Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has come forward to identify himself as the creator of Bitcoin. The acknowledgement would probably finally put to rest the speculations around the identity of the person who invented the crypto-currency, which was so far hidden behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Revealing his identity to three publications — the BBC, the Economist and GQ — Wright proved that he was, in fact, the creator of Bitcoin. He digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of Bitcoin development, which are associated with the blocks of Bitcoins known to have been created or "mined" by Nakamoto.
"These are the blocks used to send 10 Bitcoins to Hal Finney in January [2009] as the first Bitcoin transaction," Wright said, during his demonstration with the BBC, identifying Finney as one of the engineers who helped turn Wright's idea into the protocol for Bitcoin.
Wright told the BBC that by going public, he hopes to end the media speculation behind the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Late last year, Wright was named as the creator of Bitcoin by Wired magazine, after which his home was raided by the Australian police.
Bitcoin's success lay in the fact that the currency was not regulated by any authority. The coins are mined using computing power in a distributed network and only a finite number of Bitcoins can exist, which Coindesk pegs at 21 million. It, however, adds that the value of each Bitcoin can be subdivided, the smallest subdivision being a 'Satoshi.'
The BBC reported that there are 15.5 million Bitcoins in circulation currently, with each Bitcoin valued at around $449.
