FT Alphaville examined a New York Times story that again names 55‑year‑old Adam Back as a possible Satoshi Nakamoto. Back, an Exeter PhD who proposed the HashCash proof‑of‑work system in 1997, shows up in email logs that Nakamoto consulted before the 2008 Bitcoin white paper. The article repeats familiar clues – shared C++ skill, early PGP use and libertarian cryptography – but adds no fresh proof.

Back founded Blockstream in 2014, a firm that helped launch the Lightning Network and the Liquid sidechain used by exchanges for large trades. Those scaling solutions sparked a split between on‑chain block‑size advocates and off‑chain layer‑two supporters, a debate that still shapes miner revenue and fee dynamics. Bitcoin’s unspent 1 million coins tied to Nakamoto are now worth roughly $70bn, about 4 % of supply.

For investors, the identity chase matters little compared with the fact that whoever controls the dormant wallets can move a multi‑billion‑dollar block of liquidity at any moment. Yet the coins have not left their addresses since 2010, reinforcing the narrative of a long‑term hold. As long as the stash remains idle, market pricing continues to reflect scarcity rather than any potential revelation.