I vote for Nick Szabo. As soon as I started reading his papers I felt I was in the presence of the mind that conceived it. It's such a novel approach, and bitcoin seems to be based on his conclusions about the place of money in human interactions.

At any rate, I found this very illuminating. Contempo economists can only think in terms of today's system, or at best as far back as the industrial revolution. Szabo examines the roots of money in primitive societies and primitive humans, and I think he uncovers important aspects of it's nature and role that are invisible to modern economists. From this standpoint, I believe he designed bitcoin to perfectly fulfill all of the roles primitive money played in the human psyche. And that explains it's success; it's tailor made to the human species, and we find it irresistible.

http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html