Renowned investigative journalist John Carreyrou has named Blockstream CEO and cypherpunk veteran Adam Back as the elusive inventor of Bitcoin after an 18-month investigation.
However, Strategy founder Michael Saylor was quick to point to a glaring historical flaw that effectively debunks the theory.
Carreyrou’s investigation relies heavily on a forensic technique known as “stylometry.” The statistical analysis of linguistic style, phrasing, and writing patterns.
After Satoshi’s known forum posts and whitepaper with Adam Back’s historical writings, Carreyrou concluded that the two are the same person.
However, Saylor pointed to the most obvious piece of evidence contradicting the Times report: Satoshi and Back actively communicated with one another.
“Stylometry is interesting, but not proof,” Saylor stated. “The contemporaneous emails between Satoshi and Adam Back suggest they were distinct individuals.”
In the early days of Bitcoin’s development, Satoshi famously emailed Back to discuss Hashcash, a proof-of-work system Back invented in 1997, which Satoshi cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper. For Carreyrou’s theory to hold true, Back would have had to meticulously forge an email correspondence with his own alter ego to lay a false trail.
Saylor concluded his post by reiterating the only standard of proof the crypto community will ever accept: “Until someone signs with Satoshi’s keys, every theory is just narrative.”
“A huge target on Adam’s Back”
Saylor was not alone in dismissing the report. Bitcoin evangelist Jameson Lopp has slammed the publication for endangering Back based on flimsy linguistic analysis. “Satoshi Nakamoto can’t be caught with stylometric analysis,” Lopp wrote. “Shame on you for painting a huge target on Adam’s back with such weak evidence.”
Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal claims that stylometry is a flawed tool for this specific group of developers. “I wasn’t, however, 100% convinced by the evidence or the conclusion,” he noted. “The stylometry is interesting, but on content, ofc all the cypherpunks had similar thoughts on politics and privacy and the architecture of the internet.”
