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Bitcoin's Decade Long Mystery Unraveled

The surprising name behind the internet's favorite currency.

By Edward AndersonPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Bitcoin's Decade Long Mystery Unraveled
Photo by André François McKenzie on Unsplash

Bitcoin has long left many an internet detective scratching their chin. It appeared on January 9, 2009, with a mysterious founder. Satoshi Nakomoto was credited as the creator of the currency. There was just one problem, no one with that name existed. 

Sleuths have longed tried to determine who the inventor of the cryptocurrency is. Several suspects were looked at, including the United States government and the Chinese. However, those hypotheses were eventually debunked as nothing more than conspiracy theories. 

The question of bitcoin's creation remained. 

One name that has often been mentioned concerning the cryptocurrency is Elon Musk. The billionaire has denied being involved in the creation of bitcoin in a series of tweets. However, his unofficial statements might be a way to avoid legal actions from former partners, romantic and business. 

What makes Musk different from the others mentioned concerning bitcoin? He had the means and motive actually to see through the creation process. It had long been a goal of his to create a digital currency. 

After one failure, Musk likely doubled down on his efforts. He does not take defeat lightly; when something doesn't work, he analyzes what went wrong and tries again. The high profile success of SpaceX highlights how the billionaire keeps going after very public failures. 

And the evidence proves that Elon Musk created bitcoin, despite his denial. 

Pay Me In Digits

Elon Musk began to work on a project called x.com in November 1999. The goal was an online bank to make life easier for consumers. He also wanted to launch a currency with the bank. 

Around the same time, Peter Thiel created Confinity. The company's goals lined up nicely with those of x.com. Merger negotiations began almost immediately. After a few months of talks, terms were agreed to. Musk would pay $10 million to bring the companies together. The new company was called PayPal.

It was not long before culture clashes began to happen at the newly combined company. Those who had worked for Confinity wanted to continue to work on Unix, while those who worked for X.com wanted to do their coding on Windows. Musk felt that the Windows version was the way of the future. 

After a few months of demoralizing work for PayPal, Musk was ousted as CEO. He was on a long-overdue vacation when the board sent him a message saying that Peter Thiel was replacing him. 

The board likely put a non-competition clause in his contract, which would have saddled his ability to create another online bank or digital currency, which would explain why he chose to use a pseudonym to create bitcoin. Those who wanted to stop him from creating a competitor to PayPal would have gone to legal war to prevent it from being created. 

There is something to be said about the similarities between the work of x.com and bitcoin. Both were designed to be peer to peer electronic payment systems. And both had designs to prove that work was completed. Each had a Merkle tree for data and the like. 

Interacting With Satoshi

An early bitcoin miner, Lazlo Haneyecz, talked to Business Insider. He told them that in the early days, Satoshi Nakomoto would email with him all the time. The creator came across as bossy, weird, and paranoid. Words that have also been used to describe Elon Musk.

Particularly the bossy aspect. He wanted the coding to be done in a specific way, with the codes that he was comfortable with. Even drawing the ire of engineers when he put out a Tweet looking for people to do that for SpaceX. The criticism was ignored and proven to be inconsequential when a rocket from Musk blasted off into space. It needs to be noted that bitcoin is coded in the C-note that Musk so loves. 

When it comes to being paranoid, Musk meets the standard and then some. He talked to the press about an employee who was allegedly working to sabotage Tesla. There was no evidence of this being the case. The billionaire also went on to blame competitors for trying to destroy his beloved car company. Those who shorted the stock were accused of wishing for his failure. 

Elon Musk meets the criteria for being the mysterious bitcoin creator, but why would he deny it?

Roadblocks To Bitcoin

"He's not a man who takes no for an answer," Justine Musk has said about her former husband. When she blew off a date, he stalked her down until she agreed to see him. After they had been married for several years, he forced her to sign a post-nuptial agreement. One that rendered her unable to lay claim to his fortune in the event of divorce. 

Something that he had in the works. 

After years of marriage and five sons, Musk had been having an affair and wanted to marry his mistress. He thought that the postnup would hold up in court, but his ex-wife fought back. Eventually, they settled the case, and the divorce was finalized in 2008, months before bitcoin made its grand debut. An argument could be made that Musk's first wife would have been entitled to a portion of the company if he worked on it during their marriage. 

The marriage between x.com and Confinity in 2000 meant that any coding belonged to the newly formed PayPal. If Musk were found to have been using any of it, he would need to cede part of the company to the very men who were determined to thwart him and unceremoniously fired him. 

For these reasons, Musk denies being Satoshi Nakomoto. Despite it being obvious that he created bitcoin in the hopes of changing the world of finance.

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About the Creator

Edward Anderson

Edward has written hundreds of acclaimed true crime articles and has won numerous awards for his short stories.

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