Since Bitcoin’s inception 15 years ago, there has been a veritable buffet of conspiracy theories about its origins. Some suggest Bitcoin was developed by Chinese engineers for global domination, while others propose that benevolent aliens created it to propel human evolution. Yet, one persistent theory involves NSA, one of America’s most secretive intelligence-gathering agencies. A minority of crypto heads actually speculate that Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, might be a covert NSA operation.
This conjecture stems from the discovery that Bitcoin’s source code uses the Secure Hash Algorithm 256, or SHA-256. This mathematical formula is what secures Bitcoin transactions by encoding data into an incoherent combination of characters rendering Bitcoin practically impossible to crack. Interestingly, Glenn M Lilly, an NSA mathematician, formulated this algorithm in 2001, providing some rationales for the NSA-Bitcoin theory.
Furthermore, the agency’s 1996 paper, How To Make A Mint: The Cryptography Of Anonymous Electronic Cash, introduced a system strikingly similar to Bitcoin’s mechanism. This likeness fueled suspicions about the NSA’s potential involvement in crafting Bitcoin.
Nonetheless, on the other side of this theory, observers have argued that if Bitcoin was a top-secret NSA project, such blatant hints in the name “Satoshi Nakamoto” would not be hidden in plain sight. Also, with SHA-256 being open-sourced and widely used, its appearance in the Bitcoin source code is not proof of the NSA’s involvement.
Moreover, it has been pointed out that the Bitcoin development process doesn’t coincide with the organized methodology an intelligence titan like NSA would employ. Presumably, the absence of Satoshi’s real-world identity isn’t necessarily a fingerprint of intelligence training – anonymity is a common virtue in the digital realm.
Finally, Jeff Man, former NSA cryptanalyst, has proposed that while it might be ‘feasible’ for the NSA to create Bitcoin to gather intelligence, historical records and respect for its charter make him doubtful. After all, spying on American citizens is a bold line the NSA is wary of crossing.
So, did the NSA create Bitcoin? Perhaps, only time will tell. Until then, the origin of Bitcoin remains shrouded in deep cryptography and lively speculation.
Source: Cointelegraph
