Why the 2026 Hunt for Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Has Reached a Fever Pitch
One evening in the fall of 2024, my wife and I were sitting in traffic on the Long Island Expressway when, tired of listening to the jazz-funk station I often played on our drives, she switched to a podcast. It was “Hard Fork,” the New York Times tech show, and the hosts were discussing a new HBO documentary claiming to have unmasked bitcoin’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto. I was instantly riveted. I had long considered the question of Satoshi’s true identity one of our age’s great enigmas and had poked at it before without success. Two years earlier, I had even spent several months researching a book on the subject. But I soon realized I was out of my depth and reluctantly gave up. Hearing that someone else might have finally identified the shadowy figure who had revolutionized finance, spawned a $2.4 trillion industry and amassed one of the world’s biggest fortunes in one stroke of staggering genius aroused in me a mixture of admiration and envy. I couldn’t wait to watch the film. As …
