Two Ghosts of Cryptography: Why Nicolas van Saberhagen Is Even More Phantom Than Satoshi Nakamoto ➡️Satoshi Nakamoto Published the Bitcoin whitepaper on October 31, 2008, through the mailing list [cryptography@metzdowd.com] He(?) remained publicly active for over two years: 500+ posts on Bitcointalk.org under the username “satoshi,” dozens of private emails with developers such as Gavin Andresen, Hal Finney, and Mike Hearn, and direct commits to Bitcoin’s original code repository. His last known communication was in April 2011—an email to Gavin Andresen. After that, he vanished, leaving behind an enormous technical and historical footprint. ➡️Nicolas van Saberhagen The anonymous creator of the CryptoNote protocol, which forms the basis for the design of the #Monero blockchain, published two versions of his(?) whitepaper: * Version 1: December 2012 * Version 2: October 2013 Unlike Satoshi, he showed no public activity whatsoever afterward: no forum posts, no emails, no GitHub commits. His(?) identity and activity remain entirely unknown. There are rumors of a distorted-voice Skype call in 2015, but no verifiable recording or transcript has ever surfaced. While Satoshi continued developing Bitcoin for years after releasing his paper, van Saberhagen disappeared immediately after publishing, as if he had dropped his cryptographic scrolls and dissolved into the network. Bonus / a curious detail: the pseudonym “Nicolas van Saberhagen” may be a cryptic reference—combining Nicolas Flamel (the medieval alchemist) and Fred Saberhagen (author of Dracula novels). It could loosely translate as “the alchemist who knows.” There’s no proof this was intentional, but it fits the legend of someone who clearly never wanted to be found.