Stephen Mollah, the Latest Character Claiming to Have Invented Bitcoin

Sporting a colorful turban, camouflage pattern pants, a black suit coat and a long gray beard — a man named Stephen Mollah has become the latest character

A man named Stephen Mollah has claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin, unveiling his identity at an event in London on Oct. 31. About a dozen journalists gathered at the Front Line Club after being promised they would finally meet the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

However, from the beginning, many journalists were skeptical of the claims, especially given the hefty price tag to attend the event and ask questions of the supposed billionaire mystery man.

BBC News reporter Joe Tidy live-tweeted the event on X, and his tweets provide a first-hand account of the unfolding scene. According to The Financial Times, the presentation from Mollah and event organizer Charles Anderson kicked off by testing the microphone with the classic: “Testicles, one, two, three.”

Apparently, Anderson went on to monologue about how he invented “energy recovery systems” in cars and appeared on Britain’s Got Talent. At least one reporter had already walked out by this point.

After 40 minutes, Mollah took to the stage dressed like an eccentric grandpa, finally revealing himself to be Satoshi Nakamoto — or so he claimed. Among Mollah’s various reported words of wisdom were him saying that he is a “business person who does business,” and an economic and monetary scientist before claiming he is Satoshi.

A representative from BitMEX Research also said that Mollah claimed to invent the Twitter logo, the Eurobond and the “ChatGPT protocol” during the bizarre event.

But when it came to providing proof of his so-called claims, Mollah reportedly fell short. According to DL News, Mollah sped through screenshots of Nakamoto’s posts on a Bitcoin forum from nearly 16 years ago, which Tidy pointed out were “easy to fake.”

Mollah, however, claimed they were “timestamped” and that he has “paper copies,” which, according to him, proves he published them… somehow.

Tidy said he then asked Mollah to do a live transfer of Nakamoto’s famed “Genesis coins” on stage. But Mollah said he didn’t have the keys to those early Bitcoin wallets, which had been split into eight parts and put on eight computers “around the world.”

He also said groups were chasing him to try to hack his devices for the massive crypto haul.

Mollah is the latest in a line of would-be Nakamotos whose claims or evidence have fallen flat. Earlier this month, an HBO documentary slotted inaccurate information together to claim Canadian Bitcoin dev Peter Todd was the Bitcoin maker, which he denied.

Australian computer scientist Craig Wright was another long-time Nakamoto claimant with no evidence. In March, England’s High Court ruled he wasn’t the Bitcoin inventor, and Wright later admitted as much.

Mollah and Anderson are also in a legal fight over their claim, with a private prosecution by alleged victim Dlmit Dohil accusing the pair of dishonestly claiming that Mollah was Nakamoto, which exposed him to a risk of loss, per an Oct. 10 report in the London Standard.

Both pleaded not guilty to fraud by false representation last month at a London crown court and were given bail with a trial set for Nov. 3, 2025.