Key Takeaways:
DeBanked editor-in-chief Sean Murray put forward findings that suggest Jack Dorsey is Satoshi. He highlights a series of coincidences and dates linking Dorsey to Bitcoin’s early days. Some analysts have punched holes into Murray’s theory.As the search for Satoshi Nakamoto continues, Jack Dorsey’s name has now been thrown into the hat. The billionaire Twitter co-founder is being linked with the enigmatic Bitcoin creator who disappeared 15 years ago.
The renewed speculation comes from research and analysis recently put forward by Sean Murray, editor-in-chief of the fintech publication deBanked.
Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at asset manager VanEck, later voiced his support for the theory, saying the evidence that Dorsey is Nakamoto is “compelling and worthy of further scrutiny.”
Murray posted his findings on X, highlighting a series of coincidences, dates, and connections that supposedly link Jack Dorsey, the CEO of crypto company Block, with the early days of Bitcoin (BTC).
As Sigel points out in a post on X, the evidence connecting Dorsey and Nakamoto “is a combination of technical parallels, circumstantial links, patterns (including timing), uncanny coincidences, motive and ability.”
For example, Murray spoke about Dorsey’s shared history with Nakamoto in cypherpunk circles.
He said Dorsey showed an early interest in cryptography and the cypherpunk movement – privacy die-hards who use computer encryption methods to evade prying eyes, especially from the government.
According to Murray, “Dorsey was one of 1,300 confirmed cypherpunks” studying at the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) in 1996. A yearbook photo shows him wearing a T-shirt referencing Adam Back’s encryption, he alleged.
Back—another Satoshi suspect—is well-known for creating Hashcash, a proof-of-work system used to combat spam emails. The concept is also used in Bitcoin’s mining system.
Jack Dorsey Is Not Satoshi, Analysts Say
Murray noted that some key events in Bitcoin’s development appear to align with dates that are important in Dorsey’s personal life.
He said the first Bitcoin transaction reportedly occurred on Jan. 11, 2009, which is Dorsey’s mother’s birthday. Satoshi is also said to have mined the last block on Mar. 5, 2010, coinciding with Dorsey’s father’s birthday.
He revealed that Satoshi joined the Bitcoin Forum, once a hub for crypto discussions, on Jack’s birthday. Murray said the Bitcoin.org domain was registered the day after Dorsey tweeted a cryptic message about sailing.
“Jack, who was a sailor, tweeted on Aug. 17, 2008: ‘Around the horn and home again, for that’s the sailor’s way,’” the deBanked editor detailed.
“Jack’s Twitter profile from Sept ’07 – Jan ’09 said he was a sailor. The original Bitcoin source code included an old sailor’s adage: ‘Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three.’”
According to Murray, “the original Bitcoin source code documents are all timestamped as being created at exactly 4 AM,” similar to Dorsey’s known habit of late-night work, as was featured in his X biography.
Matteo Pellegrini is the founder and CEO of Orange Pill App, a location-based social network for Bitcoiners. Speaking to Cryptonews, Pellegrini dismissed Murray’s findings as speculative, saying the evidence linking Dorsey with Satoshi “doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
He said there is “no evidence that Satoshi ever leaked his IP address.”
In his long X post, Murray suggested that “Satoshi accidentally logged into an IRC [chat] on Jan. 10, 2009, using a real IP, revealing he was in California”, Jack’s supposed location at the time.
Pellegrini also dismissed the claim that Bitcoin’s first transaction occurred on Dorsey’s mother’s birthday as false. Records show that the first transaction using BTC took place on Jan. 12, 2009, not Jan. 11, 2009, as Murray said.
‘No Value in Knowing’ Satoshi’s Real Identity
Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared in 2010 when he stopped posting on an online forum for cypherpunks. The Bitcoin creator’s last known email to the forum was sent in April 2011, saying, “I’m moving on to other things.”
His true identity has been the subject of much speculation since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009. Many attempts have been made to unmask the pseudonymous Bitcoin founder, but his identity remains a mystery.
Murray believes his research has solved the 15-year mystery. He said that Nakamoto used vanity Bitcoin addresses – a type of custom BTC address – as revealed in an email he sent to early Bitcoin developer Hal Finney.
Some of the vanity addresses began with the letters NS, in reference to Satoshi’s pseudonym. After the email, Murray alleges Dorsey sent Bitcoin to four addresses, “including one that has jD2m in the middle.”
The deBanked editor-in-chief argues that the address refers to Dorsey’s residence at the time, which he places at 2 Mint Plaza in San Francisco.
“Jack Dorsey 2 Mint (jD2m),” he stressed.
However, Pellegrini, the Orange Pill App CEO, told Cryptonews that the “NS17 vanity address isn’t in the original code” and there is “no proof Jack ever lived at 2 Mint Plaza.”
He disputed Murray’s assertion that all Bitcoin source code documents bear a 4 a.m. timestamp. Pellegrini also said there’s no evidence Satoshi’s GMX email, which was hacked in 2014, was ever linked to St. Louis, Dorsey’s alleged city of origin.
Murray said the hacker tried “to extort Satoshi by sharing that he knows about his connection to St. Louis, Missouri. Jack is from St. Louis.”
For Bobby Shell, vice president of marketing at Bitcoin Lightning network infrastructure provider Voltage, the search for Nakamoto is an exercise in futility.
“There is no credibility,” Shell tells Cryptonews, adding:
“There is no value in knowing who Satoshi is. The pointing fingers and guessing as to who Satoshi is only puts people’s lives at risk, and isn’t meaningful.”
Numerous names have been put forward as potential Satoshi candidates, including Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, and Dorian Nakamoto, but to no avail.
The most recent hunt for Satoshi was by HBO filmmaker Cullen Hoback, who named Canadian Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd as Nakamoto. After the reveal, Todd went into hiding for safety reasons.
Satoshi is one of the world’s richest people. His wallet is estimated to hold more than $107 billion worth of Bitcoin at current exchange rates.
‘Big Deal If Satoshi Were Dorsey’
While Voltage’s Spell thinks the continued search for Nakamoto is “disrespectful,” Pellegrini believes “if Dorsey were somehow confirmed to be Satoshi, it would be a huge deal.”
The Orange Pill App CEO told Cryptonews:
“It would instantly make him the most influential figure in Bitcoin’s history and immediately trigger intense debates about BTC’s origins, governance, and vision.”
“It would, no doubt, also trigger concerns about centralization. The price would react dramatically—whether positively or negatively would depend on how the market perceives Dorsey’s historical and future involvement,” he added, noting:
“However, Bitcoin’s core strength is its decentralization, and no single individual—even its creator—can control its future.”
VanEck’s Mathew Sigel argued that revealing Satoshi’s identity would end uncertainties. He also said if Jack Dorsey is confirmed as Nakamoto, “it wouldn’t have much effect on Bitcoin’s price or community.”
Murray put up more information to support his theory. He noted Dorsey’s admiration for Bitcoin and his continued advocacy for decentralization. He also made cryptic remarks about BTC as his artistic creation.
In 2001, Dorsey wrote a manifesto about making a mark without leaving a trace and, in 2003, posted that he was “ending his dependence on the U.S. dollar and creating a barter network.”
Bitcoin was born out of a distrust of the dollar and all government-issued currencies. Also, the fact that Satoshi has yet to be identified dovetails with Dorsey’s ambitions of making a “mark without leaving a trace.”
On Dec. 5, 2010, Satoshi told people on the Bitcoin forum not to donate Bitcoin to Wikileaks. Nine days later, Twitter was “hit with a secret court order with a gag requirement to turn over everything it has on Wikileaks.”
Murray noted that Nakamoto disappeared soon after Dorsey was made executive chairman of Twitter while remaining CEO of Square, now Block, at the end of March 2011. Dorsey tweeted he was “very busy with both.”
Connecting the Dots
Murray also pointed to a novel titled “Hacktivist” written by “Jack’s best friend, Alyssa Milano, in 2013 about Jack.” He said the book places Dorsey “as living a double life behind a famous pseudonym.”
Milano published a serialized sequel to Hacktivist in July 2015, again about Dorsey. In this book, “Jack’s famous pseudonym is hijacked, and his software developed in a way that was not intended.”
“The hijacker has a logo that looks almost exactly like Gavin Andresen’s Bitcoin Faucet logo,” Murray observed. Two weeks after the second novel is released, Satoshi reappears on the Bitcoin mailing list to address the Bitcoin block size debates.
“People are shocked about Satoshi’s return, and some doubt it is really him but could not disprove it,” said the deBanked editor.
He suggests that Dorsey’s motivation for maintaining pseudonymity is that “Satoshi and Bitcoin are his art,” and he aimed to transform digital finance while maintaining pseudonymity rather than complete anonymity.
Jack Dorsey once told podcaster Lex Fridman that if he was Satoshi, he would not admit it to him if he was.
In October 2023, the Twitter founder reportedly said at a conference that “Bitcoin and Satoshi in 2009 was a combination of my childhood and my curiosity and everything that I aspired to be and everything I loved.”
In July 2024, he wrote on Nostr, “I frequently imagine Satoshi sitting back somewhere and laughing at it all.”
He also thanked the late early Bitcoin Core developer Hal Finney “for his help” on the same platform.
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