Why I Believe Len Sassaman Was Satoshi Nakamoto
Unlike the absurd claims of Craig Wright and others, a closer look at Len Sassaman’s career, his skills, and his connections to the cypherpunk community paints a far more plausible case. In fact, it becomes difficult not to see Len as a candidate for Satoshi. Here’s why:
- Unparalleled Technical Expertise
Len’s technical resume reads like a checklist of Satoshi’s required skillset. To create Bitcoin, one would need to master public-key cryptography, decentralized peer-to-peer networks, and privacy-enhancing technologies. Len had all of these.
• PGP Encryption: Len worked on the PGP7 encryption protocol, building relationships with cryptographic pioneers like Hal Finney (a well-known Satoshi suspect) and Phil Zimmermann (PGP’s creator). Bitcoin itself draws heavily on PGP principles of public-key cryptography.
• Remailers & Decentralized Networks: Len was one of the main developers and operators of Mixmaster, an anonymous remailer system. Mixmaster nodes work similarly to Bitcoin nodes, relaying encrypted “messages” (just as Bitcoin nodes relay transaction data). He even operated a node with a Japanese pseudonym and a GMX.com email, mirroring Satoshi’s email domain: satoshin@gmx.com.
• Byzantine Fault Tolerance: Len’s work at COSIC in Belgium focused on solving the Byzantine Fault — the same challenge that Satoshi solved with Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system. Just seven months before Bitcoin’s release, Len announced on his blog that he had developed a protocol to solve the Byzantine Fault, but he never published it under his own name.
2. His Role in the Cypherpunk Community
If Satoshi was anyone, it was likely someone embedded within the cypherpunk community — the only space where ideas like digital cash and cryptographic autonomy were taken seriously. Len wasn’t just a member of this community — he was one of its central figures.
• Living with Bram Cohen (BitTorrent Creator): While living with Cohen, Len was exposed to the development of MojoNation, one of the earliest decentralized token-based economies, as well as BitTorrent, a major precursor to Bitcoin’s P2P architecture.
• Hal Finney Connection: Len worked alongside Hal Finney at Network Associates. Finney was the first person to run Bitcoin software, the first to receive a Bitcoin transaction (from Satoshi himself), and one of its earliest contributors. The two were colleagues and friends.
• Ties to Adam Back (Hashcash): Len collaborated with Adam Back (whose proof-of-work system was used in Bitcoin) on several remailer projects and shared a research paper with him. It’s worth noting that Adam Back has said he suspects that Satoshi was a “remailer developer,” which happens to describe Len perfectly.
3. The Skills to Stay Anonymous
Satoshi was an expert in operational security (OPSEC), remaining anonymous to this day. Len, too, had an obsession with privacy and pseudonymity.
• Use of Pseudonyms: Len routinely used pseudonyms online and was known to submit patches and research under aliases.
• Anonymous Remailers: He was one of the primary maintainers of Mixmaster, the most popular anonymous remailer at the time. It’s highly plausible that he used this system to communicate as Satoshi.
• Anonymous Contributions: Len’s contributions to Cypherpunk mailing lists often came through remailers, allowing him to operate pseudonymously in the community. This perfectly aligns with Satoshi’s own use of pseudonymous email and forum posts.
4. The Academic Profile
Satoshi’s activity timeline aligns suspiciously well with an academic schedule, with bursts of development during breaks and holidays. Len was pursuing a Ph.D. at COSIC in Belgium during Bitcoin’s development and adhered to a similar schedule.
• European Locale: Evidence suggests Satoshi was likely based in Europe, as Bitcoin’s Genesis Block references a UK newspaper (“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”). During this period, Len was living in Belgium, where The Times was a popular newspaper.
• British Spelling: Satoshi consistently used British spelling (“colour,” “maths,” “grey”), even though many have speculated that Satoshi was American. Len, an American, also used British spelling in his online writings — an anomaly for someone raised in the United States.
5. Check the time stamps for the first 17,000 block rewards.
I recently had ChatGPT analyze the timestamps of the first 17,000 Bitcoin blocks — the very blocks Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have mined personally. What stood out to me was something that most people seem to have overlooked: for the entire 148 days it took to mine those blocks, there was not a single power interruption — not even for five minutes.
This level of power stability is extremely rare in the United States, and especially in California, where power cuts and rolling blackouts are notoriously common. In fact, it’s almost unheard of for any U.S. location to maintain 148 consecutive days of flawless, uninterrupted electricity.
By contrast, this kind of stability is far more plausible in certain parts of Europe, where power grids are more robust, downtime is minimal, and rolling blackouts are exceedingly rare. Given that Satoshi’s mining activity ran 24/7 without interruption, it’s reasonable to conclude that the most likely place for this to happen was Europe, not the United States.
This geographic clue adds to the growing list of evidence pointing to Satoshi being based in Europe. From the British spelling and grammar Satoshi used in his posts (“colour,” “maths,” “grey”), to the inclusion of The Times newspaper headline in the Genesis Block (a UK publication), and now the remarkable electrical uptime required to mine 17,000 consecutive blocks without disruption — all signs suggest that Satoshi was likely operating from a location in Europe.
If you consider Len Sassaman as a candidate for Satoshi, this detail becomes even more compelling. At the time of Bitcoin’s development, Len was living in Belgium, where power stability is significantly higher than in the United States. His work at COSIC, a leading European cryptography research group, would have given him access to reliable university and institutional infrastructure — precisely the kind of environment where uninterrupted power could be guaranteed for months on end.
Taken together, the clues suggest something more than coincidence. A steady power supply for 148 days. British spelling and phrasing. References to a UK newspaper headline. All of it points to one simple truth: Satoshi Nakamoto was most likely in Europe when Bitcoin was being built.
6. The Ideological Alignment
Bitcoin is not just a technological breakthrough — it’s a political act. It reflects a deep commitment to the values of privacy, decentralization, and freedom from centralized authority. Len Sassaman lived and breathed these ideals.
• Open Source Advocate: Like Satoshi, Len avoided closed-source software and believed that open knowledge should be freely available to everyone.
• Fighting Government Overreach: He fought publicly against surveillance, organized protests, and defended jailed cryptographers like Dmitry Sklyarov.
• Hacker Ethos: Len had a reputation as a “doer,” not just a theorist. He didn’t just speculate on big ideas — he built them. This is exactly the mindset that it would take to create and launch something as ambitious as Bitcoin.