Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (Block), is allegedly the creator of Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, according to Sean Murray, editor-in-chief of deBanked.
The expert has compiled an extensive list of facts, dates, and coincidences that supposedly support his theory.
Dorsey's Interest in Cryptography
The co-founder of X is said to have been interested in cryptography and cypherpunk culture since 1996, when he was a computer science student at university. Even then, Dorsey wore a T-shirt with a picture of Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash, one of the first systems to combat Internet fraud.
In 2001, Dorsey also wrote a manifesto stating his desire to go down in history without leaving a trace. This is closely intertwined with the philosophy of Satoshi Nakamoto, who disappeared in 2009.
Did Dorsey Really Create Bitcoin?
Here are all the facts that, according to Murray, indicate Dorsey's connection to the creation of Bitcoin:
- Satoshi allegedly registered on the Bitcoin Forum on November 19 — Dorsey's birthday.
- All Bitcoin source codes were time-stamped at 4:00 AM, a time previously displayed in Dorsey's X profile.
- Satoshi used the "brute force" method to create Bitcoin addresses. One of them started with "jD2m," which Murray believes could stand for "Jack Dorsey 2 Mint". This may be a reference to Dorsey's San Francisco address at 2 Mint Plaza.
- In 2014, an unknown person hacked Satoshi's address. The hacker tried to extort money, reporting that he knew about Nakamoto's connection to St. Louis, Missouri, where Dorsey was born.
- In 2010, Satoshi warned users against sending bitcoins to support WikiLeaks. A few days later, Twitter, then under the management of a board of directors including Dorsey, received a secret court order requiring the transfer of data about users associated with WikiLeaks. On January 10, 2009, Satoshi accidentally entered an IRC chat under a real IP address, which showed that he was in California. Dorsey was there at the time.
Murray also drew attention to a number of such coincidences:
- Satoshi joined the Bitcoiners forum on Jack's birthday.
- The last block mined by the creator of the cryptocurrency was on his father's birthday.
Analysts at BitMEX Research disagreed with this argument. In their opinion, it is difficult to determine the exact date of the end of Satoshi's cryptocurrency mining, since the "Patoshi pattern" has degraded over time.
The creator of Bitcoin used addresses created using brute force methods. Some started with the letters NS, and one contained jD2m in the middle. Murray considers this a reference to Dorsey's address in San Francisco at 2 Mint Plaza — Jack Dorsey 2 Mint.
When Satoshi wrote to his partner Marti Malmi that he was really busy with work, Dorsey was really immersed in launching the Square startup, the researcher noted.
In December 2010, the creator of Bitcoin advised on the forum not to donate cryptocurrency to Wikileaks. On December 14, Twitter received a court order requiring the transfer of all information about the non-profit organization, and the day before that, Satoshi stopped appearing in the chat.
What Does Dorsey Say Himself?
In March 2011, Dorsey became executive chairman of Twitter, remaining CEO of Square. In messages, the entrepreneur admitted that he was very busy in two companies.
About a month later, Satoshi sent his last letter, Murray noted. In July 2024, Dorsey wrote on the decentralized Nostr network:
"I often imagine Satoshi sitting somewhere and laughing at it all."
Later, he thanked the late Hall Finney there for his help.
"The belief that Satoshi never wanted to be found is something that has been invented about him by other people. Satoshi chose pseudonymity, not anonymity, as Jack pointed out in a podcast with Lex Friedman," Murray noted.
According to the editor-in-chief of deBanked, this is in stark contrast to the behavior of Hal Finney, Adam Back, and Nick Szabo. They have always directly denied any involvement in the creation of BTC.
Meanwhile, opinions in the crypto community are divided. Some found Murray's arguments extremely convincing, while others pointed to a number of contradictions.
The main argument of critics is the censorship that Dorsey engaged in when he ran Twitter.
According to them, this does not coincide with the principles of Satoshi, about which we know a little.
Earlier, Coinbase Head of Product Conor Grogan stated that the Kraken crypto exchange may have information about who is hiding behind the mask of the creator of Bitcoin.
It is worth recalling that in the documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, released by the HBO television network, the creator of the first cryptocurrency was named as Canadian programmer Peter Todd.
He denied the information and was subsequently forced to hide for security reasons.
