While Bitcoin and Elon Musk might both have plans to soar past the moon, that’s probably where the similarities end. Earlier this morning, the billionaire PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX founder officially confirmed that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the elusive and anonymous founder of Bitcoin.
Previously, Sahil Gupta – a former intern at SpaceX – had blogged that Musk was likely Nakamoto thanks to the fact that the entrepreneur bears an extensive background in economics, software, and a ‘history of innovation’.
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However, that theory is now officially out the window thanks to a tweet issued by Musk this morning, who confirmed that the rumor is unfounded. Musk quipped that while he does own (at least) part of a Bitcoin, he isn’t aware of its whereabouts.
Not true. A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I don’t know where it is.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2017
In 2015, Musk expressed his own opinion that Bitcoin could primarily be ‘a means of doing illegal transactions’. The PayPal co-founder went on to quip that “That is not necessarily entirely bad. Maybe some things shouldn’t be illegal…. You should have a legal to illegal bridge.”
The hunt for Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity remains an area of intense speculation. Several theories have posited that the Bitcoin founder could, in fact, be anyone from Hal Finney to Nick Szabo, while others have claimed that the cryptocurrency is instead the work of an anonymous collective.
Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, the Bitcoin founder presently sits on an untapped fortune of some 1.04 million Bitcoins.
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