Though Nakamoto's name is Japanese, and inscribed as a man living in Japan,[8] most of the speculation has involved software and cryptography experts in the United States or Europe.

On 31 October, Nakamoto published a white paper on the cryptography mailing list at metzdowd.com describing a digital cryptocurrency, titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".

He then gave control of the source code repository and network alert key to Gavin Andresen,[19] and transferred several related domains to various prominent members of the bitcoin community.

[21] Some theorize that the date referenced the signing of Executive Order 6102, which prohibited the ownership of gold coins in the United States, and 1975 as the year it was repealed.

"[24] The use of British English in both source code comments and forum postings, such as the expression "bloody hard", terms such as "flat" and "maths", and the spellings "grey" and "colour",[14] led to speculation that Nakamoto, or at least one person in a consortium claiming to be him, was of Commonwealth origin.

Hal Finney (4 May 1956 – 28 August 2014) was a pre-bitcoin cryptographic pioneer and the first person (other than Nakamoto himself) to use the software, file bug reports, and make improvements.

Finney's fellow extropian and sometime co-blogger Robin Hanson assigned a subjective probability of "at least" 15% that "Hal was more involved than he's said" before further evidence suggested that was not the case.

"[30][33] The article's publication led to a flurry of media interest, including reporters camping out near Nakamoto's house and chasing him by car when he drove to an interview.

"[35][36] In a subsequent interview, Nakamoto denied all connection to bitcoin, saying he had never heard of it before and that he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as about his previous work for military contractors, much of which was classified.

"[47] Nathaniel Popper wrote in The New York Times that "the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo.

"[48] On 8 December 2015, Wired wrote that Craig Steven Wright, an Australian academic, "either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did".

[52] Subsequent reports also raised the possibility that the evidence provided was an elaborate hoax,[53][54] which Wired acknowledged "cast doubt" on its suggestion that Wright was Nakamoto.

[59] Wright's team claimed this was "government agency recognition of Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto";[60] the United States Copyright Office issued a press release clarifying that this was not the case (as they primarily determine whether a work is eligible for copyright, and do not investigate legal ownership, which, if disputed, is determined by the courts).

[61] In March 2024, in the Crypto Open Patents Association (COPA) case before the High Court, Judge James Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto.

[66][67][65] In October 2011, writing for Fast Company, investigative journalist Adam Penenberg cited circumstantial evidence suggesting Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto.

[68] They jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase "computationally impractical to reverse" in 2008, which was also used in the bitcoin white paper by Nakamoto.

[72] In 2013, two Israeli mathematicians, Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir, published a paper claiming a link between Nakamoto and Ross Ulbricht.

[74] In 2016, the Financial Times said that Nakamoto might have been a group of people, mentioning Hal Finney, Nick Szabo and Adam Back as potential members.

[78][79] Elon Musk denied he was Nakamoto in a tweet on 28 November 2017, responding to speculation the previous week in a Medium post by a former SpaceX intern.

[83] A presentation given by Kaminsky at the 2011 Black Hat Briefings revealed that a testimonial in honor of Sassaman had been permanently embedded into bitcoin's blockchain.

[84] In 2023, speculations arose that Canadian entrepreneur Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume as of July 2024, could be Nakamoto.