Crypto attorney sues Department of Homeland Security to uncover the identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is being sued in the name of finding out the identity of the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

In a lawsuit filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, crypto attorney James A. Murphy asked for documents regarding Nakamoto's identity and said his Freedom of Information Act requests had gone unanswered. Murphy also goes by "MetaLawMan" on X and has over 44,000 followers.

"Given the massive public and private investment in Bitcoin, it is important for Mr. Murphy and the public to understand better what the federal government knows about the identity of the actor(s) responsible for creating Bitcoin," a lawyer representing Murphy said in the complaint .

The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Crypto In America earlier reported the news.

Nakamoto , who could be one person or a group of people, created Bitcoin and wrote a white paper in October 2008 titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” which proposed a revolutionary decentralized financial system that would operate without the need for intermediaries like banks. People have been trying to figure out their identity for years. A recent HBO documentary suggested that early Bitcoin developer Peter Todd was Nakamoto, though he denied it.

Murphy said he is looking for documents involving an interview DHS Special Agent Rana Saoud made in 2019, where she said she knew Nakamoto's identity.

"According to Special Agent Saoud, when the agents got to California, there were actually three other people who had been involved with creating Bitcoin, and the agents met with all four individuals to discuss how Bitcoin works and why they created it," according to Murphy's lawsuit.

Those records are important as billions of dollars have flowed into spot bitcoin ETFs over the past year and as the U.S. and states look to create bitcoin reserves, an attorney for Murphy said in the lawsuit. President Donald Trump, in his endeavor to be more open to crypto than in years past, signed an executive order to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve last month that would be made up of bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited.

Murphy urged Trump-appointed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to disclose the information about Nakamoto's identity voluntarily.

"It is entirely possible that the DHS Agent was mistaken and DHS did not interview the real Satoshi," Murphy said on X. "If DHS resists disclosure, I will pursue the case to conclusion to solve this mystery."