The Inventor of Bitcoin is a Billionaire. But Who Are They?

Bitcoin reached an incredible high yesterday.  $19,771 to be exact.  Which made the creator of the cryptocurrency the 44th richest person in the world.  What’s super interesting about this is that no one actually knows who it is.  Before I get into that for a moment, doesn’t it seem odd that someone “created” a currency?  Has that ever been done before?  I mean, sure someone, somewhere had to come up with the idea of cash.  But the idea of one day waking up and saying – I’m going to make a currency – seems odd to me.  Can anyone do this?  It just seems like such an odd concept.  But getting back to this issue – no one knows who the creator is.

Over the past few years, many people have been suspected as the inventor, but we still don’t know who he is.  He (or she, I should say) goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.  The list of who this might include cryptography student Michael Clear, Finnish game developer Vili Lehdonvirta, and even a group identified as Fast Company. Why wouldn’t you want people to know who you are?  Are you evading the tax man?  I guess I don’t necessarily see the downside to this, in theory.

The closest that we’ve come to finding out who this is was back in December 2015.  During a raid of businessman Craig Steven Wright’s home, it was discovered that he might be Nakamoto.  In fact, he later claimed to be him.  But he wasn’t able to prove that he was the creator of Bitcoin.  Why exactly?  Well, he was unable to cryptographically sign the first block of data generated while growing the cryptocurrency.  Something the real Satoshi would have been able to do.

Which puts us back to square one with this search.  Whoever they are, their estimated fortune is around 980,000 BTC, which means they would be worth $19.4 billion.  This would put them above the Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Tala, and somewhere below Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.  Which is an incredible amount of wealth, so again, I ask the question – why wouldn’t you want to make yourself known?

I don’t know that I have the answer to that, but I would like to talk about the currency itself.  Bitcoin is super volatile.  At the time of writing this, Bitcoin had dropped to $18,989. Which isn’t bad, but it makes you wonder how long this can go on for?  I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’m wondering if Bitcoin can continue to grow? I’m skeptical that anything can grow at this rate.  I mean, even if we look at other things – like stocks, for example, their growth rate is fairly steady. (I say fairly as that’s not always the case.)  Sure Apple’s stocks increase in value, but not to this extent and at this rate.  Their stocks decrease also, but again, at a normal rate that ebbs and flows with the market. Outside of any kind of crash.

I am honestly skeptical of Bitcoin in general.  I shouldn’t be, but I just wonder how something can gain so much value in such a short amount of time.  Especially when people know so little about it, to begin with.  Either way, the inventor of the currency is swimming in it right now.  I look forward to finding out who he or she is.  How and when that will be revealed is unknown, or again, why this is being kept a secret.