Elon Musk seems to think, like many, that cryptocurrency expert Nick Szabo could be Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin. “You can watch the development of ideas ahead of bitcoin’s launch and see who wrote about those ideas,” Elon Musk told artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman in a podcast released Tuesday, when asked what he was thinking of the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
The Tesla billionaire said that while he “obviously” didn’t know who created bitcoin, Nick Szabo’s theories seemed fundamental to the creation of the main cryptocurrency. “It seems that Nick Szabo is probably, more than anyone, responsible for the evolution of these ideas,” he said. “He claims not to be Nakamoto, but I’m not sure either is. He seems to be more than anyone responsible for the ideas behind bitcoin.”
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Bitcoin was first offered in October 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for someone who people think could be one or more people. In 2014, a team of linguistics researchers studied Satoshi Nakamoto’s bitcoin white paper alongside the writings of Nick Szabo and 10 other possible creators. They found the results to be indisputable.
“The number of linguistic similarities between Szabo’s handwriting and the bitcoin white paper is troubling,” the researchers said, adding, “None of the other possible authors matched so well.”
A 2015 New York Times article also attributed the invention of bitcoin to Nick Szabo. He has spoken publicly about the history of bitcoin and blockchain technology, but has repeatedly denied being the anonymous inventor of the digital asset. Another reason it is linked to bitcoin is its creation of the “bit gold” cryptocurrency in 1998.
Elon Musk said he didn’t think it was very important to know the identity of the creator of bitcoin: “What’s a name anyway? It’s a name attached to an idea. What does that mean, really? ” To back up his thought, he quoted William Shakespeare who said, “What we call rose, by another name, would smell just as good.”
Original version: Shalini Nagarajan / Insider
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