[image credit : Flare]
IOHK CEO and Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson has suggested the use of “stylometry” as a way to narrow down the identity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
In an interview with U.Today, Hoskinson explained the use of stylometry as a method to determine the author of a written piece of work, including bitcoin’s code. Hoskinson said the process could be used for narrowing down the identity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, which has remained crypto’s greatest mystery.
He said, “You can apply stylometric techniques to that code and apply it to all the open-source projects that have ever been written and there’s a very high probability you’re going to find a match between that code and other code.”
Hoskinson’s approach relies upon the original bitcoin code being written by one individual, as opposed to a group sharing the moniker Satoshi.
The Ethereum co-founder offered other insight into Satoshi’s background, applying his own investigation of the coder’s skillset.
Hoskinson said Nakamoto is likely in his fifties or sixties, and was educated in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. He argued that Nakamoto was an academic rather than a professional engineer, as evidenced by the “overly academic” nature of bitcoin’s code.
Hoskinson was also able to narrow down Nakamoto’s location, telling his interviewer, ” [Bitcon’s programming language] was used mostly in computer science pedagogy, especially in England and in the Eastern United States during that time period.”
