Australian businessman: I'm Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin - CNET

For years, mystery has shrouded the true identity of the creator of the electronic currency called Bitcoin, a person known only as Satoshi Nakamoto. Now Australian businessman Chris Wright says it's him.

In interviews published Monday with the BBC, GQ and the Economist, along with a blog post of his own, Wright said he's Satoshi Nakamoto and offered instructions to let others verify the claim through the use of a digital signature that would associate him with some of the earliest bitcoins created. One person who's convinced is Gavin Andreson, the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, which attempts to standardize and promote the technology.

If Wright's claim is confirmed, it could help demystify and legitimize a technology whose promise has been hampered by technical complexity and a history taished by theft, illicit commerce at the Silk Road site, and bankruptcy of some early players.

Bitcoin, used today to buy products online and transfer money between countries, is based on cryptographic technology. It relies on a small army of bitcoin "miners" who verify bitcoin transactions through a computationally intense process that occasionally rewards them with newly minted bitcoins. Although the value of a bitcoin has diminished since a moment of hype in early 2014, the value of bitcoin transactions continues to steadily increase, according to tracking site Blockchain.info.

The quest to Identify Satoshi Nakamoto has been dramatic but joualistically perilous. Attempts by Newsweek and the New Yorker unraveled, and Wired backed off its 2015 conclusion that Wright probably is Satoshi after close scrutiny revealed problems with the proof.

Now, Wright said he reluctantly decided it's time to end the anonymity.

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"I have not done this because it is what I wanted. It's not because of my choice," he told the BBC. He has no plans to become a figurehead for the Bitcoin movement, he added, but evidently he still plans to stay involved.

"I have been silent, but I have not been absent. I have been engaged with an exceptional group and look forward to sharing our remarkable work when they are ready," he said in his blog post. "Satoshi is dead. But this is only the begiing."