The one story you should read today, selected by the editors of New York.
March 17, 2025
Former New York features writer Benjamin Wallace has taken on one of the era’s most daunting journalistic missions: to find the real identity of bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. The question is not just of academic interest, with Satoshi’s stash of the cryptocurrency now being worth close to $100 billion, making this mysterious figure one of the richest 20 or so individuals in the world. Satoshi has also developed into something akin to a religious figure among bitcoiners in the 15 years since the project’s launch. That used to be a niche standing, but with bitcoin now boasting a nearly $2 trillion valuation and Wall Street and even some governments (including the Trump administration) beginning to embrace it, Satoshi’s stature is now a matter of global interest. Could he swing markets? Make demands? Reemerge in a politicized context? Much to his credit, Benjamin doesn’t claim to have irrefutable proof of Satoshi’s identity. But he does put forward a fresh and compelling theory of the case — one that centers on an Australian computer scientist who it is fair to call a right-wing political extremist. The reader is left to wonder: What would it mean if Satoshi is a crackpot?
—Jebediah Reed, editor, Intelligencer
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