The anonymous founder of the mercurial cyber currency Bitcoin may have been discovered, if a new profile published at Newsweek is correct. Leah McGrath Goodman's two-month investigation led her to Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, an unassuming family man in his 60s living in the Los Angeles area.

Bitcoin's origins go back to 2008, when a paper describing the cryptocurrency was published under the name Satoshi Nakamoto, according to Businessweek. But since the author of that remained private and otherwise anonymous, it was widely assumed that the name was a pseudonym -- either for an individual who since disappeared into obscurity in Japan, or for a collective of engineers that came up with the idea and published it with a made-up name.

But on Thursday, Newsweek's Leah McGrath Goodman (paywall) claimed that she had found the real Satoshi Nakamoto, after a two-month investigation. "For the past 40 years, Satoshi Nakamoto has not used his birth name in his daily life. At the age of 23, after graduating from California State Polytechnic University, he changed his name to 'Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto,'" wrote Goodman in the lengthy Newsweek profile, "according to records filed with the U.S. District Court of Los Angeles in 1973."

Tracking down the "real Nakamoto" took some time, not only because of the slight name change, but because the 64 year-old father of six living in the San Bernardino foothills in L.A. wasn't the only "Satoshi Nakamoto" living in America.

"There are several Satoshi Nakamotos living in North America and beyond --- both dead and alive -- including a Ralph Lauren menswear designer in New York and another who died in Honolulu in 2008, according to the Social Security Index's Death Master File," wrote Goodman in Newsweek. "There's even one on LinkedIn who claims to have started Bitcoin and is based in Japan. But none of these profiles seem to fit other known details and few of the leads proved credible. ... It was only while scouring a database that contained the registration cards of naturalized U.S. citizens that a Satoshi Nakamoto turned up whose profile and background offered a potential match. But it was not until after ordering his records from the National Archives and conducting many more interviews that a cohesive picture began to take shape."

When Goodman finally got to Dorian Nakamoto and asked him about Bitcoin, he responded just like the limelight-avoiding founder would: "I am no longer involved in that and cannot discuss it. It's been turned over to other people," said Nakamoto to Goodman. "They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."

The Newsweek article has so far gained some acclaim from the Bitcoin community, saying that Goodman made compelling arguments, according to the New York Times, but has also attracted skepticism for its lack of direct, hard evidence tying Nakamoto to Bitcoin. "Most of the people I've talked to have taken a 'wait and see' approach," said professor Tyler Moore of Southern Methodist University, who spoke at a Bitcoin conference on Thursday. Some commenters on the Newsweek website and Twitter were upset that the newsmagazine published personal details about Nakamoto, including his age, location, and birthplace.

For those who don't know what Bitcoin is, it's an online "cryptocurrency" that can be used to buy goods and service, both online and in the "real-world," anonymously. The "coins" are generated or "mined" by putting computer-processing power to work, power which goes towards managing Bitcoin's transaction infrastructure and normalizing Bitcoin's value. The currency is not tied to any international real-world currency, regulations, or legacy banking systems (something that critics have said leads to the currency's volatile nature) to and there are no transaction fees.