Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has published a satirical research piece identifying the late British singer Amy Jade Winehouse as Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. The report, dated April 10, 2026, presents a series of tongue-in-cheek "clues" to support its claim, framing it as a mockery of the ongoing public speculation surrounding Satoshi's identity.
The research cites several circumstantial connections, including Winehouse's British nationality—tying it to the British newspaper headline embedded in Bitcoin's genesis block—and the timeline between her final album, "Back to Black" (released October 2006), and the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper in late 2008. BitMEX suggests the album title was a tribute to Adam Back, the cryptographer who created HashCash, the proof-of-work system referenced by Satoshi. The report also notes Winehouse's death in July 2011, roughly three months after Satoshi's last known communication, as an explanation for the creator's disappearance and the unspent early-mined coins.
In response to the renewed speculation, Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, publicly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto. In a CNBC interview shared on April 11, 2026, Back stated plainly, "I am not Satoshi," and expressed frustration at the difficulty of "proving a negative." He argued that his own learning process about Bitcoin in its early days works against the claim that he created it. The interview was a direct rebuttal to the latest wave of theories, which include comparisons of writing styles and his early cryptography work.
The BitMEX article concludes by framing the exercise as a libertarian allegory, suggesting that, in spirit, "we are all Satoshi." The piece is widely interpreted within the crypto community as a theatrical jab at the endless and often unserious media investigations into Satoshi's identity.
