Jack Dorsey Alleged to Be Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (Block), is alleged to be the creator of Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. This theory was put forward by Sean Murray, editor-in-chief of deBanked.

WHY JACK DORSEY IS SATOSHI NAKAMOTO

Jack Dorsey was:

1 of ~1,300 confirmed cypherpunks in 1996 (his UMR email)

Wore an Adam Back t-shirt in the UMR yearbook

UMR students were called Miners

Was a CompSci & Math major with an interest in crypto

Member of ACM in 1997 to at…

— Seán Murray (@financeguy74) February 15, 2025

Murray compiled an extensive list of facts, dates, and coincidences purportedly supporting his theory.

According to Murray, Dorsey was interested in cypherpunk during his college years, wore an RSA T-shirt by Hashcash creator Adam Back, received thematic newsletters, and his university course had a focus on cryptography.

In 2003, Dorsey published an autobiography describing his activities in hacking and cryptography at four in the morning. All original Bitcoin source code documents bear the same timestamp.

At that time, the entrepreneur also wrote about ending his dependence on the US dollar and creating a barter network.

From September 2007 to January 2009, Dorsey’s Twitter profile stated he was a sailor. The code of the first cryptocurrency includes an old saying:

“Never go to sea with two chronometers — take one or three.”

On January 10, 2009, Satoshi accidentally logged into an IRC chat with a real IP, showing he was in California. Dorsey was also there at the time.

Murray also highlighted several such coincidences:

• The first Bitcoin transaction occurred on Dorsey’s mother’s birthday;
• Satoshi joined the Bitcoin forum on Jack’s birthday;
• The last block mined by the cryptocurrency’s creator was on his father’s birthday.

Analysts at BitMEX Research disagreed with this argument. They argue that it is difficult to determine the exact date of Satoshi’s cryptocurrency mining cessation because the “Patoshi pattern” degraded over time.

> Satoshi’s last mined block was on Jack’s dad’s birthday (5/3/10)

How do you know Satoshi’s last mined block, when the patoshi pattern gradually degrades over time?

— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) February 16, 2025

The Bitcoin creator used addresses generated by brute force methods. Some began with the letters NS, and one contained jD2m in the middle. Murray sees this as a reference to Dorsey’s address in San Francisco at 2 Mint Plaza — Jack Dorsey 2 Mint.

When Satoshi told his partner Martti Malmi that he was genuinely busy with work, Dorsey was indeed immersed in launching the startup Square, the researcher noted.

In December 2010, the Bitcoin creator advised on a forum not to donate cryptocurrency to Wikileaks. On December 14, Twitter received a court order demanding all information about the non-profit organization, and a day before that, Satoshi stopped appearing in the chat.

In March 2011, Dorsey became the executive chairman of Twitter while remaining CEO of Square. In messages, the entrepreneur admitted to being very busy with both companies. About a month later, Satoshi sent his last email, Murray noted.

In 2014, the Bitcoin creator’s email was hacked, and the hacker blackmailed him with revealing ties to St. Louis, Missouri. Dorsey hails from this city. 

In 2020, journalist Lex Fridman directly asked Dorsey on a podcast if he was Satoshi. Dorsey replied that he would not admit it in any case. Murray believes this contrasts with the behavior of Nick Szabo, Adam Back, and Hal Finney, who outright denied such claims.

In July 2024, Dorsey wrote on the decentralized network Nostr:

“I often imagine Satoshi sitting somewhere and laughing at all this.”

Later, he thanked the late Hal Finney for his help on the same platform.

“The belief that Satoshi never wanted to be found is something others have made up about him. Satoshi chose pseudonymity, not anonymity, as Jack pointed out in the podcast with Lex Fridman,” Murray noted.

In the documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, released by HBO, Canadian programmer Peter Todd was named as the creator of the first cryptocurrency.

He refuted the information and subsequently had to go into hiding for safety reasons.