Nakamoto is from Estonia? This company has been studying "blockchain" since 2008.

In 2008, a start-up company in Estonia began testing the blockchain. In the same year, the mysterious person of the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto published a groundbreaking bitcoin white paper. Is this coincidence?

According to research by Kimberly Forsythe, editor of New World Optimist, Guardtime is worthy of a more in-depth investigation. The company has grown into a multinational company that produces military-grade blockchains. It may be the key to uncovering the identity of the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin.

Estonia: a place inseparable from Nakamoto

Estonia has been associated with Nakamoto for many times. In 2018, Estonian media reported that cryptographer Helger Lipmaa was the creator of the white paper, but he later denied this. But a new theory put forward by technical adviser Kimberly Forsythe yesterday has brought to a group of scientists associated with him other than Lipmaa.

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These scientists, including Joitcho Ito, the current head of the MIT Media Lab, have worked on projects that, in addition to their names, are strikingly similar to blockchains in any way.

The target of the Forsythe survey was Mike Gault, CEO of Guardtime. Forsythe said Gault's profile is strikingly similar to the Bitcoin inventor.

For example, Gault was born in Ireland but studied in the UK from 1986 to 1994 and moved to Tokyo in the early 1990s. There, he studied quantum computing at the Polytechnic Institute.

Nakamoto calls himself a 37-year-old man living in Japan. But there is also a lot of evidence of "Britishism" in his writings.

According to the South China Morning Post, when the Bitcoin White Paper was published in 2008, Gault also engaged in derivatives trading in Tokyo, MBA in Hong Kong, and Guardtime in Tallinn, Estonia.

Does he also have the opportunity to write a groundbreaking bitcoin white paper?

It seems unlikely, but Forsythe guessed that Gault has partners.

At Tokyo Institute of Technology, he met Mart Saarepera in Estonia (who was studying application information security and cryptography at the time) and Saarepera's old classmate Ahto Buldas in Tallinn. Also in Tokyo, Gault met the fourth person in the Forsythe story, the influential Japanese venture capitalist and Joichi Ito, who later became the head of the MIT Media Lab.

A company born earlier than the blockchain

The four later formed a company called Guardtime, which was funded by Ito. Forsythe speculates that they have the opportunity, the knowledge and the motivation to write Bitcoin white papers, whether they are cooperative or “individually fighting”.

Her argument is supported by the fact that Buldas seems to be studying technology that is very similar to the blockchain – and has worked with Saarepera. The research focused on ensuring the integrity of electronic data using password verification through digital signatures, hash functions, and timestamps.

The goal of Buldas and Saarepera is that there is no longer a need for a trusted third party.

In an interview with cryptocurrency media Decrypt, Forsythe said that her research and theory was published in the media The Startup, which is pure speculation. Moreover, although many clues seem to make sense, there are many details that cannot be explained: who contributed to the white paper; why they use pseudonyms, and most importantly, why did they give up the name?

Forsythe said:

“I stumbled upon Guardtime as an Estonian company, and the company is still building a blockchain system for the government, and the business is growing very fast. This makes people interested in whether the organization is creating Bitcoin. It seems to be my place. I heard the most credible connection about Nakamoto’s identity."

However, after contacting Mike Gault, Mart Saarepera, Ahto Buldas and Joichi Ito, the reporter did not receive a response.

Network defense system

If these people are indeed Nakamoto, why should they "go away from duty"? There is a theory that the disappearance of Nakamoto is due to national security and is also the reason for Guardtime's success.

The company was founded in Estonia in 2007 to protect the country. Earlier, Estonia had a series of cyber attacks suspected of being written by Russia.

The system developed by Guardtime is based on a cryptographic hash function that independently validates electronic data mathematically to ensure the integrity of electronic data. It allows the organization to detect changes in the integrity of digital assets in real time.

Guardtime's Keyless Signatures Infrastructure quickly acquired a contract with the Estonian government.

But over the years, the company has signed multi-million dollar contracts with organizations such as Thailand, the United Kingdom and even the Chinese government, US defense contractors Lockhead Martin and Raytheon.

The company is also a blockchain supplier across multiple industries, with important tasks such as protecting data sources for the European Space Agency. Its services support the world's first blockchain medical platform, serving the UK's 30 million NHS (UK National Health Insurance) patients.

Gault said in an interview last year:

“I think we are the only company in the blockchain company that is profitable and has products.”

“Before Bitcoin appeared, we have been studying this issue. There is no new cryptography added to Bitcoin – the clever thing is that it uses different cryptographic modules and builds a way to motivate people to use it. The cryptocurrency protocol."

Forsythe found the four parties and asked them to comment on her research. But so far, only MIT Ito has responded to Forsythe. His answer is only one sentence: "Ha!" Sounds good.

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