There is no reliable evidence that the US National Security Agency (NSA) created Bitcoin, and the comparison between the Bitcoin whitepaper and the 1996 NSA paper on e-cash is highly misleading at best.
No smoking gun: NSA's 1996 paper is not Bitcoin, and not nearby
Conspiracy theories thrive without facts, and among the most sustainable things in the cryptocurrency community, there is the claim that Bitcoin was created by the US National Security Agency (NSA). This theory lies in the existence of a 1996 research paper written by the NSA Cryptographer entitled “How to Make Mint: Anonymous Electronic Cash Encryption.” However, a close fact-based exam reveals the underlying flaws in this discussion, confirming that the NSA did not and could not create Bitcoin.
Released over a decade ago in the 2008 Bitcoin White Paper, the NSA Paper is a literature review of existing cryptographic research on digital cash. This explains the various centralized privacy-focused electronic cache schemes and security implications. Although it introduces concepts such as public key cryptography, blind signatures, and anonymous mechanisms that were established in the academic literature by the early 1990s, this paper is far from proposing a system that is not distributed or trustworthy. That alone sets it apart from the fundamentally different architecture of Bitcoin.
The NSA papers are not quite similar to Bitcoin, relying on centralized entities (banks) for verification and security. Image source: NSA paper called “How to Make Mint: Anonymous Electronic Cash Encryption.”
Written by Pseudo-Nakamoto at, Bitcoin whitepaper introduced groundbreaking innovations that decentralized consensus through proof of work (POW) and decentralized ledgers (blockchains) without the need for central authority. This idea doesn't appear anywhere in the NSA's 1996 document. In fact, all NSA example systems rely on central financial institutions such as central banks to issue, verify and exchange digital currency tokens. Bitcoin was built precisely to avoid its centralized trust model.
The NSA paper does not include Proof of Work (POW) and relies on previous designs like E-Cash, which ultimately failed due to centralization. Image source: Bitcoin white paper.
The NSA-created conspiracy theory that created Bitcoin is often couched with situational proposals, with harsh evidence of zero. These include the longstanding involvement of the NSA in encryption, the employment of skilled mathematicians, or early involvement in standards like SHA-256. This is the hash function used in Bitcoin mining algorithms. However, none of these points constitute evidence. It is not the author's evidence that government agencies contributed to the development of basic technology. If this logic holds, any software projects built on TCP/IP or AES encryption and the Internet itself can be attributed to US government agencies.
Furthermore, there is no support for witness accounts suggesting hard documents, whistleblower testimony, leaked notes, internal code repository, or NSAs working on projects similar to Bitcoin. In an era when programs and surveillance operations classified by insiders like Edward Snowden were exposed, it is hard to imagine that nationally originalized Bitcoin projects remain completely undetected for more than a decade, especially after being prominent worldwide. What's more, well-known whistleblower Snowden is a BTC advocate.
Edward Snowden is a well-known NSA whistleblower and supports BTC. Why do NSA whistleblowers support what the NSA has created?
The claim that Nakamoto At's writing style, code, or behavior is consistent with Intelligence Reporting Agency is completely speculative and unsupported by linguistic or forensic analysis. In fact, detailed textual studies show that Satoshi wrote in the British Spelling Treaty, particularly showing philosophical trends regarding liberalism and centralized banking distrust.
Technically, NSA paper and Bitcoin are just about every meaningful respect different. The NSA's proposed system relies on blind signatures, a technology invented by David Chaum in the 1980s. In contrast, Bitcoin relies on public key encryption for transaction verification and a decentralized consensus system to prevent double spending. The NSA paper acknowledges that such a system is “more satisfactory” from a law enforcement perspective. This is a position that is even more contradictory to the development of censorship-resistant pseudonymous currencies like BTC.
This theory also ignores the cultural and philosophical context surrounding the launch of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin White Paper was published in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. This is a period marked by mistrust over central banks, bailouts and uncertain monetary policy. That timing and the message embedded in the Bitcoin Genesis block refers to Time's headline on bank relief, clearly pointing to anti-establishment motivation. The creation by the NSA, tasked with ensuring the state's infrastructure and surveillance, contradicts the spirit embodied by the narrative of Bitcoin's design and launch.
It is also important to note that the NSA paper does not propose blockchains, does not outline powder mining, and does not introduce a mechanism to issue fixed money supplies independent of institutional management. These features are central to Bitcoin innovation and lack in previous research from Bitcoin by the NSA or government-related groups that have existed to date.
It is not controversy that Bitcoin is based on previous encryption primitives. All scientific and technological advances are based on previous research. But it's like the NSA's summary of Chaum's digital cash proposal and the creation of NSA's Bitcoin, which claims that the Wright brothers didn't invent the plane because they used the physics described by Newton. The basic principles do not mean authors.
Bitcoin acts as a decentralized, open source protocol that functions independently of its creator. That is, its value and security derives from code, consensus and participation in the network. The protocol is public, the code is open source, the rules are enforced by users and miners around the world, providing speculation independent of their operations about its origin. Believing in its absurd theory of creation distracts you from the real-world meaning of technology and ignores transparent, unreliable designs that speak to such stupid ideas.
Finally, by promoting the idea that it was created by the NSA, it harms the open source community and decentralisation advocates who have worked to strengthen protocols, build infrastructure and expand access to technology. This theory is very absurd and robbed of fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD) without contributing anything meaningful to historical or technical records.
People who stick to theories such as “The NSA created Bitcoin” often misunderstand the basic principle of how Bitcoin works. In particular, its decentralized nature and unreliable architecture. These theories tend to reflect a limited understanding of open source systems and discomfort with concepts that challenge traditional centralized control models.
Essentially, the theory that the NSA created Bitcoin is not supported by documentation, logic, reason, or technical comparisons. The 1996 NSA paper is an academic overview of a highly centralized, bank-dependent electronic cash system, in fundamentally contrast to Bitcoin's decentralized, unreliable design. The Bitcoin whitepaper introduces an entirely new solution to the double spending problem. This is a breakthrough in the NSA paper, with no explanations or hints. Until harsh evidence emerges, the claim that Bitcoin was born as a government project should be dismissed as stupidity and what it is: an unfounded theory of conspiracy, not a reliable hypothesis.
