Scottie Pippen claims to know mysterious creator of Bitcoin and 'met him in 1993'

Scottie Pippen claims to have met Satoshi Nakamoto – the pseudonym used by the mysterious creator of Bitcoin – in the early 1990s, and his claims are backed up by an eerily accurate prediction about the crypto currency.

Pippen is an NBA Hall of Famer thanks to an illustrious basketball career that saw him with six championships alongside Michael Jordan with the Chicago Bulls.

Jordan has named Pippen as his greatest ever teammate and the former Bulls No.33 – who is regarded as one of the greatest defensive players of all time – was a seven-time All-Star between 1990 and 1997 and was named on the NBA All-Defensive Team eight times.

He last played in the NBA in 2004 and retired from basketball altogether in 2008. Since calling time on his stellar playing career, Pippen has become interested in the controversial world of crypto.

Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls

Earlier this year, Pippen claimed to have met Nakamoto during the height of his Bulls stardom, a claim that has drawn scepticism due to the Bitcoin creator's closely guarded identity.

"You mentioned you met Satoshi in 1993; he also came to you in a dream," Pippen was asked at the Cantor Crypto Conference. "You have a nice relationship with Satoshi?"

"I feel like I do," Pippen responded.

Prompting laughs from the stunned audience, fellow keynote speaker, Michael Saylor, jokingly added, "I have not met Satoshi, I envy Scottie."

In September, Pippen claimed on X that Satoshi had come to him in a dream and told that one bitcoin would be worth $84,650 on 5 November.

This claim was derided, with few crypto followers and experts in the field taking the basketball icon's words seriously.

But Bitcoin surged to $70,200 on Pippen's predicted date and, less than a week later, exceeded his prophesied value, reaching an all-time high before stabilising at around $90,000 per coin.

"I think it's constructive that Scottie Pippen, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, has a relationship with Satoshi and talks about Satoshi," said Saylor, a prominent Bitcoin advocate.