The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto
A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto
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“Could be the best mystery story of the past twenty years.”—James Patterson
“The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto will leave you amazed, enlightened, and utterly breathless.”—Robert Kolker, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road
In October 2008, someone going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto posted a white paper outlining “a peer-to-peer electronic cash system” called Bitcoin to an arcane listserv populated by Cypherpunks. No one in the community had heard of Nakamoto, and just as people were starting to wonder who he was, he vanished. As the years passed, and the scope of Nakamoto’s achievement became clear, the truth of his identity grew into the greatest unsolved mystery of our time.
The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto traces Benjamin Wallace’s attempt to unmask the figure behind the currency and the world it wrought. Nakamoto’s Bitcoin at first seemed destined to fulfill the dreams of fringe 1990s utopians for a currency set free from governments and big banks. Yet after he disappeared, his creation took on a strange new life in the financial markets, where rampant speculation fueled a vision of crypto as a potential windfall, inviting charlatans and scammers and opening a vast gulf between Bitcoin’s idealistic origins and its troubled reputation.
But who was Nakamoto? Whoever he was could rightly claim to have invented one of the most important technologies of the new century. And Nakamoto was a billionaire—his Bitcoin wallet held an untouched eleven-figure fortune waiting to be claimed.
With the same propulsive-narrative flair that made his New York Times bestseller The Billionaire’s Vinegar an instant success, Benjamin Wallace presents a page-turning work of investigative journalism. Tracking leads from London to Oslo to Los Angeles, from coastal Australia to the Arizona desert, he takes readers through a rogues’ gallery tour of Nakamoto suspects—from benevolent geniuses like cryptographer Hal Finney to difficult ones like a reclusive polymath known to his followers only as Jim; from the mercurial Australian Craig Wright, who claims to be Nakamoto, to a secret team at the National Security Agency. With the forensic skill of Sherlock Holmes and the storytelling verve of Arthur Conan Doyle, Wallace follows the trail of computer code and personal writings to the heart of the Nakamoto mystery while interrogating the very nature of mystery itself.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 18, 2025 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593594032
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593594032
- File size: 7135 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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February 15, 2025
A shadowy genius, a global search, and a confusion of possibilities. Everyone loves a mystery, and mysteries involving secret riches and tantalizing clues are even better. Wallace, author ofThe Billionaire's Vinegar (2008), tries to unravel the strange case of Satoshi Nakamoto, the reclusive and pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin and the holder of a huge amount of it. It started with a research paper published under that name in 2008, and many people in the technology community have become obsessed with the search for its author. There was a vague trail of notes and comments, and then, as Bitcoin was becoming viable as a new form of currency, only silence. The army of Nakamotologists--yes, that is what they are called--generated plenty of theories about Nakamoto's identity, based on coding methods, writing style, and even initials. There was speculation that Elon Musk was Nakamoto (which Musk denies) and that the Bitcoin idea came from a government intelligence agency. Some Nakamotologists thought that the underlying code was brilliant; others saw it as old-fashioned and clumsy. Wallace carefully examines the popular candidates, but none of them completely matches the known information. Various people came forward saying that they were Nakamoto, but their claims were debunked. Wallace has a good time chasing all this around and meeting a host of eccentric characters, and along the way he explains how Bitcoin actually works. His own thesis is that Nakamoto was really a team of specialists, each making contributions. There is sense in the approach, yet all the people mentioned denied it. One way or another, Bitcoin is here to stay, and Nakamoto just might remain unknown. An enjoyable romp through the tech sector in search of Bitcoin's founder.COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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