Who’s Nick Szabo, the man believed to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto?
2024-10-08

A new HBO documentary airing on Oct. 8 has teased that they have discovered the real Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin. 
While it could be a marketing trick, the announcement has fueled renewed speculation as to who could be the inventor of Bitcoin. 
One person that has been tipped as the potential real Satoshi is Nick Szabo, an American cryptographer, legal scholar and computer scientist who has contributed greatly to the blockchain sector since the early 90s.
That’s to say Szabo was contributing to blockchain before Bitcoin was even a thing.
Szabo graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in computer science in 1989. He also holds a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School.
In 1994 Szabo introduced the term “smart contracts” to bring legal surety into the digital realm via code. Smart contracts went on to become the basis of the wider blockchain industry.
In 1998 Szabo proposed a new form of currency called “bit gold.” Szabo’s bit gold was different from other currencies because it was entirely digital, it didn’t require any intermediaries and solved the double-spend problem via proof-of-work. 
Szabo’s bit gold network used a chain of proof-of-work cryptographic solutions but relied on a quorum of addresses rather than a quorum of computing power to reach consensus. This is said to have made bit gold susceptible to Sybil attacks.
Szabo went on to describe the reasoning for his theoretical currency thusly: “A long time ago I hit upon the idea of bit gold. The problem, in a nutshell, is that our money currently depends on trust in a third party for its value. As many inflationary and hyperinflationary episodes during the 20th century demonstrated, this is not an ideal state of affairs.”
If you anything about Bitcoin and this all sounds more than a little familiar to you, you’re not the only one to spot the similarities. Bit gold is widely considered to be one of the major precursors to Bitcoin.
In Oct 2008, 10 years after Szabo first proposed bit gold, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper. 
Speculation as to the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is almost as old as Bitcoin itself, but over the years, a number of contenders have emerged, with Szabo among the most popular.
HBO Documentary
The inventor of Bitcoin may remain a mystery for now, but thanks to a new HBO documentary that claims to finally unmask Nakamoto, speculation has erupted on the prediction market Polymarket.
Len Sassaman was an early top contender, but Szabo has gone on to take a commanding lead. His chances are rated in the double digits, while every other contender remains in single figures.
The case for Nick Szabo as Satoshi Nakamoto rests on several pillars, some of which we’ve already touched upon.
The first is the invention of bit gold, Szabo’s proposed but never-realized cryptocurrency, which nevertheless shares many conceptual similarities with Bitcoin. While the bit gold concept is a little rough around the edges when compared to Bitcoin, given that Szabo had a decade to smooth out those rough edges, isn’t it possible he did just that?
The second is Szabo’s wider contribution to blockchain and cryptocurrency, proving his capability and worth. There’s no doubt that Szabo has the technical chops to at least be a Satoshi contender.
In his book “Bitcoin: The Future of Money?” author Dominic Frisby contends that Nick Szabo and Satoshi Nakamoto have remarkably similar writing styles. As a bonus, both men also referenced the economist Carl Menger.
Nick Szabo is known to be extremely privacy-conscious, and Satoshi Nakamoto is rumored to be similarly inclined.
Lastly, at every step and turn, Szabo has denied being Satoshi Nakamoto placing him in sharp contrast to those who would claim that crown. If history teaches us just one thing about Satoshi Nakamoto, it is that those who claim to be him almost certainly are not.