Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has publicly identified himself as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. His admission follows years of speculation about who came up with the original ideas underlying the digital cash system. Mr Wright has provided technical proof to back up his claim using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin’s creator. Prominent members of the Bitcoin community and its core development team say they have confirmed his claims.

At the meeting with the BBC, Mr Wright digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of Bitcoin’s development. The keys are inextricably linked to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created or “mined” by Satoshi Nakamoto. Soon after Mr Wright went public, Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, published a blog backing his claim.

Jon Matonis, an economist and one of the founding directors of the Bitcoin Foundation, said he was convinced that Mr Wright was who he claimed to be (I mean they could have just verified his cryptocurrency mining rig, couldn’t they?). Not everyone has been convinced by Mr Wright’s claims and the technical proof he put in his blog. Some cryptographers and developers who worked through the information provided said they had trouble getting verifiable information out of it.

Did You Know?

• To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called “mining” must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.
• For each problem solved, one block of Bitcoins is processed. In addition the miner is rewarded with new Bitcoins.
• There are currently about 15 million Bitcoins in existence and websites like Independent Reserve help with trading.
• To receive a Bitcoin, a user must have a Bitcoin address – a string of 27-34 letters and numbers – which acts as a kind of virtual post-box to and from which the Bitcoins are sent.
• Since there is no registry of these addresses, people can use them to protect their anonymity when making a transaction.
• These addresses are in turn stored in Bitcoin wallets (navigate to these guys to know more about how wallets function), which are used to manage savings.
• They operate like privately run bank accounts – with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the Bitcoins owned.