Stop Trying to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto
Key takeaways
- Ben McKenzie—yes, Ryan from The O.C.—thinks it’s better, for Bitcoin at least, that Satoshi remains anonymous.
- He’s spent the last five years on a quest to tell anyone who will listen that cryptocurrency is a bad idea.
- Earlier this month, McKenzie, who has an undergraduate degree in economics, released Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, a documentary based on his experiences investigating crypto and writing the book.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story. The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, remains one of the blockchain’s great mysteries. Countless news articles, documentaries, and bits of internet speculation have attempted to unmask Satoshi to no avail. Earlier this month, The New York Times published a massive investigation into who they believed was behind Bitcoin. The man they identified protested that it wasn’t him.
Ben McKenzie—yes, Ryan from The O.C.—thinks it’s better, for Bitcoin at least, that Satoshi remains anonymous. Crypto, he says, “has a lot of aspects of a cult,” and “a deified figure who only exists as a pseudonym” is good for those.
Just to be clear, McKenzie doesn’t want this. He’s spent the last five years on a quest to tell anyone who will listen that cryptocurrency is a bad idea. In 2023, he and journalist Jacob Silverman released Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, a book on the topic that includes interviews with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Tether cofounder Brock Pierce, among others.