When I think of someone named Satoshi Nakamoto who allegedly created a decentralized digital currency that has been shrouded in mystery for years now, I think of someone who looks like a mixture of Neo from The Matrix and Pai Mei from Kill Bill.

Unfortunately for anyone with an imagination, Satoshi Nakamoto is (allegedly) actually this guy:

His name is Craig Wright, and he’s a pretty average-looking white dude from Australia. (Probably drives a minivan.)

However, do not be deceived by the fact that Craig looks like your childhood baseball coach.

If authorities are correct, Craig here is the creator of the elusive, genius cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.

This is still fresh news, so we don’t have any conclusive information yet. Authorities aren’t talking either, so it looks like it’s time to do our own investigating.

Here’s what we do know:

• “Satoshi Nakamoto” is just a pseudonym. We actually don’t even know if it’s a single person. Some theorists believe the Bitcoin code is too complex to have been created by a single person.  
• A few attempts have been made at identifying Nakamoto, and all have failed. Nakamoto has been a very elusive figure, communicating solely via a P2P foundation profile and making only brief statements about his purpose and motivation behind Bitcoin. Most of the recent messages (around 2010) report that Nakamoto is “gone for good.”
• Craig Wright is an Australian IT consultant, specializing in information security. He’s also self-identified as an academic, telling one reporter: “I’m a bit of everything… I have a masters of law… I have a masters in statistics, a couple doctorates, I forget actually what I’ve got these days.”

Gizmodo received a handful of anonymously hacked emails earlier this year. They came from someone who claimed to be a close associate of Nakamoto and knew his true identity.

In the emails, Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto. The emails are from the same email address that was linked to communications from Nakamoto in Bitcoin’s earlier days (satoshi@vistamail.com).

You can check out the emails here and draw your own conclusions.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Wright has been openly involved in Bitcoin for some years, attending panels and seminars and speaking as an expert and operator of a Bitcoin Bank. This is no secret.

However, in the recent emails, Wright claims that he is Nakamoto — the creator of Bitcoin. If this is true, then Wright potentially owns about $500 billion in Bitcoin stockpile.

Just a few hours after two articles from Wired and Gizmodo named Wright as the secretive inventor of Bitcoin, Australian police raided his home.

We’ll get to why this matters… but first let’s talk about Craig and why we should all be practicing a degree of skepticism here.

First of all, Craig is basically an egomaniac.

Before authorities erased the content of his LinkedIn page, Craig was dubbing himself:

A sought-after internationally recognized author and public speaker, delivering solutions to government and corporate departments in SCADA security, Cyber Security and Cyber Defense, as well as leading the uptake of IPv6 and Cloud technologies. Drives innovative strategies that result in the strategic redevelopment and invigoration of both startups and established firms. Futurist, thought leader and expert with proven innovation in program leadership, execution design and strategic redevelopment.

Forget my earlier comment about the minivan. Craig sounds like the kind of guy who drives a fire-engine-red Corvette because, well, you know… he has some compensating to do.

In a different online manifesto, Craig states:

I will make a solution to problems you have not even thought of and I will do it without YOUR or any state’s permission! I will create things that make your ideas fail as I will not refuse to stop producing. I will not live off or accept welfare and I will not offer you violence. You will have to use violence against me to make me stop however.

Although these ramblings definitely sound like someone who is ready to disrupt the entire financial system, most people are hesitant to believe that these are the words of Nakamoto himself.

The attitude and style of prose do not align with previous statements from Nakamoto, which had a sense of introversion and reclusiveness.

Other individuals who know Wright have voiced their doubts about the legitimacy of these claims, some even suggesting that Wright “outed” himself for media attention.

Ultimately, it’s been less than 24 hours since fingers started pointing at Craig Wright. If you’ve followed Bitcoin at all in the past, you know this isn’t the first time Nakamoto has been “identified.”

Based on the evidence here, I don’t think it will be the last.

So why do we care about the person behind Bitcoin?

Although the currency has yet to make a significant impact on the free market, Bitcoin’s presence is growing. What started as a subversive niche might prove to be one of the largest upsets to the global financial system.

Without getting too deep into the jargon, let’s try to get a running understanding of Bitcoin:

Bitcoin, as a system, is an online currency. The “coins” themselves are slots in a public ledger. Transactions occur when one user transfers ownership of a slot in that ledger.

The ledger of transactions is accessible to anyone in the world.

If you have Internet, you have a Bitcoin.

There is a hard limit on the number of coins that can exist — theoretically, a price stabilizer.

Think: gold.

Coins are “mined” using complex algorithms and math problems, and the system designed these problems to grow more difficult with time.

As of 2009, each Bitcoin was worth just fractions of a penny. Now, a single coin equates to $1,200. The value of Bitcoin is directly linked to two things: the volume and velocity of transactions and speculation on future use of the system.

Bitcoin has been the utopian mecca of tech-savvy libertarians for some time now.

Subscribers of the currency span the globe, and most analysts predict that number of users to reach 5 million within the next five years.

Even if it doesn’t disrupt the mainstream, it will still be touted as a computer science breakthrough.

Bitcoin is the first algorithmic creation that allows a single Internet user to publicly and legitimately transfer a piece of digital property to another user with guaranteed security and delivery.

Bitcoin removes third parties like banks or brokers, and transactions are completely valid.

I wish there was a way for me to truly emphasize the magnitude of this.

If Bitcoin were to grow into the free-market dream system that its followers have been hoping for, its impact on the existing financial system cannot be overstated.

Although Bitcoin eliminates third-party bodies like the Fed, whoever owns that mystery slot would have the power to cash out and cause a massive price shock.

In a sense, the utopian decentralized system isn’t so decentralized after all.

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