Around a week ago, Conor Grogan, Coinbase’s Director of Project Strategy & Business Operations, suggested that the secretive creator of cryptocurrency could be related to Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, leading to conjecture that SBF was Ryoshi. Additionally, Ben Armstrong from Bitboy Crypto recently proposed that one of the founders of Unification was Ryoshi; however, this assertion has been denied by the Unification founder.
In reaction to the most recent speculation, a crypto YouTuber named Digital Asset Investor steered Bitboy toward Thomas Greco (or at least who he professes himself to be), a mysterious person in the early times of Ethereum.
The evidence that suggests he might be Ryoshi includes an image at the end of Ryoshi’s first blog post on Medium which features him alongside Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Foundation Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi and two other individuals whose identities remain unknown. This photo was supposedly taken during Devcon 2019 and a video released by Coin Bureau two years ago identifies him as Ryoshi.
Who is Thomas Greco?
Digital Asset Investor revealed that the identity of the person behind Ethereum is shrouded in secrecy, as evidenced by crypto journalist Laura Shin’s statement that Vitalik Buterin was reluctant to discuss this individual.
When you search Thomas Greco, not much pops up other than his work in the field of community economics and different types of monetary exchange such as private credit clearing systems, complementary currencies, and local currencies. However, if you add Ethereum to the search query, a few videos will show up with him alongside Buterin at Ethereum events or citing him as an adviser on the OmiseGo project.
In a 2018 Financial Times interview with Buterin, Greco was referred to as a “collaborator” and “developer” with whom Buterin had been working for years. In an episode of Epicenter Podcast with Laura Shin from the previous year discussing her book “The Cryptonians”, it was suggested that Greco was a close companion of Buterin, who acted as his gatekeeper in deciding who would gain access to him and influencing important decisions along with another anonymous friend called Wendell Holmes.
Kevin, the individual who operates a blog focused on alternative income called Turtle Investor, offers the most comprehensive description of the Mysterious Ethereum figure. His account is the first to indicate that Greco is an assumed name and to note that this enigma provided advice to other popular projects such as Polkadot and Cosmos. Kevin points out that Greco attended nearly every event with Buterin from 2017 onwards.
Could He be Ryoshi?
It is possible to make the case that Buterin is the friend referred to in Ryoshi’s first Medium blog post, although there is no proof of this.
Ryoshi stated that he began SHIB alongside a companion who was aware of his vision of a decentralized system. This acquaintance, whom he hinted to be a prosperous entrepreneur and an important figure in the crypto world, assisted him in creating the Shiba Inu smart contract and contributed 10 ETH (which Ryoshi referred to as insignificant for this friend) to establish the initial liquidity pool for SHIB’s Uniswap.
It appears straightforward, however there is an issue; Ryoshi alleges that they encountered this acquaintance at Devcon 2019 in Osaka, yet we are aware that Greco has been involved since 2017.
It’s possible that Greco may not be Ryoshi, and that the supposed friend is not Buterin. Buterin has denied any involvement in the project, so we might never find out the truth. The famous photograph of Buterin walking a dog in Japan with other allegedly ETH creators could still be the best indication of who Ryoshi is.
