The enigma of Satoshi Nakomoto is a never-ending riddle which continues to throw up intriguing, if somewhat unverifiable, answers to this day.
The mystery only continues to fuel the search rather than quell it. And the fire was rekindled again this week when a Vice Motherboard journalist submitted a freedom of information (FoI) request to the CIA and FBI for any and all files relating to Satoshi Nakamoto, or his real identity.
The FBI request remains unanswered, but the CIA did bother to answer the querent with a predictably blunt response:
“…the request has been rejected, with the agency stating that it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the requested documents.”
This is known as the Glomar response, and its use by the CIA is usually a sign that the subject in question is too sensitive to be discussed. This could be because they do indeed have files on Nakamoto, or it could be a sign that the investigation is ongoing, and thus not releasable to the public.
‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ Means ‘Central Intelligence’ in Japanese
According to a video released by The CIA Project – a group committed to publicising government secrets – Satoshi Nakamoto is a Japanese translation of ‘Central Intelligence’.
Further inspection into these claims reveals that Satoshi is a boy’s name in Japan which translates roughly as meaning: ‘wise, clear thinking, quick-witted’.
Meanwhile, Nakamoto is a surname which translates to ‘one of central origin’, or ‘one who lives in the middle’.
So, without too much creative interpretation, one could arrive at the conclusion that Satoshi Nakamoto could possibly mean Central Intelligence. Some wayward souls may consider this all the evidence they need of a CIA plot, but does the theory really hold any water?
Well, besides the fact that it would be rather slippery of the CIA to advertise their illicit schemes like this, there remains the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto is a fairly common name, especially in the Ryukyu Islands region of Japan.
Will the real Nakamoto please stand up?
In 2014, just under three years after Nakamoto’s departure from the internet, Newsweek followed up a lead on a story about a Japanese-American man named Satoshi Nakamoto who claimed to be the elusive Bitcoin inventor.
The lathe machinist later claimed journalists had fabricated the story, and that he knew nothing about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.
The search for the real Satoshi Nakamoto continues.
