Let’s start with this: Bitcoin didn’t come out of nowhere.
It wasn’t invented by a finance bro or handed down by a tech billionaire, it came from a quieter place, built by people who believed the internet should protect its users, not track them, and who saw privacy not as a niche concern, but as a basic right, these were cryptographers, programmers, cypherpunks.
They weren’t known names at the time, just people exchanging ideas in obscure mailing lists, writing open-source code, debating trust models, and building tools like anonymous remailers and digital signatures, concepts most people hadn’t even heard of, and it was not about profit, they wanted to build systems that couldn’t be owned, manipulated, or shut down.
When you look at early contributors like Hal Finney, Adam Back, and Wei Dai, a clear pattern starts to form, they were all part of this underground movement, each working on pieces of the puzzle that Satoshi would later bring together.
So then the question comes up, who is Len Sassaman?
He is a cryptographer and privacy advocate who played a key role in the cypherpunk movement, developing and maintaining PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and the Mixmaster anonymous remailer. Unfortunately, he took his own life on July 3, 2011, at the age of 31. Len is suspected to be Satoshi due to his ties to key Bitcoin figures such as Hal Finney and Adam Back, work on anonymous remailers tools Satoshi likely used, and his background in cryptography, but his wife denies the claims"
Born in 1980, Len was already building encryption tools before most people even understood what they were. He worked closely with Phil Zimmermann, creator of PGP, and focused on more than just password protection, he was thinking about how to hide identities entirely.
At KU Leuven in Belgium, Len held a research position and worked on cryptographic protocols that weren’t just theoretical, but were used in real systems that, in hindsight, look a lot like the early building blocks of Bitcoin. It seems unlikely that he was Satoshi, but when you trace the fingerprints behind Bitcoin, his name continues to appear repeatedly.
Did Hal Finney know Len Sassaman?
The connection between Len Sassaman and Hal Finney is one of the more intriguing threads in the theory that Len may have been Satoshi, or at least part of the story.
Did Hal Finney know Len Sassaman? They worked together at a company called Network Associates on Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an encryption program that secures digital communication. They also collaborated on anonymous remailer projects, tools designed to protect sender identity by stripping metadata.
These systems work by receiving a message, removing any traceable information like IP addresses or sender details, and then forwarding it to the intended recipient, making it nearly impossible to track who sent it. They were essential pieces of a technological field focused on privacy that shaped what Bitcoin eventually became.
But it goes deeper than that, because Finney wasn't just any cryptographer, he was the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi himself, in addition, he also tested early versions of the Bitcoin software and gave feedback that helped improve it.
And here’s what gets people talking. Sassaman and Finney weren’t just collaborators, they lived in the same part of California, moved in the same cypherpunk circles, and tackled similar problems through different approaches, such as privacy-focused protocols and systems built on decentralized trust.
It's not hard to imagine them sharing ideas or even building something together, as some theories suggest that Satoshi Nakamoto was never a single person but a team consisting of a strategist, a developer, and a tester, and if these theories are true, then Len and Hal fit the model all too well.
What is the Len Sassaman tribute?
Among the many theories tying Len Sassaman to Bitcoin, one theory stands out and continues to fuel speculation.
What is the Len Sassaman tribute? It’s an ASCII art image of Len’s face, along with a short message about him, embedded into a Bitcoin transaction in block 138,725. Computer security researcher Dan Kaminsky created the tribute and first announced it during “The Wake for Len Sassaman” at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco on July 30, 2011. It was later revealed publicly at Black Hat USA that same year in Las Vegas.
Kaminsky included not only Len’s image but also the face of Ben Shalom Bernanke, then chair of the Federal Reserve, as a subtle joke reflecting Len’s anti-establishment ideas and according to a Bitcointalk thread, the tribute was built using PGP keys linked to Len and permanently recorded on the blockchain.
Whether you believe Len Sassaman was Satoshi or not, the tribute embedded in Bitcoin’s blockchain is real. His name and the dates of his life are written into the code, cryptographically signed and publicly verifiable, far more than just speculation or rumor.
Maybe it was left by a close friend, or it was simply a quiet message meant to suggest something more. For those who believe in the theory, it feels like a signature, while for others, it remains a lasting homage that keeps Len’s name firmly embedded in the story of Bitcoin.
Who is Len Sassaman, and Why Does Anyone Think He Was Satoshi?
When you start to look closer, the overlap becomes hard to ignore because Len’s focus on privacy wasn’t a side interest but the foundation of everything he worked on.
Len Sassaman is probably not Satoshi, and his wife has denied all rumors, but he is suspected to be Satoshi for several reasons: his death happened not long before Satoshi disappeared from the Bitcoin forums, he had close ties to figures like Hal Finney and Adam Back, and he helped develop the anonymous remailer, one of the tools Satoshi is believed to have used. One of the more curious moments came just nine days after his death, when Satoshi’s account suddenly posted a single line:
“I am not Dorian Nakamoto.”
This message appeared well before the infamous Newsweek article that wrongly identified Dorian Nakamoto as Bitcoin’s creator. In that article, Dorian was effectively “doxxed,” meaning his personal identity and background were made public without his consent, triggering widespread media attention. So why would Satoshi go out of their way to deny a claim that hadn’t even been made yet? And more curiously, why break the silence at all after disappearing in 2010? Some believe it was a deliberate misdirection, while others think it was a parting message posted after Sassaman’s death by someone close to him, perhaps a tribute or a final wink. There’s no way to prove it, but the timing was strange enough to spark deeper questions and fresh speculation.
The Style Argument
One of the more overlooked angles in this theory is the writing style. Stylometry, the practice of identifying an author by their use of language, has been applied to Satoshi’s posts and the Bitcoin whitepaper countless times. When compared to known Sassaman writings (academic work, conference posts, remailer documentation), something interesting happens: it aligns.
Not conclusively, but... closely.
Satoshi’s writings, especially in the Bitcoin whitepaper, have a calm and balanced tone that feels academic but approachable, the kind of style you’d expect from someone with years of experience publishing in technical communities. The language is clear and structured, yet there’s just enough informality to keep it from sounding too rigid.
Len’s writing showed the same distinct fingerprint, which becomes clear when you compare his remailer documentation or academic papers, where you’ll notice a slightly British punctuation style mixed with carefully chosen analogies and a level of precision that often bordered on excessive.
While others like Nick Szabo and Adam Back shared a similar background and writing style, Len Sassaman stood out in one important way because he never publicly commented on Bitcoin, not in a blog post, on social media, or even in passing conversation.
The Silence Is Deafening
Most of the early cypherpunks had something to say about Bitcoin. Some supported it, some were skeptical, but either way, they made their opinions known through mailing lists, online forums, and blog posts, you can actually follow their thinking as the idea took shape.
That’s why Len Sassaman’s silence stands out. He never said a word about Bitcoin, which is especially strange given that he wasn’t some bystander watching from a distance. He was right there, working alongside the same people, building tools that reflected the very principles Bitcoin was built on, privacy, decentralization, and trust without permission.
He knew the people involved and clearly understood what was at stake, and yet there’s no public comment from him, no recorded opinion, nothing that even hints at interest. That silence becomes even more striking when you consider that others, like Martti Malmi, were communicating directly with Satoshi, while Len left no visible trail, no posts, no replies, nothing that suggests any engagement at all.
The Story Behind the Len Sassaman Cat
The phrase “Len Sassaman cat” might sound odd, but it’s a real search term now and refers to Sasha, his actual cat, whom he briefly mentioned in a 2011 tweet. At the time, it didn’t seem like anything significant, just a guy posting about his pet in one of those quiet, throwaway internet moments that usually go unnoticed until someone decides to give it meaning.
Fast forward to October 2024, and someone decided to turn that cat into a memecoin. They called it Sasha Cat ($SASHA), launched it on the Solana blockchain, and wrapped it in hype tied to the HBO documentary about Len and the resurfaced theory that he might’ve been Satoshi. The coin didn’t really offer anything except vibes and speculation, but that didn’t stop people from buying in.
Whether it was a genuine tribute or just a cash grab is hard to say, especially in a digital world where people will tokenize almost anything if there’s a story behind it, even a cat that had no real connection to crypto.
How did Len Sassaman die?
It’s one of the more sensitive parts of Len’s story, but also one that continues to invite questions, even more than a decade later. How did Len Sassaman die? He died by suicide on July 3, 2011, at the age of 31, in his house in Leuven, Belgium, and was laid to rest on July 9th, 2011. Although some say that he left a suicide note with 24 random words, which could be interpreted as the 24-word seed phrase used in crypto wallets, it's probably not true because seed phrases were introduced in 2013 with BIP39, two years after his death.
Even so, the rumor has taken on a life of its own. In crypto circles, people still discuss what some refer to as the “Len Sassaman death note,” a theory that he left behind a hidden message composed of what appeared to be a BIP39 recovery phrase, the type used for cryptocurrency wallets. While it wasn't backed by real evidence, it sounded believable enough to spread, and it had mystery, symbolism, and just enough tech to make people pay attention.
But when you look closer, the facts don’t really hold up, considering the timeline alone makes it hard to believe, which is why the theory feels more like people trying to find meaning in something that never quite made sense. When someone brilliant dies young and leaves behind more questions than answers, the stories tend to write themselves, and that search for meaning has followed Len’s legacy for years.
So Far, What Do We Know?
Let’s step back and be honest.
At Plasbit, we don’t claim to know who Satoshi is, but we have some educated guesses, some more convincing than others, and if you were to build a checklist of “likely Satoshi traits,” Len Sassaman would score remarkably high:
- Cryptographic expert?
- Cypherpunk credibility?
- Zero public Bitcoin commentary?
- Deep ties to other early Bitcoin players?
- Obsession with anonymity?
- Writing style match?
- Died shortly before a final Satoshi message?
- Wasn’t trying to cash in or take credit?
When you lay out the traits side by side, it’s hard to ignore just how closely Len Sassaman fits the profile, whether by design, coincidence, or something in between
The Strongest Arguments Against
Let’s start by playing devil’s advocate. If Sassaman wasn’t Satoshi, what would that suggest?
1. He Never Claimed It (and No One Credible Said He Did)
That’s the elephant in the room. No close friends, no former colleagues, not even his wife, Meredith Patterson, has ever confirmed, or even strongly hinted, that he had anything to do with Bitcoin’s creation. Meredith is a security researcher herself. Sharp, articulate, and active in the tech community, so if anyone had reason or ability to say something, it would’ve been her.
Instead, there has been only silence, which some interpret as further evidence, because if Len was Satoshi, and if anonymity was truly the goal, then it would make sense for those closest to him to stay quiet, still, after all these years, it’s hard to believe not a single hint or acknowledgment has ever slipped out.
You’d expect that at some point, someone close to him would have slipped or said something, unless he truly kept it all to himself, which raises another question. How likely is that? Creating Bitcoin wasn’t something you could pull off in a weekend, it took years of research, collaboration, and hands-on effort during its most fragile early stages. It’s hard to imagine Len managing all of that without anyone in his life ever noticing, though it's not entirely impossible.
2. No Clear Paper Trail
If you dig into Nick Szabo’s past, you’ll find “bit gold.” Adam Back? He developed Hashcash. Wei Dai? He wrote about b-money. These early digital currency ideas each left digital fingerprints behind, including discussion threads, blog posts, and academic papers.
When it comes to Sassaman, there’s no trace at all, not even speculative comments about the kinds of problems Bitcoin was designed to solve, which leaves behind a noticeable void.
That absence could suggest he was operating under a pseudonym, or, viewed less conspiratorially, it might simply indicate that he wasn’t involved at all.
3. Technical Style Differences
Some researchers have argued that Satoshi’s code, at least in its early stages, was not written in a way that reflected elite-level cryptography. In fact, many early Bitcoin developers described the original codebase as messy, functional, yet cumbersome, which wasn’t what you’d expect from someone like Sassaman, who was known for his precision.
This raises the question of whether Satoshi was less of a skilled programmer and more of a brilliant systems thinker, with the true innovation lying not in the code itself but in the overall vision behind it.
Or did Satoshi deliberately disguise his programming style so as not to be recognized? If Sassaman wanted to remain anonymous, it might have been a smart move to disguise his own style or collaborate with others.
Still, this “bad code” argument has led some to believe that Len was simply too skilled to be Satoshi, since many assume that whoever created Bitcoin would have written the original codebase to the best of their ability, especially if they intended it to be a world-changing project, which makes it harder for some to accept that someone as technically sharp as Len could be behind code that many early developers described as clunky or inconsistent.
The Group Theory: Was Satoshi a “They”?
One of the more interesting takes floating around is the “Satoshi-as-collective” idea. That is, what if Satoshi Nakamoto wasn’t one person, but a team?
This theory answers a lot of the inconsistencies.
- It explains the varied tone in Satoshi’s messages.
- It explains the speed and scope of Bitcoin’s launch.
- It accounts for the lack of a singular, identifiable voice.
- It also explains how Satoshi could vanish in 2010 while development continued with barely a hitch.
If we entertain this, then it’s not about whether Sassaman was Satoshi, it’s whether he was part of Satoshi.
Maybe he was the architect, or possibly the ghost writer, or even the cryptographic advisor behind the scenes, and while that idea may not be as satisfying as the narrative of a single genius, it might be the more realistic one since just one person rarely creates the best technology.
Some researchers even point to academic conventions, where researchers sometimes publish as a group, using a collective pseudonym. What if Satoshi Nakamoto is simply the most famous case of that?
What Sassaman Believed
Regardless of whether he was Satoshi, what’s striking is how aligned his values were with what Bitcoin represents.
He once said:
“You can’t make people free by forcing them to identify themselves.”
That single sentence echoes the core message of the Bitcoin manifesto, speaking to the need to resist surveillance, to reject the idea of trading convenience for control, and to build systems that function without relying on trust, since trust can be broken far too easily.
Bitcoin’s core design, peer-to-peer transfers with no intermediaries and no names attached, feels like the natural expression of that philosophy, and even if Len didn’t write the code himself, Bitcoin might still be his spiritual successor.
Why This Theory Took So Long to Surface
The weird thing about the Len Sassaman theory is that it didn’t take off until years after his death.
There were hints, and people even whispered about it, but it wasn’t until Evan Hatch’s Medium article in 2020 that the dots were really connected in public.
“Maybe Len didn’t invent Bitcoin. But he certainly deserved to.”
And that’s the thing, sometimes legacy doesn’t come from what you build directly, but from what you inspire, and Sassaman’s fingerprints are embedded in the values that shaped Bitcoin, whether or not he ever touched the source code himself.
So… does it really matter who is Len Sassaman?
After all the theories and timelines, the question lingers: why do we care so much? Some argue that it doesn’t really matter because Bitcoin was intentionally built to operate without its creator, functioning as a decentralized and self-sustaining system that continues to work precisely because there’s no single name or figure at the top, and that was always part of the design.
Others argue that identity still matters, not because we need a face to attach to the project, but because it offers context. If someone like Len Sassaman played a role in creating Bitcoin, it suggests this was never just about code, it was about values, about resisting control, and about standing for something bigger.
Sassaman dedicated his life to building systems that prioritized privacy, not for convenience or profit, but as a principle rooted in the belief that true safety doesn’t require permission or constant surveillance, so maybe the purpose of Bitcoin wasn’t just to create digital money, but to offer resistance to the existing order.
That spirit is still very much alive today, showing up in tools that prioritize privacy over data collection. Platforms like PlasBit aren’t designed to chase trends, but instead to give people real control over their data, free from surveillance, free from third-party agendas, with nothing standing between the user and the code.
So yes, it may still matter, not because we need to identify Satoshi by name, but because understanding who he or they were helps us better grasp what was truly set in motion. If Len Sassaman had been part of that, then his work would have spoken louder than any reveal ever could have.He never sought credit because he didn’t need to, and the fact that we’re still talking about him today says more than any recognition ever could.
