Satoshi Nakamoto Adalah…Peter Todd?

Pencipta Misterius Bitcoin

Since the beginning of Bitcoin (BTC ), the identity of its creator, working under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto, has been a mystery. This has been the cause of much speculation and outright conspiracy theories.

Satoshi was active in the community and working with developers of blockchain technology from 2008 to Desember 2010, with some private messages maybe attributable to him in April 2011.

Beyond the mystery, it matters to this day because this would make the man behind Satoshi one of the richest on Earth, with 1.1 million Bitcoins still located at addresses linked to him. This would be worth more than $63B at the time of writing this article.

So it is probably no surprise that there was quite a buzz ahead of the announcement of an HBO documentary titled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” claiming to have solid proof of Satoshi’s true identity.

Sejarah Bitcoin

Sumber: TechGig

Awal

After Satoshi revealed his concept, the first active Bitcoin network was launched in 2009. This was famously when some of the first “real” transactions using Bitcoin took place, notably the purchase of 2 pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins by software developer Laszlo Hanyecz.

Soon after, other cryptocurrencies using different codes would be launched in 2010, and later, among which Ripple, Litecoin (LTC ), and Ethereum (ETH ) would be among the largest.

It would take until 2013 for Bitcoin prices to surge above $1,000 before crashing down.

This would open a turbulent period culminating in 2014, notably with the hack of Mt Gox, leading to 850,000 Bitcoin being stolen, and the sentencing to life in prison for the founder of the Silk Road website used to sell illegal drugs.

Pertumbuhan Ekosistem

Perceived limits about Bitcoin design triggered a boom in “altcoins,” especially with the launch of Ethereum in 2015. The Ethereum technology of smart contracts allowed for further applications of blockchain technology, opening its use in finance and virtually every sector imaginable.

Ethereum also allowed it to build crypto projects on top of its blockchain, leading to a somewhat chaotic explosion of new tokens.

Sumber: Crypto.com

ICO & Kegembiraan

ICO (Initial Coin Offering), a term mimicking IPO (Initial Public Offering), became a popular option for startups to raise funds, especially in the crypto/blockchain space. The ICOs, altcoins, and alternative tokens led to a hodgepodge of serious & useful projects mixed with Ponzi schemes and outright scams.

The enthusiasm about crypto started to expand way beyond the initial tech and hacker groups to the greater public, creating a massive wave of speculation and get-rich-quick schemes.

Maybe more symbolic than anything, the bubble in price value of NFT (Non-Fungible Token), reaching global awareness in 2017, would come to be remembered as one of the most outrageous aspects of the bubble.

Sumber: Fungible Apparel

In the midst of money flowing into the sector, Bitcoin prices hit $20,000 in 2017. Bitcoin itself would split in 2 with the fork of Bitcoin Cash (BCH ).

By 2018, the uncontrolled bubble would pop, leading to the second “crypto winter.”

2018 dan Seterusnya: Fokus Kembali pada Kasus Penggunaan Nyata

The downturn cleaned up the blockchain and crypto space of its most outrageous abuse. It is also when more institutional money started to look at the space, unable to ignore 100-1,000x returns of the past decade, mostly confined to “dumb money” in the view of finance experts.

For example, $17B in institutional money flew into the crypto space in 2021 alone. The first Bitcoin ETF was authorized in Canada in 2021 and in the USA in 2024.

Bitcoin might even become a more politically important currency, with Donald Trump announcing his intention to create a strategic national bitcoin stockpile, probably inspired by El Salvador embracing Bitcoin and crypto strongly.

Instrumental to that “mainstreamization” of Bitcoin in finance and among retail investors was the support of Cathy Wood’s ARK Invest funds, which also push heavily for investment in disruptive technology, from EVs & autonomous vehicles to AI, space tech, and advanced biotech (multiomics). ARK Invest would also cash in massive gains from its early investment in Coinbase.

Sumber: ARK Invest

Elon Musk’s purchase of Bitcoins through Tesla (TSLA ) and tongue-in-cheek endorsement of Dogecoin also helped (DOGE ).

Other crypto and blockchain projects, other than bitcoin, with solid use cases, kept maturing in this period, from IoT connectivity to logistics agriculture, real estate, green energy,  agriculture, decarbonization, etc.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin price would “quietly” recover and regularly hit new time highs throughout the 2020-2024 period.

Sumber: Kriptomat

Regulasi

Throughout the development of Bitcoin, its regulation has been controversial. On the one hand, free market absolutists did not even want crypto projects to be regulated by financial authorities, as the very essence of the project was to create an alternative parallel currency and even a banking system.

On the other hand, national regulators and financial institutions were very wary of uncontrolled, unregulated speculative instruments gathering hundreds of billions of dollars.

Many countries have tried to outright ban cryptos, including, at times, China and Russia, with limited success, to say the least.

For the American SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) the first question was to decide if Bitcoin and cryptos are commodities (like currency & bulk goods: euros, oil, corn, etc.) or securities (like a stock or bond).

Overall, there is a tendency to consider “pure” crypto like Bitcoin as commodities and tokens used in ICO as securities.

Still, ambiguity still reins in the details, with members of the SEC disagreeing about some rulings, and the rules still blurry in edge cases, like with crypto stacking and crypto exchanges. This creates a lot of uncertainty on what is authorized or not, making it difficult for large investment funds or banks to interact with the crypto ecosystem.

Overall, it is becoming clear that regulator decisions will have a serious impact on Bitcoin and crypto, probably larger than the arrival of ETFs or Bitcoin halving, whether its users like it or not.

Sumber: Pixelplex

Berinvestasi di Bitcoin

Ketahanan Terhadap Krisis

It is not an accident that Bitcoin emerged in 2008 amidst the largest financial crisis in decades. Overall, the concept of cryptocurrency and blockchain is to make money more reliable again after decades of fiat money while adding anonymity to transactions.

We explained in further detail in our article “Berinvestasi di Bitcoin (BTC) – Semua yang Perlu Anda Ketahui,” but here are a few reasons to invest in Bitcoin:

• Perlindungan terhadap inflasi dan devaluasi mata uang.
• Ketahanan terhadap keputusan sewenang-wenang regulator melalui desentralisasi dan ketidakberubahan.
• Anonimitas dan transparansi.

MSTR Grafik Harga

For several years now, MicroStrategy has been pilling up an impressive bitcoin stash. This is on top of Microstrategy’s software business registering double-digit revenue growth for subscription services.

By early 2024, it had reached a total of 214,400 BTCs, worth about US$13.6 billion. Its total Bitcoin holding represents almost 1% of Bitcoin’s total circulating supply. This has made the stock a favorite of traders, who started to consider it as a proxy for Bitcoin itself.

The fact that the company is publicly traded made it also popular among investors unwilling to manage the self-custody of their own coins.

In a way, this made MicroStrategy a Bitcoin derivative, a growing category of investment product with the emergence of Bitcoin ETFs. You can read more about Bitcoin ETFs in “Bitcoin ETFs Are All the Rage. Here Are Ways Investors Can Get Smart Exposure to Crypto”.

You can also read about how AI can help manage risk in crypto investments in “Bitcoin ETFs Are the First Step for Institutional Crypto Trading; AI Will Take It to the Next Level”

Satoshi HBO: Peter Todd

The HBO documentary claims that Satoshi is actually Peter Todd.

He immediately went on to deny it, with exchanges on X summarizing the problem with any potential identification of Satoshi:

Sumber: X

Todd juga mengkritik dokumenter HBO ketika dihubungi oleh mereka:

“Saya beri peringatan, ini akan sangat lucu ketika Anda memasukkannya ke dalam dokumenter dan sekelompok Bitcoiners menontonnya. Saya curiga banyak dari mereka akan sangat senang jika Anda mengambil jalur ini karena ini akan menjadi contoh lain dari jurnalis yang benar‑benar melewatkan intinya.”

“Intinya adalah menjadikan Bitcoin mata uang global. Hoback dan lainnya yang mencoba mengungkap identitas Nakamoto terganggu oleh omong kosong.”

Source: DL News

Jika ini benar, hal itu akan menjadikan Peter Todd salah satu orang terkaya di dunia.

Pada dasarnya, ini mungkin menjadi argumen terbaik melawan identitas Satoshi mana pun yang masih hidup, karena sulit membayangkan seseorang dengan kekayaan bersih $63 miliar tidak menggunakannya sama sekali. Tidak bahkan untuk membantu mendorong teknologi blockchain ke level tertinggi baru, jika mereka akan menjadi yang tidak bersemangat tentang uang.

Apakah Itu Dia?

Todd memang aktif sejak awal dalam komunitas Bitcoin yang masih baru. Secara khusus, ia berkontribusi pada pengembangan kode Bitcoin awal dan berinteraksi dengan Satoshi. Ia masih menjadi pengembang blockchain penting hingga saat ini.

The HBO documentary claims that Todd “menanggapi dirinya sendiri” dengan akun yang salah selama salah satu interaksi ini dengan Satoshi, mengungkapkan dirinya.

Sejujurnya, ini adalah “bukti” yang sangat lemah, dengan banyak orang menunjukkan banyak interaksi serupa lainnya antara Todd dan akun selain milik Satoshi. Fakta bahwa Todd saat itu masih mahasiswa dan bahwa Nakamoto lebih sering memposting selama musim panas juga bukan bukti yang kuat.

Akhirnya, kecuali ada bukti keputusan yang ditemukan pada hard drive atau komputer tahun 2008, kita mungkin tidak pernah 100% yakin dengan identitas Satoshi Nakamoto.

Namun, sama mungkin bahwa ia mungkin telah meninggal atau setidaknya kehilangan akses ke seluruh simpanan koinnya, karena ia telah diam dan tidak aktif selama 14 tahun hingga kini. Ini sebagian besar alasan mengapa, misalnya, Len Sassaman sering dianggap pilihan yang baik, karena kriptografer tersebut meninggal pada 2011, meskipun detail teknis mungkin menunjukkan bahwa ia bukan Satoshi.

Siapa yang tahu? Mungkin kebenarannya berada di tengah, dan Satoshi memang Todd, tetapi ia entah bagaimana telah kehilangan semua Bitcoin-nya.

Kesimpulan

Mulai sekarang, apakah Peter Todd adalah Satoshi Nakamoto akan menjadi perdebatan sengit. Jejak bukti tidak meyakinkan, namun hal ini tidak akan menghentikan spekulasi.

Hal ini juga mungkin agak tidak relevan di luar nasib koin Satoshi. Bahkan dapat dikatakan bahwa identitas asli Satoshi jelas merupakan sesuatu yang tidak ingin diungkapkan oleh orang di balik pseudonim tersebut, sehingga ada pertanyaan moral yang pada dasarnya “doxing” dia. Dan Bitcoin kini telah berkembang melampaui kontrol pencipta mana pun atau individu mana pun.

Bagaimanapun, antusiasme yang diciptakan oleh dokumenter menunjukkan bahwa kita mungkin memasuki fase baru antusiasme untuk Bitcoin dan kripto secara umum. Ini akan meniru periode sebelumnya, di mana kenaikan kembali ke rekor tertinggi beberapa tahun setelah crash sering diabaikan, setidaknya sampai mencapai titik didih.

Jika memang demikian, hal itu bisa menjadi tanda pasca menuju gelombang spekulatif baru, mungkin dipicu oleh klarifikasi definitif aturan SEC dan adopsi massal Bitcoin ETF serta kripto untuk transaksi yang aman, termasuk pertukaran transnasional.