In July 2011, Leonard Harris “Len” Sassaman decided to take his own life. He was 31 years old but had already had a long battle with depression. Those who know him describe Len as “a true Cypherpunk: intelligent, irreverent and idealistic in equal measure.” A well-known and beloved cryptography expert, co-founder of the CodeCon conference with Bram Cohen.

His legacy was immortalized a few weeks after his suicide. 138,725 of the Bitcoin network. on your blog A tribute to Len Sassaman written in ASCII. A small inscription written in his honor has since been seen as an argument justifying that this technologist, who was born in Pennsylvania and later moved to Silicon Valley, is the person behind Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakatomo.

HBO’s documentary ‘Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery’ promised to solve the mystery of who Satoshi Nakamoto really was, but the result was not convincing enough. We continue as before with many theories and possibilities, but no confirmation.

Len Sassaman is the candidate who will never return

The possibility of Len Sassaman being Satoshi is also doubtful. It’s just another theorybut unlike others there is Various ingredients that make it special. Since its origin is far from the current crypto world; because it is a profile focused on the technical and philosophical aspects of Bitcoin and he is no longer with us, which partially justifies why Satoshi Nakamoto’s profile has ceased its activity.

In the Polymarket survey conducted before the HBO documentary, 68% of the participants stated that Len Sassaman would be the person named Satoshi, but this probability decreased as the date approached.

According to Coinmarketcap, the most curious thing is that Satoshi Nakamoto became inactive two months after Sassaman’s death. Other details suicide note contained 24 random wordsIt’s reminiscent of the 24-word seed phrases used for the 256-bit cryptographic security in Bitcoin.

Sassaman contributed to projects such as Pretty Good Privacy and GNU Privacy Guard and helped develop the TCP/IP protocol. But also He is considered one of the first users in the Bitcoin worldIn 2009, he worked with Hal Finney, who was the first recipient of a transaction on the Bitcoin network and one of the historical candidates to become the creator of Bitcoin.

The figure of Len Sassaman is ideal for Satoshi as it aligns with the ideal of a project with a strong cryptographic component. It is combined with a profile that is anonymous and private in origin. This also justifies why so much unused money was kept in Satoshi’s account.

But Meredith L. Patterson, journalist, software engineer and Sassaman’s wife always denied this possibility. “The best argument against this theory is rookie mistakes in the original design of the Bitcoin protocol, such as the ability to send BTC directly to an IP address,” Patterson said.

Another argument in favor of Sassaman as the possible creator of Bitcoin is put forward by Justin Newton, CEO of Netki and friend of Sassaman. He also explains that he believes this theory is plausible, even though he has no direct knowledge of it.

“Len went from passive, shy and withdrawn to passionate and deeply committed,” she recalls. In one of his many calls he explains: Sassaman argued that “networks should be completely open” and controls had to be established at other layers, either by technology where possible or by law where absolutely necessary.” Interestingly, Sassaman himself was an outspoken critic of Bitcoin.

There has been a lot of speculation about Satoshi Nakamoto and this is expected to continue for a while. There is no data to clarify or justify Sassaman as Satoshi, but if anything it is that he fits the profile that many people want him to be.

Image | Alexander Klink

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