In a Turkish interview, Binance co-founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao talks about the future of Bitcoin and his thoughts on Satoshi Nakamoto’s possible identity.
In a recent post, the former CEO of Binance teased the content of his latest interview with Turkish crypto advocate and blockchain game Pow Ahoy founder Erhan Ünal. When asked what the Bitcoin (BTC) creator’s true identity could be, CZ said he has no idea, but posits that there are strange theories floating around the crypto space.
One theory that he mentioned was the possibility that Satoshi Nakamoto could be a time-travelling software that has returned to the past to invent Bitcoin.
“Satoshi Nakamoto was an AI from the future. I was just asked “who I think Satoshi might be” in a live (still on-going) interview from Turkey,” wrote CZ in his post.
In his interview with Ünal and Uygar Taze, CZ stated that he has never had any interactions with the mysterious Bitcoin founder. Though, he admitted to knowing people who have had email exchanges with him.
“I know people who have, in the early days. They had email exchanges, there’s maybe less than 10 people. So I don’t know who he is, but I think it’s good that we don’t [know who he is],” said CZ.
Moreover, he is uncertain whether Satoshi Nakamoto is a single individual or a group of people. CZ acknowledged that whoever is behind Satoshi “covered his tracks really well,” since there were never any traces of an IP address or other definite indicators of who it could be. Hence, leading to the creation of more outlandish theories about Satoshi.
“There are other sort of stranger answers. Where they might be a software coming back through time, all of these possibilities. It’s hard to imagine now but could be possible. But regardless, I don’t know who he is,” said CZ.
The debate surrounding the identity behind Satoshi Nakamoto has been going on for years. It recently resurfaced in October 2024 when an HBO documentary titled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” vowed to uncover the true identity of Bitcoin’s anonymous creator.
In the end, the HBO identified Canadian cryptographer and developer Peter Todd as Satoshi Nakamoto. However, Todd has since denied claims that he is Satoshi and was ultimately forced into hiding due to safety concerns.
The future of Bitcoin after Satoshi Nakamoto
During the interview, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao declared that Bitcoin will be “bigger than gold.” He explained that most people tend to compare Bitcoin to gold because they need something they are already familiar with to make sense of something new.
However, he does not believe gold is an equal match for Bitcoin.
“Humans also have a tendency to not always use something old to estimate something new. We do not estimate the potential of Tesla using digital cars. We do no estimate the future of what Bitcoin can do based on what gold can do,” said CZ.
“So Bitcoin will be way bigger than gold. I’m very convinced on that, it just takes time. I just don’t know when it will happen. But it will happen,” he continued.
Most recently, on April 23, Bitcoin became the fifth largest asset by market cap, beating silver, Amazon, and Google. Many people like ARK Investment CEO Cathie Wood also predicted Bitcoin’s market cap may someday surpass gold’s.
At press time, Bitcoin has fallen to seventh place with a market cap of $1.88 trillion. While gold maintains its top spot with a market cap of $22.1 trillion.
