Is Linus Torvalds the man who invented bitcoin?
Torvalds Has Become the Object of the Satoshi Obsession
For the past several years, many crypto traders have sought to find out the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the man behind bitcoin (the world’s largest and most popular cryptocurrency by market cap). For some, the mystery is something that needs to be figured out soon. It’s become an obsession, but the questions behind Nakamoto’s identity usually leads to a dead end, and this time around, it seems like the situation hasn’t changed.
Not long ago, it was suggested that Torvalds – the man behind Linux, a popular operating system, and the Git distributed version control (DVC) system – was the person who invented bitcoin. It was stated in a particular news source that Torvalds had previously declared himself to be Nakamoto in the past. The idea stemmed from Torvalds reportedly changing a line in the Linux Kernel that read:
Name = I am Satoshi.
Immediately, people began to question the validity of this on Twitter and other social media platforms. However, in a recent interview, Torvalds says this is just the mark of a prankster taking advantage of the GitHub platform. He commented:
I’m afraid that is just a jokester taking advantage of how GitHub works. It shares git objects between different repositories, so you can use the SHA1 ‘name’ of an object to specify something you did in your own tree, and then use my repository as the web name, and make it look like your object is in my tree… So, the ‘Torvalds/Linux’ part of that URL is basically just empty noise, designed to fool people into thinking it’s in my tree. You could replace it with any other GitHub repository name. The actual relevant part is just the SHA1 hash part… The ‘any other’ might not be entirely true. It may be that GitHub only shares objects between repositories that are related. So maybe the jokester needed to start his repository as a clone of mine to get the required object sharing. I haven’t checked.
In the end, he repeated the idea that he was not Nakamoto, explaining:
So, no. I’m sadly not the owner of a huge stash of original bitcoins.
Is Craig Wright the One?
Among the many people that have allegedly been accused or pointed out as possibly being Nakamoto is Australian computer scientist Craig Wright. In 2016, Wright made headlines when he personally identified himself as the man behind bitcoin’s birth. This led to heavy controversy and not long ago, Wright was the subject of a lawsuit from the family of a deceased programmer who previously worked with Wright that sought half of his alleged bitcoin fortune.
The Australian scientist wound up winning the case and the family of his former partner were only given a fraction of what they initially sought.
