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This is ridiculous. If Craig Wright came to me and said he was Satoshi Nakamoto, I'd say, "Sign it with the genesis block's private key or GTFO." This is crypt

This is ridiculous. If Craig Wright came to me and said he was Satoshi Nakamoto, I'd say, "Sign it with the genesis block's private key or GTFO." This is crypto, bitcoin is built on incontrovertible, mathematical proof. Why the hell would Satoshi do anything else? If it ever comes to light that Craig Wright is trying to use this lie for some monetary advantage, he should be arrested for fraud, which is what this is.

state 10y ago
Right. And Wright and everyone involved must know that. So can anyone explain their motives? I truly can't figure that part out. Edit: alain makes a good point. It's not the 'motives' I want to know. I want the whole story.
- alain94040 10y ago
  Megalomaniacs will keep lying and dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. You start with a small lie, and just can't stop, you have to keep going. What's surprising though is the lack of judgment from BBC and other major news media. That same person made the same bogus claim 6 months ago. How does that not trigger major red flags? The only story worth writing about here is how he pulled off such a trick. This is like God's existence. There is a simple way for God to tell us He exists, and which religion is right. But He never does. Instead, we must rely on testimony from various people, contradicting each other, and none of it is reproducible. Sure, you can believe... </controversial statement>
  - clarkmoody 10y ago
    > lack of judgment from BBC and other major news media Probably got more clicks / views that any other story today, so good business move to print the story, even if it's totally false. I can't understand Gavin's angle though. It's amazing that he agrees that Wright is Satoshi. I would like to know his motivations in this whole thing. > There is a simple way for God to tell us He exists, and which religion is right. But He never does. Many religions would argue that this is a false statement :-) From the Christian view, the existence of God is self-evident in Creation. And when it comes down to it, I think it takes more faith to believe that life exists because of random chance than because of a creator. But God does not fit into a scientific proof framework whereby you can prove or disprove the existence of God, which is why it boils down to having faith. On the other hand, there is a way for Satoshi to prove his/her/their existence.
    - devishard 10y ago
      > And when it comes down to it, I think it takes more faith to believe that life exists because of random chance than because of a creator. If you have two alternatives you're considering, and both require faith for you, then you don't know which is right. So instead of arbitrarily choosing to have faith in one based on ignorance, it would be much more respectable to admit you don't know and either investigate, or just be satisfied with not knowing. Pretending you know something when you don't is just arrogance, and "faith" is not an excuse. > But God does not fit into a scientific proof framework whereby you can prove or disprove the existence of God, which is why it boils down to having faith. The "God is too hipster for the rules that apply to everything else" argument.
      - croon 10y ago
        There is actually a sound argument behind it, regardless if you agree with it or believe in it. Let's pretend that god exists and the bible is true. Under that assumption god wants humans to have faith and _choose_ to follow him/her/it, colloquially "if you love someone set them free". If god presents irrefutible evidence to his/her/its existence there would be no room left for choice/faith. Regardless of your view on the rationality of that, it is part of the true/false teachings of that particular denomination, and within those set parameters I think the logic checks out.
        goldbrick 10y ago
        It's not a logical argument, and we could go into it blow by blow, but essentially what you're saying is that God doesn't want there to be a logical argument, oh and as to why? That's just a given, which also makes the argument unsound.
        devishard 10y ago
        Knowing a god existed would not remove the choice to follow him. If I were presented with irrefutable evidence that the god of the bible existed, I would absolutely not choose to follow him/her/it. The god portrayed by the bible is a petty narcissist who demands that people worship him, while using literally unlimited power to torture and kill people instead of doing anything helpful or responsible. He's also insane, as the only way he can forgive people is to send his son to be brutally murdered. I would not follow such a being even if it existed. Proving a god's existence would definitely not remove the choice of whether to follow a god. Irrefutable evidence would remove faith (which is not the same as choice). But faith is just pretending you know something instead of admitting you don't know. So again, a god that wants you to pretend to know things you don't is not a being I care to follow. At best, you've provided a picture of why an insane being might hide its existence, but that doesn't prove whether that being exists or doesn't exist.
  - hacknat 10y ago
    You can't just have an ending tag, please insert the opening tag to match.
    - c3d 10y ago
      Space in tag, not good either -- Sashoti Namakoto
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- CPLX 10y ago
  Perhaps the motive is simple. Ever watched an episode of the show COPS where someone is wanted on a bunch of warrants and is going to jail for sure and goes on a high speed chase because hey why not right? Maybe this guy is destined for the same thanks to his tax frauds, and is on a PR joyride. I mean what's the downside?
  - irascible 10y ago
    3 possible outcomes.. 1. He pushes through his narrative. Gains exposure/cred he can parlay into more scams. 2. His narrative fails (happening) and eventually he is going to change course and says he was just trying to unmask the real satoshi.. bs of course, but sort of a cya move. 3. The real satoshi surfaces and denounces this fool.. thereby still giving him plenty of cred for causing satoshi to surface. THEre is no real major downside to any of these playouts. Attention whoring is an end goal itself. Fuck this guy.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rakoo 10y ago
  The best supposition I've seen in this story comes from [https://cp4space.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/is-craig-wright/ https://cp4space.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/is-craig-wright/]: > However, on this occasion there is the added caveat that two well-known Bitcoin developers, Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen, purport that Wright is indeed right > The little-blockians want the block sizes of Bitcoin to remain small, and thus for it to be a pure decentralised currency that can be used by anyone with a computer. This would maintain it as a peer-to-peer currency, but would limit its growth. > By comparison, the big-blockians believe Bitcoin should grow into a universal currency, expanding the block size to accommodate absolutely every transaction. The downside is that this is beyond the computational limits of domestic machines, thereby meaning that Bitcoin could only be regulated by banks, governments, and other large organisations: thereby moving it away from a libertarian idyll into something more akin to a regular currency. > Matonis, Andresen and Wright are all big-blockians. Having the esteemed creator Satoshi on their side would help their argument, and it is entirely plausible that there are several large organisations who would benefit from having more control over the regulation of Bitcoin.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    That is a terrible summary of the blocksize controversy, but yes, there is an argument that Andresen and Matonis are doing this to try to lend credibility to their position.
aorth 10y ago
You can't be arrested for pretending to be an internet superhero.
- api 10y ago
  You might be able to be if you use it to snow investors.
asddddd 10y ago
Tbe reason he's in Britain is because he fled Australia due to the ATO investigating his probably-fraudulent $50m+ R&D tax credits.

state 10y ago

Right. And Wright and everyone involved must know that. So can anyone explain their motives? I truly can't figure that part out. Edit: alain makes a good point. It's not the 'motives' I want to know. I want the whole story.

alain94040 10y ago
Megalomaniacs will keep lying and dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. You start with a small lie, and just can't stop, you have to keep going. What's surprising though is the lack of judgment from BBC and other major news media. That same person made the same bogus claim 6 months ago. How does that not trigger major red flags? The only story worth writing about here is how he pulled off such a trick. This is like God's existence. There is a simple way for God to tell us He exists, and which religion is right. But He never does. Instead, we must rely on testimony from various people, contradicting each other, and none of it is reproducible. Sure, you can believe... </controversial statement>
- clarkmoody 10y ago
  > lack of judgment from BBC and other major news media Probably got more clicks / views that any other story today, so good business move to print the story, even if it's totally false. I can't understand Gavin's angle though. It's amazing that he agrees that Wright is Satoshi. I would like to know his motivations in this whole thing. > There is a simple way for God to tell us He exists, and which religion is right. But He never does. Many religions would argue that this is a false statement :-) From the Christian view, the existence of God is self-evident in Creation. And when it comes down to it, I think it takes more faith to believe that life exists because of random chance than because of a creator. But God does not fit into a scientific proof framework whereby you can prove or disprove the existence of God, which is why it boils down to having faith. On the other hand, there is a way for Satoshi to prove his/her/their existence.
  - devishard 10y ago
    > And when it comes down to it, I think it takes more faith to believe that life exists because of random chance than because of a creator. If you have two alternatives you're considering, and both require faith for you, then you don't know which is right. So instead of arbitrarily choosing to have faith in one based on ignorance, it would be much more respectable to admit you don't know and either investigate, or just be satisfied with not knowing. Pretending you know something when you don't is just arrogance, and "faith" is not an excuse. > But God does not fit into a scientific proof framework whereby you can prove or disprove the existence of God, which is why it boils down to having faith. The "God is too hipster for the rules that apply to everything else" argument.
    - croon 10y ago
      There is actually a sound argument behind it, regardless if you agree with it or believe in it. Let's pretend that god exists and the bible is true. Under that assumption god wants humans to have faith and _choose_ to follow him/her/it, colloquially "if you love someone set them free". If god presents irrefutible evidence to his/her/its existence there would be no room left for choice/faith. Regardless of your view on the rationality of that, it is part of the true/false teachings of that particular denomination, and within those set parameters I think the logic checks out.
      - goldbrick 10y ago
        It's not a logical argument, and we could go into it blow by blow, but essentially what you're saying is that God doesn't want there to be a logical argument, oh and as to why? That's just a given, which also makes the argument unsound.
      - devishard 10y ago
        Knowing a god existed would not remove the choice to follow him. If I were presented with irrefutable evidence that the god of the bible existed, I would absolutely not choose to follow him/her/it. The god portrayed by the bible is a petty narcissist who demands that people worship him, while using literally unlimited power to torture and kill people instead of doing anything helpful or responsible. He's also insane, as the only way he can forgive people is to send his son to be brutally murdered. I would not follow such a being even if it existed. Proving a god's existence would definitely not remove the choice of whether to follow a god. Irrefutable evidence would remove faith (which is not the same as choice). But faith is just pretending you know something instead of admitting you don't know. So again, a god that wants you to pretend to know things you don't is not a being I care to follow. At best, you've provided a picture of why an insane being might hide its existence, but that doesn't prove whether that being exists or doesn't exist.
- hacknat 10y ago
  You can't just have an ending tag, please insert the opening tag to match.
  - c3d 10y ago
    Space in tag, not good either -- Sashoti Namakoto
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
CPLX 10y ago
Perhaps the motive is simple. Ever watched an episode of the show COPS where someone is wanted on a bunch of warrants and is going to jail for sure and goes on a high speed chase because hey why not right? Maybe this guy is destined for the same thanks to his tax frauds, and is on a PR joyride. I mean what's the downside?
- irascible 10y ago
  3 possible outcomes.. 1. He pushes through his narrative. Gains exposure/cred he can parlay into more scams. 2. His narrative fails (happening) and eventually he is going to change course and says he was just trying to unmask the real satoshi.. bs of course, but sort of a cya move. 3. The real satoshi surfaces and denounces this fool.. thereby still giving him plenty of cred for causing satoshi to surface. THEre is no real major downside to any of these playouts. Attention whoring is an end goal itself. Fuck this guy.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rakoo 10y ago
The best supposition I've seen in this story comes from [https://cp4space.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/is-craig-wright/ https://cp4space.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/is-craig-wright/]: > However, on this occasion there is the added caveat that two well-known Bitcoin developers, Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen, purport that Wright is indeed right > The little-blockians want the block sizes of Bitcoin to remain small, and thus for it to be a pure decentralised currency that can be used by anyone with a computer. This would maintain it as a peer-to-peer currency, but would limit its growth. > By comparison, the big-blockians believe Bitcoin should grow into a universal currency, expanding the block size to accommodate absolutely every transaction. The downside is that this is beyond the computational limits of domestic machines, thereby meaning that Bitcoin could only be regulated by banks, governments, and other large organisations: thereby moving it away from a libertarian idyll into something more akin to a regular currency. > Matonis, Andresen and Wright are all big-blockians. Having the esteemed creator Satoshi on their side would help their argument, and it is entirely plausible that there are several large organisations who would benefit from having more control over the regulation of Bitcoin.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  That is a terrible summary of the blocksize controversy, but yes, there is an argument that Andresen and Matonis are doing this to try to lend credibility to their position.

aorth 10y ago

You can't be arrested for pretending to be an internet superhero.

api 10y ago
You might be able to be if you use it to snow investors.

asddddd 10y ago

Tbe reason he's in Britain is because he fled Australia due to the ATO investigating his probably-fraudulent $50m+ R&D tax credits.