His admission follows years of speculation about who came up with the original ideas underlying the digital cash system.

Mr Wright has provided technical proof to back up his claim using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin's creator.

Prominent members of the Bitcoin community and its core development team say they have confirmed his claims.

But many others in the Bitcoin world are asking for more proof.

Signed blocks

Mr Wright has revealed his identity to three media organisations - the BBC, the Economist and GQ.

At the meeting with the BBC, Mr Wright digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of Bitcoin's development. The keys are inextricably linked to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created or "mined" by Satoshi Nakamoto.

"These are the blocks used to send 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney in January [2009] as the first bitcoin transaction," said Mr Wright during his demonstration.

Renowned cryptographer Hal Finney was one of the engineers who helped turn Mr Wright's ideas into the Bitcoin protocol, he said.

"I was the main part of it, but other people helped me," he said.

Soon after Mr Wright went public, Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, published a blog backing his claim.

"I believe Craig Steven Wright is the person who invented Bitcoin," he wrote.

Jon Matonis, an economist and one of the founding directors of the Bitcoin Foundation, said he was convinced that Mr Wright was who he claimed to be.

"During the London proof sessions, I had the opportunity to review the relevant data along three distinct lines: cryptographic, social, and technical," he said.

"It is my firm belief that Craig Wright satisfies all three categories."

Mr Wright said he planned to release information that would allow others to cryptographically verify that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Not everyone has been convinced by Mr Wright's claims and the technical proof he put in his blog. Some cryptographers and developers who worked through the information provided said they had trouble getting verifiable information out of it.

Security expert Dan Kaminsky said the procedure was almost "maliciously resistant" to validation.

Many people have called on Mr Wright to go further in proving his identify.

(BBC News)