The cryptocurrency market has evolved dramatically since the creation of Bitcoin (BTC) in 2009. BTC, the first-ever digital token distributed via a decentralized structure without bank or government interference, is accepted by travel agencies, real estate businesses, and online shopping outlets, among other companies. In August 2021, BTC had a market cap of more than $858 billion.
The success of BTC has spawned a plethora of other digital tokens, all of which are known as altcoins. These include Litecoin, Namecoin, and Ethereum. The following is a look at the creators of three of the most popular cryptocurrencies.
Satoshi Nakamoto is credited with having created BTC. In March 2020, his online wallets had 980,000 BTC, or $6.2 billion, yet, interestingly, nobody is certain about who Nakamoto is. Reporters and Internet sleuths have attempted to uncover his identity, but these efforts have been unsuccessful. Craig Wright, Dorian Nakamoto, and Nick Szabo are three of the leading figures who have been proposed as the true identity of the BTC creator.
Wired magazine posited Wright as the founder of BTC in a December 2015 feature. The publication cited references on his blog and leaked e-mails as well as a transcript of a meeting with tax officials and attorneys in which he stated: “I did my best to try and hide the fact that I’ve been running bitcoin since 2009. By the end of this, I think half the world is going to bloody know.” Wright has embraced this depiction, but subsequent evidence, including the fact his blog posts and public encryption keys were backdated, suggests otherwise.
In March 2014, Newsweek presented Dorian Nakamoto as the founder of BTC because of his last name and his training as an engineer. Nakamoto, however, denied it. Szabo, meanwhile, created BTC precursor Bit Gold in 2008 and is believed by author Dominic Frisby to be the true identity of Nakamoto.
Vitalik Buterin, who called Wright a fraud for claiming to create BTC, launched Ethereum in 2014. Buterin, 27, wrote his first computer game when he was 7 years old and began creating full-fledged games just three years later. He developed Ethereum as an open-source alternative to BTC and funded the project via an online crowd sale. Ethereum had a market cap of $435.6 billion as of September 1.
Jackson Palmer
An alumnus of the University of Newcastle, Jackson Palmer is a digital marketing specialist who created Dogecoin in 2013 as a “joke currency.” Despite its humorous intentions, Dogecoin now has a market cap of $37.6 billion and has been backed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Larry Muller 