The NYT named Adam Back the creator of Bitcoin - ForkLog: cryptocurrencies, AI, singularity, the future

# In NYT, Adam Back was named the creator of Bitcoin

Pulitzer Prize winner John Carreyrou from NYT suggested that the British cryptographer Adam Back could be the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto

The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, has remained unsolved for 17 years. Not anymore. Read my 18-month investigation to find out who Satoshi really is. https://t.co/fPtaK6YHJC

— John Carreyrou (@JohnCarreyrou) April 8, 2026

The journalist analyzed thousands of posts from the cypherpunk community and found matches in the writing style that pointed to Back. Carreyrou also studied hundreds of court records and emails. The investigation took 18 months

The documentary 2024 Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery served as the impetus. In one scene, Back sat on a park bench in Riga and tensed up when the director called him a possible creator of the first cryptocurrency

Carreyrou, who claims he can recognize lies, found the cryptographer’s behavior suspicious.

Posts from the cypherpunks

The investigation’s author dug into the archives of the cypherpunk mailing list—Back had been involved with it since 1995. Based on 134,308 messages from 620 participants, he built a database and, using linguistic analysis (line-break errors, spelling variations), narrowed it down to one person.

The main lead was posts from 1997, in which the cryptographer described all five key features of Bitcoin. Back proposed an electronic money system that would be “fully cut off” from modern banks, preserve the payer’s and payee’s privacy, operate in a distributed network, have built-in scarcity, and not require trust in any organization

Before the digital gold white paper was published, 10 years still remained at that time

According to Carreyrou, Back also anticipated the solution to the Byzantine Generals problem, described nodes that could “come and go” without harming the network, and suggested using his Hashcash to mint b-money coins of Wei Dai. Later, Satoshi mentioned both technologies in the white paper.

Linguistic analysis

Carreyrou analyzed Satoshi’s language—vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and habits. Taken together, the traits showed Back as the closest match to the texts of Bitcoin’s creator.

For example, both used two spaces between sentences—an editorial typography habit indicating an author from an older generation. Nakamoto and Back also used the interjection bloody (typical of the British)

Later, the cryptographer denied using that word, but the journalist found his 1998 post with the same bloody and saw it as an attempt to hide linguistic similarities with Satoshi.

The main linguistic argument is the chaotic handling of hyphens. Moreover, it wasn’t a one-off mistake, but a consistent pattern:

• e-mail / email;
• built-in / built in;
• off-line / offline;
• pre-compiled / precompiled

Source: NYT The two also mixed British and American forms (cheque / check) and wrote technical words without spaces (backup, bugfix). These things are harder to fake than word choice, Carreyrou noted

Before Satoshi, the term Proof-of-Work with hyphens as a compound noun in the mailing lists was used by only eight people. After narrowing down by another rare trait—mention of WebMoney—one person remained: Adam Back

The phrase burning the money in the sense of destroying an electronic currency before Satoshi was written by Back alone. The expression partial pre-image appeared in both (Hal Finney and Back), but it was specifically Back who formatted it with a hyphen in the same way as Satoshi.

Other leads

Carreyrou found the timing of Back’s public activity especially suspicious. The person who had spent years discussing electronic money, privacy, and distributed networks practically disappeared from the discussion during exactly that period when Satoshi appeared. And then he began actively participating in the Bitcoin community after his disappearance.

The journalist described this as a possible role split: while one identity acts as Satoshi, the other public mask—Adam Back—stays silent.

In 2013, the cryptographer showed up at the Bitcointalk conference precisely when the analysis of Satoshi’s situation was released. Two years later, his position in the debates about block size practically repeated Back’s arguments word for word.

The investigation’s author questioned the authenticity of Satoshi’s letters to Back, which are usually considered as a justification. The latter never provided the metadata that could confirm the credibility of the correspondence.

Back’s reaction

After the investigation was published, Back denied Carreyrou’s assumptions. He once again stated that he is not Satoshi, but acknowledged his active role in the cypherpunk movement

i’m not satoshi, but I was early in laser focus on the positive societal implications of cryptography, online privacy and electronic cash, hence my ~1992 onwards active interest in applied research on ecash, privacy tech on cypherpunks list which led to hashcash and other ideas.

— Adam Back (@adam3us) April 8, 2026

The cryptographer called the coincidences found by the journalist “a combination of coincidence and repeating phrases among people with similar experiences and interests.” He also pointed to a possible confirmation bias error due to the large volume of his messages:

“I wrote 20 times more than others, so statistically I have a higher chance of random coincidences. I asked John to adjust this as a possible confirmation bias error.”

Recall that in February 2025, deBanked editor Sean Murray named Block co-founder Jack Dorsey as the creator of Bitcoin. He compiled an impressive list of facts, dates, and coincidences that he claims supposedly confirm his theory.