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News Alert: Australian police raid home of alleged bitcoin creator

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The mysterious founder of bitcoin may have been unmasked following a tip-off from a security researcher and an investigation by two separate media outlets.

Wired Magazine and Gizmodo conducted separate investigations following a tip-off from a security researcher known as Gwern Branwen who reportedly received documents from an anonymous source who was close to the alleged bitcoin creator.

They pointed to Craig Steven Wright, a man with a string of advanced degrees in law, mathematics and computer sciences.

According to Wired, they were able to corroborate the tip off by correlating a series of blog posts and emails which link Wright to the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, for many years known as the creator of bitcoin but widely regarded to be a pseudonym.

Previous attempts to establish the real identity of the person or people behind bitcoin have ended in disaster, leaving egg on the face of Newsweek which incorrectly attempted to identify Nakamoto last year.

The Australian police are treating the latest attempt to identify the bitcoin creator seriously, raiding Wright's home in Australia within hours of the news breaking.

Australia has taken a dim view of bitcoin, and Australian banks closed 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges just a few months ago despite the country holding an estimated seven percent of the world's supply of the cryptocurrency.

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