New Delhi, April 12 -- What I'm about to say was once obvious, yet it will seem less persuasive with each passing year: Bitcoin is nothing without its origin story. The story is that an unknown man whose real name was certainly not Satoshi Nakamoto created this cryptocurrency between 2008 and 2009 to liberate us from governments and banks.

As Bitcoin's value rose hundreds of times, it became public knowledge that he held about 1.1 million Bitcoin, worth over $120 billion US dollars at some point last year, and over $70 billion at the time of filing this column. Yet he has not touched them, which gives him the aura of an ascetic.

Or, as some people suggest, maybe he has just been dead. He has not been heard from since 2011. Or, maybe he ...