Who as Satoshi? We explore some theories regarding the Bitcoin creator’s identity.

In this video, Jeff Garzik dismisses the conspiracy theory that Bitcoin was created by the NSA, CIA, or any government agency. He describes such ideas as fun stories people tell after a few drinks but emphasizes that there’s no real basis for them. Instead, Jeff believes in Satoshi Nakamoto’s version of Bitcoin’s origin—a lone genius who had the idea and then built Bitcoin to prove to himself that it would work.

Jeff explains that Satoshi wasn’t fully confident in his design until Bitcoin was tested on the internet, the ultimate proving ground. Drawing from his own experience as a software engineer, Jeff gives an honest assessment of Bitcoin’s first version (0.1). He describes it as a “hairball of source code”—poorly organized, lacking proper testing frameworks like unit or stress tests, and only runnable on Windows.

It was clear to him that the code wasn’t written by professional engineers, but by someone learning and figuring things out as they went, much like how Jeff himself learned computing. He credits early developers like Gavin Andresen for porting Bitcoin to Linux, improving its modularity, and making the code more maintainable. The early Bitcoin codebase did not resemble something from a team of experts but rather from a single person trying to bring an idea to life.

Key Topics Covered:

• Jeff Garzik debunks the idea that the NSA or CIA created Bitcoin
• Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision as a lone genius developing Bitcoin
• The rough, unprofessional state of Bitcoin 0.1’s source code
• Contributions by early developers like Gavin Andresen to improve Bitcoin’s codebase
• Jeff’s comparison of Satoshi’s coding process to his own self-taught computing experience

About the Series

Satoshi Stories is a fascinating deep dive into the history of Bitcoin told by Bitcoin Core Developer Jeff Garzik. Jeff was there at the beginning of Bitcoin’s rise and eventual domination of the cryptocurrency world and his experience working with Satoshi in those early years offers important and fascinating insights into the technology.