Ethereum Co-Founder: Finding Satoshi Is Like Finding a Malware Author

Charles Hoskinson suggests applying stylometric techniques to find Satoshi Nakamoto, but there is a caveat.

Stylometrics

In an April 5 interview, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder and founder of Cardano (ADA) Charles Hoskinson suggested that the most effective way to find the person or team behind Bitcoin (BTC) is to apply stylometric techniques. 

Stylometry is the application of the study of linguistic style, usually to written language. This technique had been previously applied to Satoshi Nakamoto’s writing without conclusive results.

Use the code instead

Hoskinson suggested instead of using Nakamoto’s writing, use his code. Hoskinson explained to Cointelegraph why this could be a more effective technique:

“Yes dramatically more efficient. Code stylometry is much more accurate. Here's a paper on the topic https://usenix.org/node/190845. It's commonly done to track malware authors and usually is very effective”.

Hoskinson profiles Satoshi

In the same interview, Hoskinson profiled Satoshi:

“They’re now in their fifties or sixties, were educated in the 1980s or early nineties, and brought up in a very particular school of computer science. Bitcoin script, alone, gives you a lot of indication of where that person was trained because it was based on a language called Forth, which is a very uncommon language, but it was used mostly in computer science pedagogy, especially in England and in the Eastern United States during that time period.”

Hoskinson concluded by saying that he has never applied stylometric techniques to Satoshi’s code and that: 

“It’s never been an interest to me because, frankly, that person left the ecosystem and doesn't want to be doxed and Bitcoin has operated just fine since 2012. It's been eight years now and we haven't had any issues. So why do we need to bring the founder back?”

Perhaps the enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto will never be solved.