Recently, I saw people discussing Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity again, and it reminded me of the biggest mystery in the crypto world. To be honest, no one really knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but he changed the entire world with a 9-page PDF—and then completely vanished.

The story begins on October 31, 2008. At the time, a person named Satoshi Nakamoto posted a paper on a cryptography mailing list—“Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Those 9 pages alone redefined the future of money. Two months later, the Bitcoin network went live, and the Genesis Block was mined. Inside it, Satoshi Nakamoto left a cryptic line quoting the front-page headline of the January 3, 2009 edition of The Times of London, about the Chancellor of the Exchequer carrying out a second bank bailout. This wasn’t just technical—it felt like a warning.

Over the next two years, Satoshi Nakamoto did nearly all the pioneering work—writing the first Bitcoin client, running nodes, helping people mine, and sending the first BTC to developer Hal Finney. Then what? In 2010, he handed the project over to others, and in April 2011 he left his final line: “I’ve moved on to other things,” and never appeared again. No goodbye, no cash-out, no media appearances.

The craziest part is the numbers. It’s estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto mined about 1 million BTC. At today’s prices, that fortune is worth more than $8 billion. Fifteen years have passed, and not a single coin has been moved. No transfers, no spending—as if it were frozen in time. If it were us, we would’ve cashed out long ago.

As for Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity, the community has been arguing about it. Some say he was an individual, citing a consistent writing style, matching development accounts, and emails that were meticulous and deeply insightful. Others say he was a team, because his active hours spanned multiple time zones, his code was written at incredible speed, and his English was flawless.

The list of suspects is pretty long. Hal Finney was the first person to receive Bitcoin, and he was a well-known cryptographer. He lived very close to someone named Dorian Nakamoto, who died of ALS in 2014. Some people believe he was Satoshi Nakamoto, while others say he was only an early supporter. Nick Szabo created “Bit Gold” in 2005, which is viewed as a precursor to Bitcoin. He has a background in law, economics, and technology, and his writing style is highly similar to Satoshi Nakamoto’s—but he never posted on early Bitcoin forums, and that silence is indeed somewhat suspicious. Adam Back invented Hashcash—the concept was referenced in the Bitcoin white paper. He’s a long-time Cypherpunk; the British spelling matches Satoshi Nakamoto’s, and he is still active in the crypto space. Even Elon Musk has been pointed at—someone claimed in 2017 that a former SpaceX intern identified Musk, but Musk directly denied it.

The funniest one is Craig Wright. This guy outright claims he is Satoshi Nakamoto, and he has even been to court about it. But he has never signed anything using Satoshi Nakamoto’s private key—something that could prove his identity instantly. He simply refuses to do that. The developer community basically doesn’t believe him. There are also conspiracy theories that it was the NSA, arguing that Bitcoin’s core encryption algorithm, SHA-256, was designed by the NSA, and that the launch timing lined up perfectly with the 2008 financial crisis, after which it disappeared just as cleanly. But that lacks solid evidence, and it goes against Bitcoin’s “decentralized” spirit.

After thinking it through, Satoshi Nakamoto’s real legacy is actually right here—he gave the world a set of code, and then disappeared. No pursuit of fame, no cashing out, no desire for power. Maybe that’s the most important part. Bitcoin’s existence doesn’t rely on any single founder at all; its foundation is mathematics, code, and the community. That’s why it can’t be destroyed. So, in a sense, Satoshi Nakamoto’s disappearance has instead made Bitcoin eternal.