Earlier this month, Newsweek named 64 year old California resident Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of Bitcoin, which he quickly denied in another interview. Now his lawyer has sent a statement credited to Nakamoto that not only says Newsweek"s article is false but hints that he may take legal action against the recently relaunched news magazine.
Reuters employee Felix Salmon posted up the statement he received from lawyer Ethan Kirschner, who is representing Nakamoto, on his Twitter feed. This will apparently be the last public word on this matter from Nakamoto, at least for now. He once again says he only heard of the term "Bitcoin" a few weeks ago, when his son called him to send word that Newsweek was looking for a story.
While Nakamoto is an engineer and admits he knows something about programming, his new statement claims he has no experience with "cryptography, peer to peer systems or alternative currencies." He also says that he has not been able to find steady work in 10 years and is not in the best shape financially. In fact he claims that Newsweek"s article has made finding a job even harder than before. The rumors surrounding Bitcoin"s creator claims he, she or they have a lot of the online currency which could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Nakamoto says that he has retained legal council and hopes that the outside world will give him some privacy from now on. He said that he wrote his newest statement to clear his name but unless Newsweek admits it got the wrong man the issue may only be settled in a court of law.
Source: Felix Salmon on Twitter | Bitcoin image via Shutterstock