An unknown PR agency that claims to know the true identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto says it will reveal this long-held secret in a press conference on Oct. 31, inviting attendees in London to “Meet Satoshi.”
There are more than a few red flags about the announcement however.
In an Oct. 30 press release, a so-called public relations firm PR London Live says it will reveal the “legal identity” of Nakamoto at the Frontline Club in Paddington, London, on Oct. 31.
“There have been several good reasons to stay under wraps up to now but ….. the experiment is complete. It did not go exactly as intended but overall has been a great success. There is a lot to say and some of it may shock you,” the typo-laden event description for the event reads.
The true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has been one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, including his disappearance in 2011.
“The time has come for me to officially reveal my identity. I am facing significant legal challenges, and I believe the world deserves the truth,” Nakomoto apparently says in the press release.
However, only 103 people are currently members of the “Meet Satoshi” group on MeetUp, which was created more than 2 years ago.
“Satoshi Nakamoto revealing his identity via a press conference is the least Satoshi thing ever. I’m calling BS,” X user Wayne Vaughn wrote in an Oct. 30 post on X.
Who is behind PR London Live?
Meanwhile, there are questions over what PR London Live is and the team behind it.
PR London Live styles itself as “London’s PR Media platform” that provides a platform for “genuine significant content” but does not list a single client or partner on its website.
The firm’s official webpage lists Charles Anderson as the CEO and content manager as well as the firm’s “top Investigative Journalist” and is “the only living person who knows the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto!”
Anderson’s LinkedIn page claims he has been Satoshi Nakamoto’s “business partner, personal assistant, media manager and legal respective” since October 2017 and has been organizing an event called the “Big Reveal” of Nakamoto’s true identity for the last five years.
However, the firm’s webpage and copy are riddled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and broken or non-existent hyperlinks. Portions of the copy have also been flagged when submitted to AI detectors.
When browsing the firm’s official website, the link that should direct to an official location for the agency’s office in London is a link to a third-party event hosting website called Meetup. The firm’s official registered address also turns up as a plot of farmland when viewed using Google Maps Street View.
Information concerning the reveal is also inconsistent between the webpage and the official press announcement.
The firm’s website claims that they had been “working and traveling with Satoshi Nakamoto for Five Years,” and had subsequently launched its “Video and Live Fintech news Platform – to bring you all the news.”
However, when users click on any of the readily available links to the company’s social media pages on the website, they are redirected to an X account that “no longer exists,” while the YouTube button brings up a “video unavailable” notice due to the account being terminated.
Additionally, the body text of the press release returned a 100% score on AI-detector GPTZero, with the AI-detection tool saying it was “highly confident” that the text was AI-generated.
Additionally, the Frontline Club — which is the location of the meet-up — doesn’t show any Satoshi-related events on its events page for Oct. 31 or in the days after.
Cointelegraph contacted Anderson for comment but he did not provide any additional information as of the time of publication.
Notably, Anderson planned to host a similar event aimed at revealing Nakamoto’s true identity on March 14, 2022, but canceled the event after only two people registered an interest in attending.
“Guys, this is not a hoax, it’s the real thing. Sure, you will have many questions, and they will be answered in great detail,” wrote Anderson at the time.
The firm’s “announcement” will arrive on the same day as the sixteenth anniversary of the Bitcoin Whitepaper — the document that first proposed the concept of Bitcoin as peer-to-peer digital money in 2008.
It also comes in the wake of an uproar over an HBO documentary called Money Electric, which attempted to oust Canadian Bitcoin developer Peter Todd as Nakamoto, something he categorically denied in the hours before the documentary aired.