- 1The author contests Jameson Lopp's February 2025 arguments against the Dorsey-as-Satoshi theory.
- 2Central dispute: whether tweet and forum-post timestamps prove a scheduling conflict.
- 3Satoshi's identity is unconfirmed; the piece is advocacy, not established fact.
This is an opinion piece. Satoshi Nakamoto's identity has never been confirmed, and the author is arguing one side of a contested theory.
In February 2025, Bitcoin figure Jameson Lopp set out to rebut the idea that Square and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. The author, who says he answered Lopp when those arguments first appeared (here and here), has now republished the replies. His view is that most of Lopp's evidence is either wrong or depends on speculation.
The broad arguments
Dorsey's workload. Lopp argued Dorsey was too busy in 2009 and 2010, running Square while chairing Twitter. The author responds that Dorsey was pushed out of Twitter in October 2008, served as a "silent" chairman and returned in an active role on March 28, 2011. He notes the Bitcoin white paper appeared October 31, 2008 and Satoshi's last farewell email came in April 2011. He also points out that Square was founded in February 2009 and launched that December, and that Satoshi repeatedly said in messages that he was busy.
Government ties. Lopp doubted that a government-averse Satoshi would work with officials. The author calls that characterization unsupported and links the timing of Satoshi's last forum activity in December 2010 to a secret court order served on Twitter over WikiLeaks. He adds that Square's Visa partnership was announced on April 27, 2011, days after Satoshi's farewell.
Operating systems. Lopp noted that early Bitcoin software was Windows-only and that Dorsey favored Apple devices. The author answers that Windows held about 95% of the desktop market in 2009 and that Dorsey used many systems, including Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD and several Linux flavors.
The timeline conflicts
Much of the piece addresses Lopp's list of moments when a Dorsey tweet and a Satoshi forum post fall close together, among them a late lunch, a Paris City Hall meeting, a Sun Valley Conference appearance, a meeting with Chile's president and an Apple Store demo in Chicago. The author's recurring reply is that a nearby tweet does not show Dorsey was occupied at the moment of a post, since someone could post from a phone, before or after an event, or while waiting. He also says Lopp misdated one baseball-game conflict: the evidence points to July 27, 2010, not the 28th.
Lopp concluded that the aggregate evidence makes it far more likely that Satoshi was someone else. The author's response is two words: "Try again."
Source reporting: deBanked.
