Nick Szabo
| Detail | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Nicholas Szabo | |
| Birth date | April 5th, 1964 | |
| Birthplace | ? | |
| Family: parents | ? | |
| Family: siblings | ? | |
| Family: spouse | ? | |
| Family: children | ? | |
| Education | University of Washington, George Washington University | |
| Fields | Computer science, digital currency | |
| Employment | Agoric Systems, Digicash | |
| Affiliations | Cypherpunks mailing list | |
| Residence | ? | |
| Website | https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/ | |
| Social | https://x.com/nickszabo4 |
Nick Szabo is a computer scientist and cryptographer who designed a precursor to Bitcoin called BitGold in 1998. Some people believe that he might be Satoshi Nakamoto due to similarities between his work and Bitcoin's code.
Szabo also hit upon the idea of Bit gold1 which has some overlapping ideas with Bitcoin, including concepts like a "proof of work function".
Hal Finney also references "bit gold":
"I also do think that there is potential value in a form of unforgeable token whose production rate is predictable and can't be influenced by corrupt parties. This would be more analogous to gold than to fiat currencies. Nick Szabo wrote many years ago about what he called "bit gold"1 and this could be an implementation of that concept. There have also been proposals for building light-weight anonymous payment schemes on top of heavy-weight non-anonymous systems, so Bitcoin could be leveraged to allow for anonymity even beyond the mechanisms discussed in the paper."
An interesting note by a Bitcoin Talk forum user:
The Satoshi Nakamoto who submitted the Bitcoin whitepaper was Nick Szabo. Japanese name is written in reverse so it's Nakamoto Satoshi. He picked this name as to get the same initials NS on the whitepaper while not having to reveal his full name.
— Bitcoin Talk Forum user
A quote from Szabo refuting a claim that he is Nakamoto.
"I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it."
Random notes
-
Nick Szabo has Hungarian lineage; Hungarians use the
<Family Name>, <Given Name>syntax just as Japanese do. Thus Szabo Nick == Satoshi Nakamoto. -
For a professor at GWU law school, there is a scant amount of public information about Nick Szabo.
- Bitcoin Talk forum comment