The CIA Secretly Owned Crypto AG, Did They Secretly Create Bitcoin? (Opinion)

“It was the intelligence coup of the century.” That’s the assessment of the CIA in a classified report obtained earlier this month by an investigation of the Washington Post. The Post made stunning revelations in a report headlined, “How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades.” Crypto AG was a Swiss encryption company. It made millions of dollars since World War II selling encryption devices. The governments of over 120 countries bought Crypto’s devices well into the 21st century.

Operation “Thesaurus”

But the Washington Post made the stunning revelation in early Feb 2020 that the information security company was secretly owned by the CIA. And the Central Intelligence Agency had built back doors into the encryption methods so it could easily decode messages and spy on foreign governments’ most sensitive communications. Governments the world over trusted Crypto AG to encrypt communications for their military, diplomats, and spies. Among Crypto AG’s clientele were Iran, military dictatorships in Latin America, India, Pakistan, and the Vatican.

Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto?

From 1970 forward, most of the world’s governments were unwittingly handing the CIA their money and also their secrets. These revelations about this stunning and audacious CIA signals intelligence operation beg the question: Did the CIA create cryptocurrency? We still don’t know who invented Bitcoin. Its creator has remained anonymous to this day. The inventor of Bitcoin published the Bitcoin whitepaper under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. And they posted to the Bitcoin Talk forum under that moniker. Could Satoshi Nakamoto be the Central Intelligence Agency?

Did The CIA Create Bitcoin?

There’s no conclusive evidence of who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. That remains a mystery to this day as far as the public is concerned. (Craig Wright’s objections to the contrary notwithstanding.) The following evidence that Satoshi Nakamoto might be the CIA is circumstantial, and the conclusion is speculative. But if it’s not compelling, this evidence is certainly captivating. And the Crypto AG revelations show just how plausible it is that the CIA could have created Bitcoin as part of the monetary coup of the century.

Evidence That Satoshi Is The CIA

To begin with, Bitcoin is based on technology created by the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA’s Secure Hashing Algorithm 256 (SHA-256) is a lynchpin of Bitcoin Core, the software that turns a computer into a Bitcoin node. SHA-256 is a one-way hashing function that compresses and encrypts a string of any length into a unique 256-bit signature or hash. The original string cannot be determined from the hash. And it’s impossible to guess what SHA-256’s output will be for any given input. So it’s functionally random. You can enter Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address into it and get one hash, then change a single letter and enter it again and get an entirely different hash.

None of this proves the CIA created Bitcoin. The NSA published SHA-256 in 2001. So non-CIA coders could have taken it up and used it to make Bitcoin. But after Crypto AG, it does make one wonder if there’s some kind of back door into SHA-256. Perhaps more incriminating is the meaning of the name Satoshi Nakamoto in Japanese. Nakamoto actually means “Central” or “Middle.” Satoshi means “Enlightened,” “Wise,” or “Intelligent.” These are facts. Satoshi Nakamoto means Central Intelligence. That could be a joke by its non-CIA creators, or it could be the CIA’s calling card.