Who created the Bitcoin ? This simple, sometimes redundant question is still unanswered today. If multiple theories have emerged since 2009, some are coming back, and could be more convincing than others. Recently, one of them resurfaced and has somewhat stirred up the crypto community. Bitcoin could be a creation of National Security Agency (NSA), a major American intelligence entity. What are the assumptions underlying this theory? Is it plausible?
Today, we invite you to sort out the truth from the falsehood about Bitcoin made in the NSA.
Bitcoin allegedly escaped from an NSA laboratory
Several hypotheses and reflections are at work within this theory itself. According to some observers, a NSA cryptography research laboratory would have developed the Bitcoin network. It would then have been abandoned and/or rejected by the American agency for various possible reasons.
If this hypothesis may seem far-fetched to you, that is in any case what is stated Nick Carter, partner of Castle Island Ventures. He also adds some explanations.
According to him, “a researcher judged [le projet] too good to leave it fallow and therefore chose to publish secretly“. This hypothesis supports revelations, upstream, from the entrepreneur and bitcoiner Daniel Roberts. In fact, on September 14 on X, he published screenshots of an NSA archive document entitled “How to make a currency: the cryptography of anonymous cash”.
I actually do believe this. I call it the bitcoin lab leak hypothesis. I think it was a shuttered internal R&D project which one researcher thought was too good to lay fallow on the shelf and thing to secretly release https://t.co/qXJkQTciSK
— nic 🌠 carter (@nic__carter) September 21, 2023
Two suspicious elements caught the attention of Roberts and the crypto community. First, the document title strangely resembles the title of the Bitcoin white paper: “Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic payment system”. Second element: a certain “Tatsuaki Okamoto” is cited in the footnotes of this paper. According to Carter, while the resemblance between this academic’s name and “Satoshi Nakamoto” is obvious, it does not constitute a central point of his hypothesis, but rather a nice coincidence.
“The name could have been used as an inspiration for Satoshi. But it’s not really an essential part of the theory”.
Satoshi Nakamoto and Central Intelligence a matter of etymology which surprises. Indeed, we should not ignore the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto, when he is translated into Japanese, is equivalent to the following: Satoshi = source of wisdom or intelligence and Nakamoto = middle, central or root origin. The link is therefore quickly made with “Central intelligence“, which is the title of another American intelligence agency, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).
But let’s not get carried away too quickly. As some observers point out, it is unlikely that an intelligence agency would let such an obvious trace of his involvement. Besides, this is why Carter opted more for the hypothesis of a leak. If the NSA itself did not leave a clue, it could be that one of his collaborators or employees did it in his place.
Nuances and perspectives of this theory
The NSA theory is laudable. But she poses several problems. First, without completely denying it, it would be very difficult to concretely identify the actors of this invention and/or this leak within the NSA.
In addition, some observers like Matthew Pines, director of intelligence at the cybersecurity company Krebs Stamos, believe that we are more likely to be dealing with a complex set of protagonists. According to him, it would be a “cross-fertilization between NSA crypto nerds and cypherpunk nerds “. He even adds:
“I suspect Satoshi (or at least his/their close intellectual associates) of having close ties to the NSA, but I don’t think Bitcoin itself or the white paper has been officially approved.”
We would therefore have, in this hypothesis, a variety of characters instigators of Bitcoin, collaborating, directly or indirectly, with the American intelligence agency.
For his part, Raoul Pal, former Goldman Sachs executive, is thinking of an international collaboration involving several intelligence agencies, including the NSA. In an interview with Impact Theory in early 2023, he said:
“I think the US government and the UK government invented it, which is the NSA and GCHQ in the UK, which are the two global centers of cryptography.”
However, all these ideas remain today assumptions, hypotheses sometimes even placed under an ideological sign. In short, we are always dealing with theories. This is what sums up Jeff Manformer crypto analyst at the NSA, interviewed by Cointelegraph last August.
According to him, while it is possible that the agency created Bitcoin to gather information, it remains unlikely. Man added that the NSA would always have respected its commitment not to spy on American citizens. But this assertion obviously remains questionable when we are aware of the actions undertaken by the CIA in the previous decade.
In summary, a Bitcoin made-in NSA remains at this stage, a theory. Whether it is valid or totally unrealistic, that is You be the judge. But the more time passes, the more Bitcoins by Satoshi Nakamoto, estimated at 1 million and representing around 5% of the supply, appear immobile. The tacit threat of a movement of funds or worse, a sale, therefore hangs over the entire industry. This will surely further contribute, in the years or decades to come, to making the crypto community imagine, all kinds of theories about the identity of the creator(s) of Bitcoin.
Sources: Medium, Cointelegraph, Daniel Roberts
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This article does not constitute investment advice in any way. The information provided here should not be used as a basis for making financial decisions. Cryptocurrency investments involve risks and may result in significant losses. You should only invest what you can afford to lose and carry out your own research before making any investment decisions.