In July 2011, Len Sassaman took his own life at the age of 31 after a long battle with depression. Known as “a true Cypherpunk–equal parts brilliant, irreverent, and idealistic,” Sassaman was a beloved cryptography expert who co-founded the CodeCon conference with computer programmer Bram Cohen.
His legacy became immortalized a few weeks after his death when a tribute to Sassaman was inscribed in ASCII art in block 138,725 of the Bitcoin network. This small inscription has led to speculation that Sassaman could be the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.
The HBO documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery aimed to uncover Nakamoto’s true identity, but the results have been inconclusive. As a result, the search continues, with many theories and possibilities but no definitive confirmation.
Len Sassaman, the Candidate That Will Never Come Back
The real probability that Sassaman was Nakamoto is also in doubt. It’s just another theory, but unlike the rest, several factors make it notable. One reason is Sassaman’s great distance from today's crypto world, and another is that he was focused on the technical and philosophical aspects of Bitcoin. Additionally, Sassaman’s death could partly justify why Nakamoto’s profile stopped its activity.
Before the HBO documentary, a Polymarket poll showed that 68% of participants thought Sassaman would be revealed as Nakamoto. However, as the date approached, that possibility diminished.
Interestingly enough, according to Coinmarketcap, Nakamoto became inactive two months after Sassaman’s death. Additionally, his suicide note contained 24 random words, reminiscent of the 24-word seed phrases used for the 256-bit cryptographic security in Bitcoin.
Sassaman was involved in projects such as Pretty Good Privacy and GNU Privacy Guard and also played a role in the development of the TCP/IP protocol. Additionally, he’s known as one of the earliest participants in the Bitcoin world, having collaborated with Hal Finney, who received the first Bitcoin transaction in 2009 and is considered one of the potential creators of the cryptocurrency.
Some see Sassaman as a strong candidate for being Nakamoto because he fits the profile of someone involved in a project with a strong cryptographic aspect and who maintains an anonymous and private identity. This could explain why Nakamoto’s account still holds a significant amount of money without any activity.
However, Meredith Patterson, a journalist and software engineer who’s also Sassaman’s widow, has consistently denied this possibility. She recently said, “The best case against him being Satoshi is some newbie mistakes in the design of the original [Bitcoin] protocol, like being able to send an IP address.”
Justin Newton, CEO of Netki and a friend of Sassaman, recently added to the debate with another argument in favor of Sassaman as the possible creator of Bitcoin. He said that, despite having no direct knowledge, he also believes this theory is plausible.
“Len went from being passive, shy, and reserved to passionate and deeply engaged,” he says in an opinion column for CoinDesk. He also explains that, in one of his many calls, Sassaman advocated “that the networks themselves should be completely open, and that the controls should be built at other layers, either with technology, whenever possible, or with laws when absolutely necessary.” Interestingly, Sassaman himself was openly critical of Bitcoin.
There has been a lot of speculation about Nakamoto, and it’ll likely continue for quite some time. There’s no data to clarify or justify that Sassaman was the creator of Bitcoin, but if anything, he’s exactly the kind of creator that many would like Nakamoto to be.
Image | Scott Beale
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