The journalist behind Newsweek’s controversial investigation into Satoshi Nakamoto says she has new information that could help expose the anonymous Bitcoin Creator.
A seven-year investigation Leah McGrath Goodman six years ago put out a report in the press saying that Bitcoin was created by Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a 64-year-old Japanese-American and a resident of southern California. Although she says Dorian Nakamoto seemed to “tacitly acknowledge“ this identity in brief comments, he later categorically denied any involvement in the creation of BTC. McGrath Goodman, an award-winning reporter who has published articles in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and the Guardian, told Anthony Pompliano that she now has new information on the story and wants to write more:
The national security service launched an investigation when my story came out. I certainly got a lot of emails, but I got an email from one group that had real information. I can share it, and I hope to write a follow-up story that will provide much more information about what I originally reported.
Her investigation led her to Southern California, where Nakamoto officially changed his name in 1973 from Satoshi Nakamoto to Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto. McGrath Goodman pointed to the fact that Nakamoto was a physicist and engineer, working for decades on secret projects for both the military and private sector companies.
She also interviewed family members who, while not sure that Nakamoto is the Creator of Bitcoin, indicated that He is a libertarian who does not trust the government and banks. She also pointed out similar quirks in the writing styles of Dorian Nakamoto and the Creator of the cue ball.
When a reporter visited his home in temple city, California, Nakamoto called the police. When officers arrived, McGrath Goodman says Nakamoto said He thought he would have problems if he spoke to her. The reporter then told police that she thought he was the Creator of Bitcoin. I’m not involved in this anymore and I can’t discuss it. This was passed on to other people. They’re doing it now. I don’t have any contacts with them anymore.
The police who were present at the scene later confirmed these words. Was that him or not?
In her interview with Pompliano, McGrath Goodman says that the subject of her conversations with Nakamoto before the personal visit was very clear:
We exchanged emails for weeks. I even sent him an email with the bitmap Gavin Andresen gave me. And so when I interviewed him, he had already received all this and knew that we were talking about Bitcoin. He definitely knew we were talking about it. We talked about it for a few weeks before I actually visited it.
McGrath Goodman also says that a specific crash file that occurred while developers were in the early stages of testing Bitcoin confirms her theory. Before the official launch, when they were just trying to launch it, there was a corrupted file with Hal Finney. At one point, Satoshi texted Hal and said, “ Send me the data so I can find out what went wrong.“ And he should have sent them privately, but instead Hal posted them publicly on a forum so everyone could look at it. And it had an IP address that led us to the same area where Dorian lives, in Los Angeles.
