Stop Trying to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto | WIRED

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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.

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. As it was rolling out to theaters, McKenzie attended the inaugural WIRED@Night event to talk about the book and film (and read some mean tweets). He also sat down with me prior to the doc’s release to discuss his crypto fears—and what might happen to Bitcoin in the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

KATIE DRUMMOND: Ben, thank you so much for joining me.

BEN MCKENZIE: Thank you for having me, Katie. It's an honor to be here.

So, I actually was just at my desk upstairs and was reading the New York Times’ recent investigation into the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. I'm not even interested in talking about who Satoshi is; I haven't cared about that for a really long time. But because this piece just came out, I’m curious about your impressions of the sort of mythology and online fascination, almost obsession, with Satoshi. He’s almost treated like some mythical figure, like this magician or wizard who created Bitcoin and catalyzed this entire movement.

If you think of crypto as a story, it's a story with this really devoted, small following. And it has a lot of aspects of a cult. One great thing for a cult is a deified figure who only exists as a pseudonym. Because, in reality, it might be maybe this guy Adam Back, who's a very interesting character, or some other cypherpunk cryptographer from that era. But then it would be a real person and a real person would be a little bit of a letdown probably. Right?

Whoever it is.

Right. It's just such a better story to have it be a mystery and to have the code take on this mythological status, like it's gonna fix everything that ails our traditional financial sector. Because the crypto story is really simple. It's basically, “Do you hate our current system?” Everybody raises their hand and then, “Well, Bitcoin fixes this.” And it's the second part that's the lie. I would argue it's far worse if we were to try to somehow use cryptocurrency as a form of money on a global scale or even a national scale. But the story is really simple, and it's so powerful because the first part we all agree on: Our current system sucks. So that gets them pretty far.

I love a long story, but at one point in the Times story I was like, I gotta scroll to the end. Like, did they get the guy? Once again, it’s not dead to rights. He's not like, yes, you got me, it's me. I would imagine that whoever it is, it is advantageous for that person if they are still alive to retain that sort of mysterious, mythical air about them. Because, as you said, as soon as everybody knows who you are, that veil of mystery and the sense of nobility, a noble cause, dissipates, or at least starts to dissipate.

And I mean, I would be happy to talk about Adam Back specifically.

What do we know about Adam Back?

So a couple things. I've never met him and never interviewed him. He does not like me. He's referred to me as a crisis actor.

No.

Well, I am an actor.

You are an actor.

It is a crisis.

So, you know, points for creativity. Adam is a cryptographer. He's the first person that Satoshi emailed. So this person that doesn't exist emailed this real person. That's interesting. Then in the article, apparently, there's a lot of similarities in terms of how Adam writes and Satoshi wrote.

But in terms of Adam himself, he started this company called Blockstream, and Adam met with Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-2010s, and apparently there was some sort of financial relationship. There was some sort of investment of some kind at some point.

I thi