Mine is that it was John Nash
I don't believe that, because Nash wouldn't have invented a non-ideal money. Nash would never have written the following;
http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/65/Nash ideal money has constant value.
I tend to think that Satoshi Nakamoto is, well, Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. But maybe Hal Finey was "holding his hand". The best way to hide is in open daylight. When I learned that Dorian lived near Hal Finey, that both of them were libertarians, it seems obvious to me. How the hell do you invent a name such as Satoshi Nakamoto ? I've thought for a while that it was Dave Kleiman, but I don't think it fits after all. Dave's life dream was to work for law enforcement, go figure. When Satoshi started out, he couldn't know how it would go. There was no reason to be anonymous. If it failed, but inspired others, he would not have the honour of having contributed something. Nick Szabo and others never hid behind an anonymous pseudo. If you've simply an idea, why would you use a name of a real living person, and not an avatar like "truemoneyguy" or something ?
You need a figure that is a profound libertarian, someone with some limited understanding of monetary economics (that's why it cannot be Nash), someone that is not necessary a cryptographer, but has knowledge about cryptography (Satoshi put together existing schemes, some of which are less than rational, for which a professional cryptographer wouldn't fall - which is why it cannot be Szabo) and is an amateur programmer but not a professional (his code was quite "amateur" even though functional). Of course, what I'm writing is blasphemy in the ears of true believers for which Satoshi is a god and genius, but he truly wasn't - unless he was full of deceit. True, it was a bright guy (or girl or group). But he was also profoundly wrong on different aspects in as much as he was sincere. These errors couldn't be made by other candidates, because they knew better. I'm inclined to think that Hal Finey has a much bigger role in this thing than he told us.
Right now, nobody can admit to be Satoshi, without exposing one-self to huge danger. Imagine that people know that you may have the secret keys to 20 billion dollars or more. You would be extremely exposed to danger, and you would put all your relatives at danger too. Who wouldn't hijack your wife, children, .... in return for a transaction ? Worse, imagine you don't have the keys any more ! You cannot prove that ! Hijackers would kill your kids and there's nothing you can do about it.
