Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. Well.
Speaker 2: As Carol just mentioned, the President did sign an executive
Speaker 2: action aimed at closing the Education Department. You're going to
Speaker 2: get much more coverage on that on Balance of Power
Speaker 2: starting at five pm Wall Street Time with Joe Matthew
Speaker 2: a little later in the day. In the meantime, there's
Speaker 2: perhaps no greater mystery in the world of cryptocurrency than
Speaker 2: the identity of one Satoshi Nakamoto. Is it one? Is
Speaker 2: it a man? Is it a woman? Is it even
Speaker 2: a person? That's because Satoshi Nakamoto is widely seen as
Speaker 2: the creator of bitcoin. It's thought that his or her
Speaker 2: there bitcoin wallet contains up to one point one million coins,
Speaker 2: which yes, could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of
Speaker 2: one hundred billion dollars. Benjamin Wallace may have found some answers.
Speaker 2: He's been looking for Satoshi all the way back to
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, and he's the author of a new book,
Speaker 2: The Mysterious Mister Nakamoto, a fifteen year quest to unmask
Speaker 2: the secret genius behind crypto. Benjamin also the author of
Speaker 2: the New York Times bestseller of The Billionaire's Vinegar, and
Speaker 2: he's written for New York Vanity, fair Wired, and more.
Speaker 2: He joins us from New Jersey. So did you find
Speaker 2: Satoshi Nakamoto? Benjamin?
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for having me. Did I find Satoshi? I
Speaker 3: found many Satoshi's. I don't land on a mathematical proof
Speaker 3: of a single name that you can point to, but
Speaker 3: I explore a lot of candidates very thoroughly, and I
Speaker 3: think you finished the book able to draw your own conclusions.
Speaker 3: And I look at the group possibility. I look at
Speaker 3: the possibility that it came out of the NSA. I
Speaker 3: look at the possibility that it could be, you know,
Speaker 3: an old sort of cryptographer from the nineties, or someone
Speaker 3: much newer on the scene who no one's ever heard of.
Speaker 2: Which one do you think it is? Of all of those?
Speaker 3: This is going to be unsatisfying, But I really there's
Speaker 3: a few maybe favored theories. And okay, one of them
Speaker 3: is a beloved no longer with us, cipher punk as
Speaker 3: they called them, named how Finni, who was the very
Speaker 3: first person to transact with Satoshi Nakamoto on the Bitcoin network.
Speaker 3: Another is an obscure cipher punk who is sort of
Speaker 3: a recluse, who lives in Australia, who has not been
Speaker 3: focused on previously, and who, unlike how Finni is, is
Speaker 3: sort of on the other end of the spectrum in
Speaker 3: terms of likability. Let's say, so he would be kind
Speaker 3: of a shocking Satoshi because he's not the benevolent god
Speaker 3: that bitcoiners like to imagine Satoshi must be.
Speaker 2: That would be Jans A. Donald.
Speaker 3: That would be James A. Donald exactly.
Speaker 2: Do you think that Satoshi is an individual or do
Speaker 2: you think Satoshi's a group.
Speaker 3: I think that if Satoshi is a group, then that
Speaker 3: would actually point towards potentially an intelligence organization being the
Speaker 3: source of bitcoin, because outside of intelligence organizations, where obviously
Speaker 3: groups or groups hold secrets all the time that do
Speaker 3: not leak. Outside of those agencies, it's almost impossible for
Speaker 3: group secrets to remain secret. And you know, seventeen years
Speaker 3: after Satoshi Nakamoto first came on the scene and announced bitcoin,
Speaker 3: no one has come forward to say, oh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: my ex husband invented it, or my ex business partner
Speaker 3: invented it, or my estranged sibling invented it, and there's
Speaker 3: just I find it very unlikely that a group could
Speaker 3: hold the secret.
Speaker 4: Okay, so this may be blasphemous, but our blasphemy. Why
Speaker 4: does it matter that we figure out Benjamin his identity.
Speaker 3: Well, no, what you're saying is the opposite of blasphemy.
Speaker 3: My saying it matters is the blasphemy. Like bitcoiners will
Speaker 3: tell you that the world should not know who Satocianakamoto is.
Speaker 3: I have two answers to that. One is that I
Speaker 3: think we've all seen recently how the richest person in
Speaker 3: the world can affect a lot of people's lives other
Speaker 3: than themselves. And Satoshi Nakamoto right now with one point
Speaker 3: one million bitcoins would be in the twenty richest people
Speaker 3: in the world, and Bitcoin would only have to go up,
Speaker 3: you know, by a multiple of two or three to
Speaker 3: suddenly make Satoshian Akimoti the richest person in the world.
Speaker 3: So that's one reason. The other reason is until we
Speaker 3: know definitively who Satoshi Nakamoto is and what their agenda
Speaker 3: and intentions are, we cannot assume that they are, you know,
Speaker 3: ones that everyone would like. Let's say it turned out
Speaker 3: that Satoci Nakamoto is a plan by the Chinese Communist
Speaker 3: Party to destabilize the dollar. Should we just leave them
Speaker 3: alone and defer to their wish for anonymity?
Speaker 2: Can you remind everybody why the origin of bitcoin is
Speaker 2: associated with Satoshi?
Speaker 3: Sure? So, the way bitcoin was first announced was on
Speaker 3: this kind of obscure cryptography list serve or message board
Speaker 3: by someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. And on that
Speaker 3: message board, no one had ever heard this name that
Speaker 3: they just assumed it was someone they'd never heard of,
Speaker 3: or it was an Internet alias. And then eventually that
Speaker 3: same person or alias launched the bitcoin software onto the Internet.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just kind of interesting, Tim, and I
Speaker 4: have so many interviews on the world of crypto and
Speaker 4: people so convinced that this is the way forward, and
Speaker 4: yet there's just so many questions. And I think part
Speaker 4: of the mystique right of digital currencies is that there
Speaker 4: is this mystique that we don't necessarily who started it,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's kind of outside the traditional financial infrastructure.
Speaker 4: How do you see, you know, since you started writing
Speaker 4: in whir your first feature on bitcoin twenty eleven, many
Speaker 4: years ago, now at this point, how do you think
Speaker 4: about the digital world the digital currency world today.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: Well, first, I'd also say the anonymity or pseudonymity and
Speaker 3: unknowness of Satoshi I think has been an incredible marketing
Speaker 3: coup for Bitcoin because it's very on brand. The whole
Speaker 3: idea that bitcoin has no leader fits perfectly with the
Speaker 3: idea that we don't know who the leader is the
Speaker 3: crypto world in general and the digital currency world in
Speaker 3: general today I think of as quite far removed from
Speaker 3: where it started. I mean, it began as a sort
Speaker 3: of libertarian friendly project just with Bitcoin. Now there's something
Speaker 3: like over according to coinbase, over eleven thousand different cryptocurrencies. Obviously,
Speaker 3: crypto broadly has a fairly checkered reputation because of all
Speaker 3: the scamminess over the years with some of the especially
Speaker 3: the the non bitcoin cryptocurrencies. But I continue to think
Speaker 3: it's an extremely fascinating and promising technology that may just
Speaker 3: not have found its killer use case yet. I mean,
Speaker 3: AI started in the nineteen fifties. For decades people assumed,
Speaker 3: since nothing has happened with it yet, nothing is going
Speaker 3: to happen with it that is consequential, And obviously we
Speaker 3: now know AI is extremely consequential, and I think it's
Speaker 3: entirely possible something similar could happen with bitcoin and crypto.
Speaker 4: All right, we unfortunately have to leave it there, but Benjamin,
Speaker 4: we hope you'll come back real soon so that we
Speaker 4: can continue this conversation because it's really fascinating when your
Speaker 4: take on it. In particular, Benjamin Wallace, thank you. His
Speaker 4: new book is The Mysterious Mister Nakamoto, A fifteen year
Speaker 4: quest to unmask the secret genius behind Crypto, joining us
Speaker 4: there in New Jersey,