Infamous pharma entrepreneur Martin Shkreli is in the news once again. This time for revealing the ‘identity’ of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Shkreli has claimed in his latest Substack post that Paul Le Roux, a former programmer, and criminal cartel boss, is the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
Shkreli claims to have decrypted the first BTC transfer sent to late biotech pioneer Hal Finney. Shkreli claims the signature on the transaction sent to Finney reads:
“This transaction was made by Paul Leroux to Hal Finney on January 12, 2009.”
Shkreli’s claim has added fuel to the argument that has been floating around for years. A similar argument was afloat in 2019 after a wired article said that there is massive proof that Bitcoin was designed by a criminal mastermind. Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for the creator of Bitcoin, remained active during the design and expansion phase of bitcoin and blockchain since 2010. However, Nakamoto suddenly disappeared after the incident. If Paul Le Roux really is Satoshi Nakomoto, as claimed by Shkreli, where was he for two years, before being lured into a trap by the DEA in 2012?
Who Is Paul Le Roux
Pau Le Roux (full name: Paul Calder Le Roux) is a former programmer, former criminal cartel boss, and informant to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He created a free and open-source disk encryption software called E4M for Microsoft Windows in 1999. He is also credited for open-source TrueCrypt. However, Roux denies any involvement with TrueCrypt.
He was arrested on September 26, 2012, for conspiring to import narcotics into the United States. After getting lured by the DEA, Roux was charged with money laundering, drug trafficking, and murder-for-hire-related crimes. He later agreed to cooperate with the US authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence. Roux was sentenced to 25 years in prison in June 2020. While the former criminal cartel boss was set to serve the rest of his life in prison, his sentence was reduced for assisting the DEA.
The Other Side
Greg Maxwell, a well-known developer, has refuted the claim while questioning the validity of Shkreli’s claim. Maxwell has argued that the said signature appeared after Finney’s death. “That signature type didn’t exist until after Hal’s was out of commission, so it was presumably created by someone who obtained Hal’s private keys after his death, FWIW. You can see that address was actively sending transactions long after Hal’s death, so *unambiguously* someone else has control of the key,” Maxwell says.
Besides Maxwell, Bitcoin core developer Piter Wiulle has also refuted Shkreli’s claim. Wiulle took to Twitter to argue that Roux’s name was misspelled in the substack post by Shkreli.
Who Is Martin Shkreli
Martin Shkreli is an American former hedge fund manager. He is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare. Shkreli is also the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems. He received the ire after Turing, one of the pharmaceutical companies he co-founded, increased the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim by 5,455% after obtaining its license. Shkreli was charged and convicted in federal court on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to commit securities fraud. This conviction was unrelated to the Daraprim conspiracy. He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and up to $7.4 million in fines. Shkreli was released from prison on May 18, 2022, four months before the expected release date.
Conclusion
If Shkreli’s claims are true, it establishes that Roux made Bitcoin for money laundering purposes to back his criminal conglomerate. The prison authorities might explore options to ascertain if Paul Le Roux is Satoshi Nakamoto. However, the claims made by Shkreli remain mere arguments in absence of solid evidence. At a time when the crypto industry remains extremely volatile with extreme fear in the market in wake of events like the FTX collapse, such claims could have a solid impact on the market. How does the anonymity of the creator of Bitcoin help? Only experts can tell. But we can certainly expect more such claims in the near future.