SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian authorities on Wednesday raided the home of a computer expert and entrepreneur in suburban Sydney, just hours after two news outlets identified the man as a likely creator of the digital currency Bitcoin.

澳大利亚悉尼——本周三，澳大利亚当局在悉尼郊区搜查了一名电脑专家和创业者的住所，在那之前的几个小时，有两家新闻媒体称这名男子可能是数字货币“比特币”(Bitcoin)的发明者。

The Australian Federal Police said the raid on the residence of the man, Craig Steven Wright, was for a tax investigation, and a spokesman said it had no connection to the Bitcoin reports. The Australian Taxation Office, which asked the police to carry out the raid, declined to comment on “any individual’s or entity’s tax affairs.”

澳大利亚联邦警察表示，该男子名为克雷格·斯蒂文·莱特(Craig Steven Wright)，搜查其住所是为了进行税务调查，警方发言人表示此次行动和比特币的新闻无关。而要求警方开展突袭行动的澳大利亚税务局(Australian Taxation Office)拒绝对“任何个人或实体的税务问题”置评。

The raid, in the leafy suburb of Gordon on Sydney’s upper north shore, came hours after reports in Wired magazine and Gizmodo drew strong links between Mr. Wright and Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of the virtual currency that has grown to billions of dollars in total value.

这次突袭发生在悉尼上北海岸草木繁茂的郊区戈登(Gordon)，就在《连线》(Wired)杂志和Gizmodo报道称莱特和中本聪(Satoshi Nakamoto)之间有紧密联系的几个小时之后。中本聪是比特币发明者的假名，这种虚拟货币的总价值已增长到了数十亿美元。

The identity of Mr. Nakamoto has been a mystery since the currency’s computer code was released in 2009, with several false leads having been aired and debunked. The growing value of Bitcoin, which is managed by computers that run its peer-to-peer software, has driven the search for its elusive creator or creators.

自2009年比特币的计算机代码发布以来，中本聪的身份一直是个谜，先后传出的几条假线索也都被揭穿。比特币是通过运行其点对点软件的计算机来管理的，随着它的价值日益增长，人们也一直在寻找它的的发明者。

Wired, which was first to identify Mr. Wright as a possible inventor of the currency, cited old blog posts as well as leaked documents and emails. The magazine acknowledged that the trail of clues could be a hoax, but it added: “If Wright is seeking to fake his Nakamoto connection, his hoax would be practically as ambitious as Bitcoin itself.”

《连线》率先指出莱特可能是比特币的发明者之一，它引用了一些早前的博客文章以及泄露的文件和电邮作为证据。该杂志承认，这些线索可能是一个骗局，但它表示：“如果莱特试图伪造出他和中本聪之间的联系，那么这个骗局的高明程度不亚于比特币本身。”

The Gizmodo report said that Mr. Wright and Dave Kleiman, an American who died in 2013, “were involved in the development of the digital currency.”

Gizmodo报道说，莱特和2013年去世的美国人戴夫·克莱曼(Dave Kleiman)“参与了这种电子货币的开发”。

Both outlets cited what was described as a transcript of a 2014 meeting among Mr. Wright, lawyers and tax officials, in which he is quoted as saying, “I did my best to try and hide the fact that I’ve been running Bitcoin since 2009.”

这两家媒体都援引了一份记录，据称是2014年莱特与律师和税务官员之间的会议记录，其中莱特说，“我从2009年开始，一直在管理比特币，我尽了最大努力来隐瞒这个事实。”

“By the end of this, I think half the world is going to bloody know,” he added, according to the transcript.

记录显示，他说：“经过这件事之后，我觉得全世界有一半的人都会知道了。”

Efforts to reach Mr. Wright on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

本周三我们多番试图联系莱特，但均未成功。

A Newsweek investigation in 2014 incorrectly identified the Bitcoin creator as Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a physicist living with his mother in Southern California. He denied the report, saying he had only learned of Bitcoin weeks earlier after a reporter contacted his son.

《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)在2014年刊发的一篇调查文章误认为多利安·中本聪(Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto)是比特币的创造者。此人是一名物理学家，与母亲住在南加州，他否认了那篇报道的说法，称几周之前一名记者联系他儿子时，他才听说比特币这种东西。