寻找中本聪：我们需要怎样的技术领袖

    “我不是多利安•S•中本。”

    这是美国东部时间上周四晚10点，一个账号在Peer to Peer Foundation网站上留下的简单信息。这个账号的用户名是“中本聪”。

    这位比特币数字货币协议的匿名缔造者曾在这个论坛上使用过这个账号，探讨他发明的这种货币的未来发展，直到他消失在这个他自己亲手创造的世界。这个账号最后的活跃日期是2009年2月18日——那是一次关于比特币的讨论。Peer to Peer Foundation的创始人表示，这个账号的注册邮箱与中本聪之前的比特币原始设计文档相关联的公共邮箱一致。

    其实，这些未必有多大的意义。这个账号也存在被黑客盗取的可能。或者多利安•S•中本只是为了登录论坛散播虚假信息，希望转移已经把他淹没的媒体关注漩涡。不过在美联社（AP）的采访中，多利安否认自己与比特币的关系，还表现得非常困惑。此外，作为被采访人的中本与网络上的中本，两者的语言能力也大相径庭。结合这两点看，利亚•麦格拉斯•古德曼的故事至少看起来是具有争议的。【自由撰稿人古德曼曾在《新闻周刊》发表文章称，她已经找到了比特币的发明人中本聪，还与他进行了面谈。然而此人在接受美联社采访时否认自己跟这种数字货币存在任何关系。——译注】

    但这根本就无所谓。

    无论他是否是真的多利安•S•中本，也无论他的动机是什么，在他自己创造的虚拟货币的大肆炒作中，中本聪置身事外，这一点让围观者不仅好奇，而且变得有些疯狂。追溯到2011年的一连串推测和调查，都在试图填补比特币中心的这一空白。《纽约客》（New Yorker）的约书亚•戴维斯、文本分析师斯凯•格雷和其他许多爱好者和专业调查者都进行过尝试，但他们提出的理论都没能让人们满意，《新闻周刊》（Newsweek）的独家新闻可能又将是一次失败的调查。

    然而不知为何，尽管没有了创造者，比特币却依然坚挺至今。

    我们之所以想搞清是谁创造了比特币是出于许多重要、合理的理由。毕竟，金钱建立在信任的基础上，匿名的创造者无法取信于人。即便是比特币的早期用户，也在不断怀疑比特币的代码中可能包含由创造者控制的秘密功能——比如能让整个网络瘫痪的“杀戮开关”。

    但我们知道事实并非如此，因为比特币的代码完全公开，而且此时已经经过全世界成千上万程序员的检查和修订。这些人中也包括盈利性公司的创始人和员工，他们有着充分的动机来确保自己的安全。

    越来越多的人开始信任比特币，但这种新任有赖于比特币社区及其生态系统。尽管比特币的企业家中不断有人破产，但比特币分散化和开源的发展模式使得比特币底层协议的可靠性足以媲美其他优秀开发者控制的任何技术——甚至更加可靠。

    尽管如此，人们依然在寻找这样一个人，光这个人的身份就能表明整个系统的可靠性。

    "I am not Dorian S. Nakamoto."

    That was the simple message posted from an account on the website of the Peer to Peer Foundation at 10 p.m. ET Thursday. The message was posted from an account under the name "Satoshi Nakamoto."

    The pseudonymous creator of the Bitcoin digital currency protocol had previously discussed the development of his invention on this forum, using this account, until he vanished from the world he created. The last prior activity on the account was from Feb. 18, 2009 -- also a discussion about bitcoin. The founder of the Peer to Peer Foundation has stated that the e-mail registered with the account matches previous public emails associated with Satoshi Nakamoto in Bitcoin's original design documents.

    This doesn't necessarily mean much. The account might have been hacked. Or Dorian S. Nakamoto may simply have logged in to spread disinformation in an attempt to deflect the media maelstrom converging around him. But combined with an AP interview in which a sometimes confused Dorian denied his involvement with Bitcoin and serious inconsistencies in the language abilities of the two Nakamotos, Leah McGrath Goodman's story at least starts to look contestable.

    And it doesn't matter a bit.

    Whether or not he is in fact Dorian S. Nakamoto, and whatever his motivations, the absence of Satoshi Nakamoto from the huge hype surrounding the virtual money he created has obviously left onlookers not just curious, but slightly manic. A constant stream of speculation and investigation stretching all the way back to 2011 has tried to plug the hole at the center of bitcoin, including attempts by Joshua Davis at the New Yorker, a textual analyst named Skye Grey, and a slew of other amateur and professional investigators. None of the theories have proven out, and Newsweek's scoop may be the next to fall.

    But somehow, without its creator, bitcoin soldiers on.

    There are many important, sensible reasons we want to know who created bitcoin. Money is based on trust, after all, and an anonymous creator inspires little. Even among bitcoin early adopters, there has been persistent hypothesizing that the bitcoin code could contain secret functions controlled by the anonymous creator -- for example, a killswitch that would disable the entire network.

    Except that we know this isn't true, because the bitcoin code is entirely public, and has at this point been reviewed and revised by thousands of programmers across the world. This includes the founders and employees of profitable businesses, who have every motivation to ensure they're on stable ground.

    The trust increasing numbers of people place in bitcoin rests on that community, and on that ecosystem. Though shakeouts continue among bitcoin entrepreneurs, its decentralized, open-source development model has made the underlying protocol as trustworthy as any technology controlled by a strong creator -- or more.

    But still, people go looking for one person whose identity can stand in for the trustworthiness of an entire system.