The Bitcoin Origin Story Reads Like a Cyberpunk Thriller

Anonymous genius. Digital gold. Global obsession. A bestselling journalist cracks open the legend of Satoshi Nakamoto.

It’s a tantalizing riddle for the digital age.

In 2008, a person—or maybe a group—using the name Satoshi Nakamoto dropped the blueprint for a radical new currency: Bitcoin. What followed was a financial and cultural explosion worth trillions. But Satoshi? Gone. No face, no fingerprints, no confirmed identity.

With sleuthing skills honed at Vanity Fair and New York magazine, bestselling writer Benjamin Wallace set out to crack the case. Was Satoshi a lone genius? A cover for a group of cypherpunks? Elon Musk in disguise?

Below, Benjamin reveals what he learned, and what it tells us about money, power, and the weird utopian dreams of the internet.