database. In the process they were the first to solve the double-spending problem for digital currency.

They were active in the development of bitcoin up until December 2010.

Born on 5 April 1975 (claimed)
Nationality - Japanese (claimed)
Known for: Inventing bitcoin, implementing the first blockchain, deploying the first decentralized digital currency
Fields: Digital currencies, computer science, cryptography

In October 2008, Nakamoto published a paper on the cryptography mailing list at metzdowd.com describing the bitcoin digital currency. It was titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". In January 2009, Nakamoto released the first bitcoin software that launched the network and the first units of the bitcoin cryptocurrency, called bitcoins. Satoshi Nakamoto released the Version 0.1 of bitcoin software on Sourceforge on 9 January 2009.

Nakamoto created a website with the domain name bitcoin.org and continued to collaborate with other developers on the bitcoin software until mid-2010. Around this time, he handed over control of the source code repository and network alert key to Gavin Andresen, transferred several related domains to various prominent members of the bitcoin community, and stopped his involvement in the project. Until shortly before his absence and handover, Nakamoto made all modifications to the source code himself.

The inventor left a text message in the first mined block which reads 'The Times 3 January 2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks'. The text refers to a headline in The Times published on 3 January 2009. It is a strong indication that the first block was mined no earlier than this date. The genesis block has a timestamp of 18:15:05 GMT on 3 January 2009. This block is unlike all other blocks in that it doesn't have a previous block to reference. This required the use of custom code to mine it. Timestamps for subsequent blocks indicate that Nakamoto did not try to mine all the early blocks solely for himself.

As the sole, predominant early miner, the inventor was awarded bitcoin at genesis and for 10 days afterwards. Except for test transactions these remain unspent since mid January 2009. The public bitcoin transaction log shows that Nakamoto's known addresses contain roughly one million bitcoins. As of 17 December 2017, this is worth over 19 billion USD. This makes him the 44th richest person on Earth.