Bitcoin Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto Emails Revealed in Court

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, still hasn’t been identified 15 years after the cryptocurrency was launched—despite claims by computer programmer Craig Wright to be the man behind the myth. But in the latest court case to try to dispel his claims, some real emails from Satoshi finally entered the public record.

Cryptographer and cypherpunk Adam Back—CEO and co-founder of Blockstream—was interviewed as a witness in the UK High Court of Justice on Tuesday in the ongoing case of the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) vs. Wright.

Alongside his questioning, a series of 2008 and 2009 emails from Satoshi to Back were entered into the court record. COPA shared the documents with the press, and screenshots of the emails were also shared in a viral Twitter thread by Pete Rizzo, a Bitcoin historian and editor of Bitcoin Magazine.

The emails suggest that Back was not, in fact, the man behind the Satoshi moniker, despite the claims of some true believers that he is indeed the inventor of Bitcoin. Back has consistently denied the allegations. Many Bitcoiners believe that the late Hal Finney, an early contributor and recipient of the first Bitcoin transaction, is actually Satoshi. However, there’s also evidence that may disprove such claims.

The first emails between Back and Satoshi predate the launch of Bitcoin by a few months. Satoshi wrote to confirm a citation from Back’s earlier Hashcash proof-of-work algorithm, which would go on to be used in the Bitcoin protocol.

Satoshi shared a pre-release draft of the Bitcoin whitepaper with Back and asked for feedback, suggesting that Back was free to share it with other people as well. In the resulting back-and-forth exchange, Back points Satoshi towards papers on other proposed protocols called “B-Money” and “Micromint.”

In the final email from January 2009, Satoshi writes Back to thank him for suggesting the other papers and to share that the open-source Bitcoin software has launched.

“The main idea of the system is the generation of a chain of hash-based proof-of-work to create self-evident proof of the majority consensus. Users get new coins by contributing proof-of-work to the chain,” Satoshi wrote, highlighting key elements that distinguish Bitcoin from previous attempts to create effective, purely digital money.

COPA, which is backed by Twitter and Cash App co-founder Jack Dorsey, is attempting to shut down Wright’s claims, which a COPA representative previously told Decrypt are “a ​​brazen lie, an elaborate false narrative supported by forgery on an industrial scale.”

Decrypt reached out to a COPA representative to comment on the latest developments in the case, but did not immediately receive a response.

Edited by Guillermo Jimenez

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to note that COPA shared the Satoshi emails with the press.