21 ms·

The Satoshi Affair

191 points by grw_ 10y ago

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statoshi 10y ago
An entertaining read if you're into the cryptocurrency space, but all of the claims contained within must be viewed with extreme skepticism.
- grw_ 10y ago
  Unsure if you referring to the author's claims or those of the people quoted- could you expand with some examples?
Mendenhall 10y ago
Satoshi needs to launch bitcoin 2.0 with appropriate changes. That would kickstart a whole new era and with his cred it would carry massive adoption.
Aqueous 10y ago
It seems like Wright is attracting more and more (overly credulous) journalists to perform fawning bio pieces on him in lieu of the only evidence that will ever actually conclusively convince anyone. This evidence, unlike the several hundred thousand extraneous words here, also happens to be something that is extraordinarily simple to provide: cryptographically sign a message that we can all verify. He has not provided this single, legitimate proof to the public and worse yet he has provided fake proof that shows a deliberate willingness to deceive. Moreover, he seems to have demonstrated a willingness to exploit journalists' and the general public's lack of understanding about cryptography. This seems diametrically opposed to the spirit of the technology he allegedly gifted to the world - Bitcoin.
- airesQ 10y ago
  I'm so saddened by this. The proof would be so simple. They are so clearly being conned. The LRB? Really? I cannot even. Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility.
  - cbsmith 10y ago
    > Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility. I'm going to use that quote.
    - airesQ 10y ago
      Be sure to attribute it to "some random person on the internet".
  - vithlani 10y ago
    I am waiting for my copy to land in the mail before reading this. You are correct, LRB is generally not easily fooled into writing puff pieces; O'Hagen is a very sharp writer (check out his masterly analysis of Assange who is much more capable of blowing smoke than Wright). My prediction is that this will be looked upon more as a an essay about digital con men, and this is why M-K Willmers allowed it to be published. FWIW, I say Neal Stephenson is Satoshi :)
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      Hey, it appears you're shadowbanned. I vouched for this comment because I don't see how it violates any rules, and it seems on-topic and useful. I checked your history and every comment you've made over the last several months (at least) is marked dead, which means only people who've enabled the "showdead" option in their profile can read them. It's a shame as most of the ones I saw look fine.
      - vithlani 10y ago
        Thank you.
    - 10y ago
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  The total disregard that journalists have shown for facts in this saga should be a red flag that they're equally full of it when it comes to reporting on things that we aren't so knowledgeable about.
  - acqq 10y ago
    "They literally know nothing" https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/05/white-house-official-on-some-reporters-overseas-expertise-they-literally-know-nothing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/... And for anybody having doubts about Wright: https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/ https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-pro... https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...
  - api 10y ago
    I lost all faith in the media a long time ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge I remember watching this happen as a teenager via two sources of information: BBSes and the early Internet, and the mainstream media. The mainstream media told me Weaver was a child abusing neo-Nazi cult leader who was stockpiling weapons to conduct terrorist attacks or overthrow the government or something. The non-mainstream media told me he was a reclusive survivalist eccentric that may or may not have harbored some white supremacist beliefs (goofy or offensive beliefs are not a crime) who was being taken down dramatically in a frantic attempt by said government officials to cover their rear ends for a botched entrapment attempt. History proved the former to be all lies and the latter to be largely the truth. I never really trusted the news again. Stuff like this just proves my teenaged loss of faith was right. Newspapers and TV media are just "some guy's blog." That is not to say I trust the "alt" media either. It's media too and over time I've seen it become more and more full of crap as money has come into the equation. Now it seems like mostly a sales channel for dodgy "natural" pharmaceuticals and populist political propaganda. As Mulder would say: "trust no one." :)
    - the_watcher 10y ago
- T-A 10y ago
  This is not a fawning bio piece. If it's too long (it IS very long), skip to Coda, and start reading at "Do you want to know what I think?". BTW, the author's hypothesis is not half bad. In order to behave the way he did, Wright must have been sure the real Satoshis would not show up and ruin the show. How could he be so sure? Knowing that they are dead would be a pretty good way.
  - jgrahamc 10y ago
    But there would be no need for Satoshi to turn up. Since Wright isn't Satoshi, then Satoshi knows that Wright can't provide cryptographic proof. Since Satoshi likes his anonymity he can safely sit and let Wright claim to be Satoshi with no downside.
    - T-A 10y ago
      That's what Satoshi might have been thinking, if he were alive. I am pointing to what Wright must have been thinking.
      - alphapapa 10y ago
        What if he's been hired to act out this part in order to draw out the real Satoshi?
        wallace_f 10y ago
        Out of ignorance, I struggle to see all of the reasoning for such extreme desire of anonymity that the real Satoshi possesses?
        alphapapa 10y ago
        That would depend entirely on who or what "Satoshi" actually is. If it's an altruistic individual, there are many possible reasons. If it's a group or organization, there are many others. And whoever or whatever "Satoshi" is, there are a variety of reasons that a variety of people and organizations would like to know his identity. There may also be a variety of reasons that other, non-Satoshi entities would like it to remain a secret, depending on what the real story is. I guess most of us will never know.
- Falcon9 10y ago
  This reads like a comment from someone who didn't read the article. To call this piece fawning? And the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it, and just crazy enough to be willing to pull off an incredible elaborate hoax even knowing that he won't get away with it in the end. Granted, it's a LOT of reading - over 35,000 words. But why is the top comment on HN (at time of this comment) on an article of this length and breadth one that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article's actual specific content? The point of the piece isn't that herein lies the truth -- this is simply the author's experiences (months of them!) laid bare. You could sum it up in this quote from the piece: "The reason poets dislike each other's books is because they seem wrong, false – a kind of lie. 'If you were telling the truth you would be writing the same poems as me.'"
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  - Aqueous 10y ago
    Fair enough - I guess I was tired of being taken for a ride like every other time I've read an article about this obvious con artist. In this case, it still felt like I was being taken for a ride several thousand words into this absurdly long article, so I quit reading. It still seems to me that unless an article about a Satoshi candidate starts with a valid cryptographic signature from one of Satoshi's original keys, it very simply isn't worth reading.
  - kneel 10y ago
    >the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it The author provides no believable reason why the scammer won't prove it. They're not interesting/layered reasons. He simply regurgitates the delusions of the scammer.
- xivzgrev 10y ago
  Can anyone rebuff the argument in the article that if he did do the single legitimate proof, hackers could steal his bitcoins? Also no word given that if he did prove himself what legal ramifications that opens himself up to with various governments
  - kale 10y ago
    I think it's referring to the fact that you pay to a hash of a public key, but once you do a singe transaction, the public key becomes known. I'm not sure how that's a vulnerability, since the leftover balance is paid to a new address, and I was under the impression that early bicoins were paid to public address, and pay-to-hash-of-public-address was added later. I'd love for someone to enlighten this. (I got out of bitcoin when TradeHill was still running).
cm3 10y ago
I still don't understand why people so desperately want to find out who or what is behind Satoshi. It could be a person, it could be multiple persons, but what's to gain by identifying someone who gave the world something that's generally found useful, and all they asked for was privacy? Either you trust it or you don't. If you do not, what secret entity could be useful to be discovered behind the Satoshi identifier for you to trust it more or less? I mean, for instance, I'm unaware of people trying to identify all members of the PaX team. EDIT: For a community that asks for privacy in many instances, it's interesting we support the search to uncover what's behind the Satoshi identifier.
- bdcravens 10y ago
  What makes Satoshi unique is that he/she/them sits on premined Bitcoins worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that while 100% transparent, hasn't moved or been cashed in. That alone is a peculiarity and makes for an interesting person. Add to that the fact that once those coins start to move, it has the potential to affect the wealth of those who hold Bitcoin, for better or worse. Future changes to Bitcoin are hotly contested, and often Satoshi's intent is thrown in to the discussion, and these changes will likely affect many. Were a verified Satoshi to weigh in, it would carry significant impact.
  - cm3 10y ago
    Interesting entity, sure, but how do you expect them to cash the coins, if they have people trying to uncover the identity? Also, are those coins not theirs to do with whatever they want to? I fail to see the point but admittedly I'm not intimately familiar with the Bitcoin communities. I also don't see how Satoshi's opinion can change anything with regards to the dilemma of the technical limitations people have been debating about. Unless Satoshi would come up with a solution nobody thought of yet. Why should their opinion weigh more than others' and it's unlikely to prevent a split.
    - bdcravens 10y ago
      I'm not challenging Satoshi's rights. Only stating that with so much riding on those early coins, its natural that stakeholders would prefer a bit less mystery. All things equal, Satoshi's input isn't more or less valuable in the technology debates, but the community has given Satoshi messiah-like status.
joeyspn 10y ago
I stopped reading in the 4th line... "They were looking for a man named Craig Steven Wright". I'm not going to spend more minutes of my life reading about an scam artist... Enough is enough.
- muglug 10y ago
  You might want to skip straight to the coda, which presents the author's final thoughts on the whole thing. Pretty fascinating, whatever you think about CSW.
- cossatot 10y ago
  The various layers of scamming are exactly what makes this article worth reading. I couldn't care less about Satoshi or Bitcoin. However, so many people and institutions suspending their own disbelief and putting their time, money and reputations on the line, only to watch it end how it did... That's a much more interesting story to me. Greed and desperation are like diesel fuel and fertilizer.
forgotpwtomain 10y ago
Sign with the genesis block key or fuck off - seriously the articles and claims aren't novel anymore. The breadth of delusion and nonsense is staggering - it's impossible to imagine that anyone of significant name in the field (e.g. Diffie, Hellman, Chaum, Shamir, Rivest, Adelman, Zimmerman etc.) would propose any other kind of proof.
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acqq 10y ago
For those who don't know, this long article was announced by LRB exactly at the time Wright successfully fooled BBC (1) (2) O'Hagan had actually spent a lot of time with Wright, believing he'll be able to report about historically important moment and person. I'm glad O'Hagan kept the courage to finish it and publish it for it surely gives some insight on how the scam developed, even if he doesn't understand the details of it, he can report on the human side. May 2016 it was: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/05/02/josh-stupple/satoshi-baby/ http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/05/02/josh-stupple/satoshi-ba... "Andrew O’Hagan has had exclusive access to Craig Wright for the last six months. His forthcoming piece in the LRB will look at the myth of Satoshi and the journey of the man who claims to be him." 1) How Wright never proved anything: https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/ https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-pro... 2) In detail: https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...
fredgrott 10y ago
Satoshi whoever you are and wherever you are..please never ever be found..your gift to the world does not need for your life to be under the spot light..the gift speaks for itself, quite well.
gtrubetskoy 10y ago
Here is the most plausible explanation of who Satoshi is IMO: a team of people tasked by (most likely) a government agency with developing a crypto-currency as an experiment. The project is over, the people involved in it are probably bound to secrecy because the work was classified. They cannot spend a satoshi of the original bitcoin because that would be theft, probably a felony, possibly treason, who knows - either way that bitcoin and all the keys belong to their employer, not them, so you will never see anything signed by "Satoshi" to prove who "he" is.
- kiba 10y ago
  Here is the most plausible explanation of who Satoshi is IMO: a team of people tasked by (most likely) a government agency with developing a crypto-currency as an experiment. I don't know why the hell the government would spend money and time on a project like this. What in it for them?
  - macspoofing 10y ago
    Governments fund all kinds of zany programs.
    - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
      The Tor Project, for example.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    > What in it for them? A nice way to transfer money to clandestine operations world-wide, risk-free, for example. For example, to fund a spy in China, you'd need to pay him in Yuan but the Yuan is a highly controlled currency... and guess what e-currency is highly popular in China? Bitcoin. Just transfer your spy a couple of btc and have him trade the btc for local currency, in an eyeblink. Prior to btc, e.g. the CIA and other spy agencies had to fly in (and hand over!) literal bags of cash. Guess this is why the Chinese government tried to crack down on BTC so hard, aside from the fact that BTC allows bypassing their currency controls and an outflow of money.
CookieMon 10y ago
> "the palm trees were throwing summer shade onto the concrete walkways – ‘Tailor Made Office Solutions’, it said on a nearby billboard – and people were drinking coffee in Deli 32 on the ground floor. Wright’s office on level five was painted red, and looked down on the Macquarie Park Cemetery, known as a place of calm for the living as much as the dead." Ugh, it's like wading through a New Yorker article. Less paying by the word please.
- Falcon9 10y ago
  There have been plenty of terse short form blog entries about the saga, if you don't like the style of this piece you're free to close it and walk away without shitting on it. I spent the afternoon reading this piece and thoroughly enjoyed the writing, including the flavor and detail you call out.
  - stangeek 10y ago
    I enjoyed it a lot as well. This piece is a story about Wright, not cold, raw news about whethers he's Satoshi or not. Quite fitting, given that the Satoshi persona is fictive by construction...
- vithlani 10y ago
  They do get paid by the word at the LRB, 30 pence/word. May they continue writing even longer such essays: reading one of these is enough to give you all the information on the issue.
kirrent 10y ago
There are so many believable candidates for Satoshi, it's hard to know which one to pick. For another just as credible example: http://hackaday.com/2006/06/08/i-just-invented-bitcoin/ http://hackaday.com/2006/06/08/i-just-invented-bitcoin/
- Nadya 10y ago
  Another favorite proof of mine is screenshots! :) http://i.imgur.com/uoRncry.png http://i.imgur.com/uoRncry.png
moyix 10y ago
It's worth your time (and extremely entertaining) to read Sarah Jeong's twitter commentary on this piece. She does a really nice job of highlighting all of the places where basic journalism, asking for outside expertise, or really any shred of skepticism and tough questioning would have killed the story: https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/744950977090838528 https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/744950977090838528
- grw_ 10y ago
  On the contrary, you'll get a lot more out of reading the article without preconceptions. I don't think it's really worth reading someones comments about an article made before they had even finished reading it.
  - moyix 10y ago
    Sure, you should absolutely read the article first! But I found that even after reading the article it was very valuable to read a journalistic perspective on the reportage. It's also really interesting to contrast this story with the recent piece in The Atlantic about the provenance of a papyrus that mentions Jesus had a wife: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbe... The reporter does outside research, solicits opposing points of view, and generally is very diligent about trying not to be snowed. And, tellingly, he doesn't use unfamiliarity with the field as an excuse not to investigate Compare with this article: "From time to time during those months, I wondered what if, in some brutally postmodern way, the true identity of Satoshi could never be fully ascertained? What if Wright had every single element necessary to prove himself, but somehow couldn’t? Anonymity – or at least pseudonymity – is an essential part of the cryptographic world."
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sgnelson 10y ago
Nobody wants to believe they were conned. Check this out: the link in which Wright uses to say he can't prove he's Satoshi or risk going to jail, appears to be completely fraudulent: http://bitcoinist.net/uk-law-enforcement-sources-hint-at-impending-craig-wright-arrest/ http://bitcoinist.net/uk-law-enforcement-sources-hint-at-imp... "Editor’s Note (5-6-2-16, 2:43 AM EST): The SiliconAngle piece cited in this article was produced by an impostor site posing as the real SiliconAngle. This source article does not appear on the real SiliconAngle website, and was not written by SiliconAngle reporter Collen Kriel. Bitcoinist would like to apologize to SiliconAngle and our readers for any confusion. To ensure that you are reading articles produced by the real SiliconAngle, make sure you are using the correct URL: www.siliconangle.com."
rwbhn 10y ago
Towards the end of the 1st section we find an interesting strategy for getting through airport security - have an accomplice just behind you who causes a fuss at just the right moment.
- chadcmulligan 10y ago
  A similar device was employed in the Mel Brooks movie - High Anxiety.
nxzero 10y ago
Given people appear unable to let go of the desire to find Satoshi, maybe it's for the best that the media believes they've found Satoshi.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Is Craig Satoshi? Maybe. To say that he definitely is is to be an idiot. But to say that he certainly isn't is equally dumb. If it's a con, it's a pretty good con. If it's not, than this story is accurate. But the people who are saying a complicated a complicated situation is as black and white as "sign the block or fuck off, you're not Satoshi" isn't thinking. In a world of lifeless robots, it would be that simple. But it's not, and we don't. A man who has the identity may not want to prove it. But a con artist would do the same.
- um_ya 10y ago
  No, it really is that simple. He showed an interest in saying he is Satoshi, but didn't prove it. He's not "trying to hide his identity", he's trying to hide that he isn't Satoshi.
  - Falcon9 10y ago
    He showed an interest in not proving he is Satoshi as well, and didn't prove it. This isn't a negative you can prove (certainly not in the way you're saying.)
- chucksmash 10y ago
  > To say that he definitely is is to be an idiot. But to say that he certainly isn't is equally dumb. This is a false equivalency. Just because there are two options (ignoring "I don't know/I don't care/Satoshi who?") doesn't mean they are equally valid. The only way your statement makes sense to me given what has transpired is if you are saying that at a philosophical level nothing can be known with certainty and therefore to be certain of anything is to be wrong. That's a good way to get excused from a jury but not a great way of making sense of the world.
tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
I'd agree with you on the spook involvement based on what I have seen having been one who first started using it when it was still in beta. Money in its current implementation has some problems, namely it favours the low credit risk individuals as they get the best (lowest) rates of interest in order to speculate on assets like property, so just like people have been ethnically cleansed in the past, todays version of FIAT money financially cleanses individuals regardless of their abilities. Thats not really fair is it for bright minds who could have a massive positive effect on mankinds future. The laws in most countries favour the rich, not the most intelligent and when I was invited to spend the day with Michael Cusumano along with 13 other individuals from across Europe back in the early 00's, I learnt that once VC money enters a company, typically a founder will be kicked out in a year or two's time. Of course, we see this has now changed with the likes of Page & Brin and others with big tech firms who have special shareholder rights, but back then thats kind of how things operated with VC money. Money also needs a constantly expanding money supply in order to stand still which is why we saw the introduction of Quantative Easing right after the financial crisis and the abolition of the Gold standard decades ago. Another problem with inflation is it does not measure the decline in quality, so cheaper ingredients in food, or the shrinking product sizes are not measured in Govt inflation reports so people can be misled by company bosses who typically gave pay rises based on annual inflation rates. As some of the biggest tax avoiding companies have shown, theres no traceability for Govt's to pursue tax as it goes around the planet into different legal entities in tax havens and so on. Bitcoins can be traced providing a certain level of anonymity but even bitcoins put through tumblers can be traced when you have the network oversight that the spooks have. www.zdnet.com/article/after-silk-road-seizure-fbi-bitcoin-wallet-identified-and-pranked/ The spooks also like their experiments, after all who invented the IQ test? You see debt is money, but as we learnt with the Weimer Republic, when a currency falls out of favour, hyper inflation is a dead cert not to mention trouble and strife. In addition gold & cash is untraceable which facilitates crime, Bitcoins is traceable and is also very quick to move around the world so its ideal for keeping the money velocity up, one of the reasons why QE was carried out. http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user51698/imageroot/2012/08/8-10-12_M2%20Velocity.png http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5169... When the publics appetite for debt goes, the Govt has to step in a print money to fill the gap. You see everytime someone takes on debt like a mortgage it increases the money supply, the govt gets its slice with taxes and so on. Under FIAT, debt is money, most of it is printed out of thin air although different lenders were operating on different leverage rates, partly why banks like Northern Rock collapased. So many people dont know how money is created and still believe its backed by Gold, but Gold is not finite, it can be mined and created by bacteria in small amounts, it also slows up the global economy which is why the Gold Standard was abolished. Whilst taxation addresses the redistribution problem for the less fortunate and provides public services like education and roads, if people stop spending, trade dries up and thats how wars start with the added risk that we now have nuclear options. You also have "logistical" problems with computer systems that need to start accounting for ever greater amounts of money under the FIAT system. I'll never forget having to increase the digits for a payroll system some years back the day after Boxing day when a traders bonus couldnt be paid as there were not enough digits to transfer the funds. At the time the system was written, it was thought that would be sufficient for decades into the future. We also live on a finite planet, and considering so much of our lives are restricted by the amount of money we have in our pockets, its a useful control mechanism when laws do not deter criminal behaviour. This even applies to Govt's who print their own currencies. The FED and CIA have the only plates, so who wants the CIA printing money to fund revolutions around the world destablising countries, harming innocents caught in the cross fire? Other problems with FIAT money include things the derivatives market. The global GDP is around $70 trillion, the derivatives market is anyone's guess but whilst in theory everything should cancel each other out if it was unwound, no one really wants to test the theory as it standards at over $700 trillion! I also cant help but notice the irony that Panama where the Bitcoins domain is registered is the only country that has no central bank. I think you will see Satoshi pop up sometime in the future, after all the entity is on their way to being a billionaire when it takes off, although some would argue its already taken off, yet its market capitalisation is miniscule in the global scheme of things compared to say Gold or other financial products. In the meantime, the experiment will continue to run and be observed, no doubt with many psychologists using this to further study human behaviour.
zuzun 10y ago
This might be part of the reason he still wants people to believe he invented all of this: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-wright-patents-idUSKCN0Z61GM http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-wright-patents-idU...
kriro 10y ago
Strangely opinionated intersection in an otherwise pretty entertaining article: """(Like the governments they despise, bitcoiners deal – when it comes to ideas – in ‘white papers’, as if they were issuing laws.)""" Not sure if the author read it but the original paper is structured more like a regular journal paper than a traditional white paper.
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arisAlexis 10y ago
I think what people need to understand is that he can both be satoshi and fail to provide proof, its not a binary. Factors affecting the outcome could be sociopathology, mental illness, ulterior motives and others.
- cantrevealname 10y ago
  Yes, exactly. People are yelling fraud. I'm also very skeptical, but the following is not a correct deduction: "he didn't move any original Bitcoin" -> "he's a scam artist". I remember a TV reality-type show in which people took their heirlooms to be assessed for auction. One woman had what she thought was a priceless Stradivarius violin. The appraiser took one look at it and immediately said it was a fraud. The violin was stamped "Made in China" somewhere inside. The guy says to her, "Strads are not made in China -- you've been scammed." A funny thought occurred to me at that moment. Suppose that for some unfathomable reason, you stamped your Strad with the words "Made in China". Now, everyone calls you a fraud without a second look. Why would you do something so dumb? Maybe you were trying to make your treasured violin less tempting for thieves, maybe you were trying to hide its value from the tax authorities, maybe you forget to take your meds and were acting irrationally that day.
  - chadcmulligan 10y ago
    that's how I read it, maybe he is or isn't Satoshi, but he just wanted to be left alone. It was fun being Satoshi for a while, but then the whole circus became overwhelming so he stepped out of it. An extreme introvert maybe, or he really believed it was better that the mystery of Satoshi remained. Maybe we'll never know.
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Interesting - this story came up last time I read a thread about Satoshi on HN. Here's my reply to it: The appraiser did not do his work properly - after all, anyone can place a sticker on a Strad, but that doesn't make it any less of a Strad. It's also a poor analogy to use in the current situation. Multiple people did appraisals of Wright's claims and his show with Gavin Anderson, and found it lacking. They also noted the "Made in China" stamps - all the gotchas along the way - but they were only part of the analysis.
dash2 10y ago
George Orwell said there are some people you can fool all the time. What he didn't mention: those people are all LRB readers.
- retsibsi 10y ago
  In what way do you think LRB readers are being fooled here? What false claims does the article make? If you just pattern-matched it as a 'Craig Wright = Satoshi' piece, you're mistaken -- it is really a (somewhat) behind-the-scenes story of how the whole affair played out. Although he doesn't come to any definite conclusions, the author is nowhere near as credulous as some commentors seem to have assumed.

191 points by grw_ 10y ago

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An entertaining read if you're into the cryptocurrency space, but all of the claims contained within must be viewed with extreme skepticism.

grw_ 10y ago
Unsure if you referring to the author's claims or those of the people quoted- could you expand with some examples?

Mendenhall 10y ago

Satoshi needs to launch bitcoin 2.0 with appropriate changes. That would kickstart a whole new era and with his cred it would carry massive adoption.

Aqueous 10y ago

It seems like Wright is attracting more and more (overly credulous) journalists to perform fawning bio pieces on him in lieu of the only evidence that will ever actually conclusively convince anyone. This evidence, unlike the several hundred thousand extraneous words here, also happens to be something that is extraordinarily simple to provide: cryptographically sign a message that we can all verify. He has not provided this single, legitimate proof to the public and worse yet he has provided fake proof that shows a deliberate willingness to deceive. Moreover, he seems to have demonstrated a willingness to exploit journalists' and the general public's lack of understanding about cryptography. This seems diametrically opposed to the spirit of the technology he allegedly gifted to the world - Bitcoin.

airesQ 10y ago
I'm so saddened by this. The proof would be so simple. They are so clearly being conned. The LRB? Really? I cannot even. Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility.
- cbsmith 10y ago
  > Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility. I'm going to use that quote.
  - airesQ 10y ago
    Be sure to attribute it to "some random person on the internet".
- vithlani 10y ago
  I am waiting for my copy to land in the mail before reading this. You are correct, LRB is generally not easily fooled into writing puff pieces; O'Hagen is a very sharp writer (check out his masterly analysis of Assange who is much more capable of blowing smoke than Wright). My prediction is that this will be looked upon more as a an essay about digital con men, and this is why M-K Willmers allowed it to be published. FWIW, I say Neal Stephenson is Satoshi :)
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Hey, it appears you're shadowbanned. I vouched for this comment because I don't see how it violates any rules, and it seems on-topic and useful. I checked your history and every comment you've made over the last several months (at least) is marked dead, which means only people who've enabled the "showdead" option in their profile can read them. It's a shame as most of the ones I saw look fine.
    - vithlani 10y ago
      Thank you.
  - 10y ago
marcoperaza 10y ago
The total disregard that journalists have shown for facts in this saga should be a red flag that they're equally full of it when it comes to reporting on things that we aren't so knowledgeable about.
- acqq 10y ago
  "They literally know nothing" https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/05/white-house-official-on-some-reporters-overseas-expertise-they-literally-know-nothing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/... And for anybody having doubts about Wright: https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/ https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-pro... https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...
- api 10y ago
  I lost all faith in the media a long time ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge I remember watching this happen as a teenager via two sources of information: BBSes and the early Internet, and the mainstream media. The mainstream media told me Weaver was a child abusing neo-Nazi cult leader who was stockpiling weapons to conduct terrorist attacks or overthrow the government or something. The non-mainstream media told me he was a reclusive survivalist eccentric that may or may not have harbored some white supremacist beliefs (goofy or offensive beliefs are not a crime) who was being taken down dramatically in a frantic attempt by said government officials to cover their rear ends for a botched entrapment attempt. History proved the former to be all lies and the latter to be largely the truth. I never really trusted the news again. Stuff like this just proves my teenaged loss of faith was right. Newspapers and TV media are just "some guy's blog." That is not to say I trust the "alt" media either. It's media too and over time I've seen it become more and more full of crap as money has come into the equation. Now it seems like mostly a sales channel for dodgy "natural" pharmaceuticals and populist political propaganda. As Mulder would say: "trust no one." :)
  - the_watcher 10y ago
T-A 10y ago
This is not a fawning bio piece. If it's too long (it IS very long), skip to Coda, and start reading at "Do you want to know what I think?". BTW, the author's hypothesis is not half bad. In order to behave the way he did, Wright must have been sure the real Satoshis would not show up and ruin the show. How could he be so sure? Knowing that they are dead would be a pretty good way.
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  But there would be no need for Satoshi to turn up. Since Wright isn't Satoshi, then Satoshi knows that Wright can't provide cryptographic proof. Since Satoshi likes his anonymity he can safely sit and let Wright claim to be Satoshi with no downside.
  - T-A 10y ago
    That's what Satoshi might have been thinking, if he were alive. I am pointing to what Wright must have been thinking.
    - alphapapa 10y ago
      What if he's been hired to act out this part in order to draw out the real Satoshi?
      - wallace_f 10y ago
        Out of ignorance, I struggle to see all of the reasoning for such extreme desire of anonymity that the real Satoshi possesses?
        alphapapa 10y ago
        That would depend entirely on who or what "Satoshi" actually is. If it's an altruistic individual, there are many possible reasons. If it's a group or organization, there are many others. And whoever or whatever "Satoshi" is, there are a variety of reasons that a variety of people and organizations would like to know his identity. There may also be a variety of reasons that other, non-Satoshi entities would like it to remain a secret, depending on what the real story is. I guess most of us will never know.
Falcon9 10y ago
This reads like a comment from someone who didn't read the article. To call this piece fawning? And the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it, and just crazy enough to be willing to pull off an incredible elaborate hoax even knowing that he won't get away with it in the end. Granted, it's a LOT of reading - over 35,000 words. But why is the top comment on HN (at time of this comment) on an article of this length and breadth one that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article's actual specific content? The point of the piece isn't that herein lies the truth -- this is simply the author's experiences (months of them!) laid bare. You could sum it up in this quote from the piece: "The reason poets dislike each other's books is because they seem wrong, false – a kind of lie. 'If you were telling the truth you would be writing the same poems as me.'"
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- Aqueous 10y ago
  Fair enough - I guess I was tired of being taken for a ride like every other time I've read an article about this obvious con artist. In this case, it still felt like I was being taken for a ride several thousand words into this absurdly long article, so I quit reading. It still seems to me that unless an article about a Satoshi candidate starts with a valid cryptographic signature from one of Satoshi's original keys, it very simply isn't worth reading.
- kneel 10y ago
  >the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it The author provides no believable reason why the scammer won't prove it. They're not interesting/layered reasons. He simply regurgitates the delusions of the scammer.
xivzgrev 10y ago
Can anyone rebuff the argument in the article that if he did do the single legitimate proof, hackers could steal his bitcoins? Also no word given that if he did prove himself what legal ramifications that opens himself up to with various governments
- kale 10y ago
  I think it's referring to the fact that you pay to a hash of a public key, but once you do a singe transaction, the public key becomes known. I'm not sure how that's a vulnerability, since the leftover balance is paid to a new address, and I was under the impression that early bicoins were paid to public address, and pay-to-hash-of-public-address was added later. I'd love for someone to enlighten this. (I got out of bitcoin when TradeHill was still running).

cm3 10y ago

I still don't understand why people so desperately want to find out who or what is behind Satoshi. It could be a person, it could be multiple persons, but what's to gain by identifying someone who gave the world something that's generally found useful, and all they asked for was privacy? Either you trust it or you don't. If you do not, what secret entity could be useful to be discovered behind the Satoshi identifier for you to trust it more or less? I mean, for instance, I'm unaware of people trying to identify all members of the PaX team. EDIT: For a community that asks for privacy in many instances, it's interesting we support the search to uncover what's behind the Satoshi identifier.

bdcravens 10y ago
What makes Satoshi unique is that he/she/them sits on premined Bitcoins worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that while 100% transparent, hasn't moved or been cashed in. That alone is a peculiarity and makes for an interesting person. Add to that the fact that once those coins start to move, it has the potential to affect the wealth of those who hold Bitcoin, for better or worse. Future changes to Bitcoin are hotly contested, and often Satoshi's intent is thrown in to the discussion, and these changes will likely affect many. Were a verified Satoshi to weigh in, it would carry significant impact.
- cm3 10y ago
  Interesting entity, sure, but how do you expect them to cash the coins, if they have people trying to uncover the identity? Also, are those coins not theirs to do with whatever they want to? I fail to see the point but admittedly I'm not intimately familiar with the Bitcoin communities. I also don't see how Satoshi's opinion can change anything with regards to the dilemma of the technical limitations people have been debating about. Unless Satoshi would come up with a solution nobody thought of yet. Why should their opinion weigh more than others' and it's unlikely to prevent a split.
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    I'm not challenging Satoshi's rights. Only stating that with so much riding on those early coins, its natural that stakeholders would prefer a bit less mystery. All things equal, Satoshi's input isn't more or less valuable in the technology debates, but the community has given Satoshi messiah-like status.

joeyspn 10y ago

I stopped reading in the 4th line... "They were looking for a man named Craig Steven Wright". I'm not going to spend more minutes of my life reading about an scam artist... Enough is enough.

muglug 10y ago
You might want to skip straight to the coda, which presents the author's final thoughts on the whole thing. Pretty fascinating, whatever you think about CSW.
cossatot 10y ago
The various layers of scamming are exactly what makes this article worth reading. I couldn't care less about Satoshi or Bitcoin. However, so many people and institutions suspending their own disbelief and putting their time, money and reputations on the line, only to watch it end how it did... That's a much more interesting story to me. Greed and desperation are like diesel fuel and fertilizer.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago

Sign with the genesis block key or fuck off - seriously the articles and claims aren't novel anymore. The breadth of delusion and nonsense is staggering - it's impossible to imagine that anyone of significant name in the field (e.g. Diffie, Hellman, Chaum, Shamir, Rivest, Adelman, Zimmerman etc.) would propose any other kind of proof.

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acqq 10y ago

For those who don't know, this long article was announced by LRB exactly at the time Wright successfully fooled BBC (1) (2) O'Hagan had actually spent a lot of time with Wright, believing he'll be able to report about historically important moment and person. I'm glad O'Hagan kept the courage to finish it and publish it for it surely gives some insight on how the scam developed, even if he doesn't understand the details of it, he can report on the human side. May 2016 it was: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/05/02/josh-stupple/satoshi-baby/ http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/05/02/josh-stupple/satoshi-ba... "Andrew O’Hagan has had exclusive access to Craig Wright for the last six months. His forthcoming piece in the LRB will look at the myth of Satoshi and the journey of the man who claims to be him." 1) How Wright never proved anything: https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/ https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-pro... 2) In detail: https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...

fredgrott 10y ago

Satoshi whoever you are and wherever you are..please never ever be found..your gift to the world does not need for your life to be under the spot light..the gift speaks for itself, quite well.

gtrubetskoy 10y ago

Here is the most plausible explanation of who Satoshi is IMO: a team of people tasked by (most likely) a government agency with developing a crypto-currency as an experiment. The project is over, the people involved in it are probably bound to secrecy because the work was classified. They cannot spend a satoshi of the original bitcoin because that would be theft, probably a felony, possibly treason, who knows - either way that bitcoin and all the keys belong to their employer, not them, so you will never see anything signed by "Satoshi" to prove who "he" is.

kiba 10y ago
Here is the most plausible explanation of who Satoshi is IMO: a team of people tasked by (most likely) a government agency with developing a crypto-currency as an experiment. I don't know why the hell the government would spend money and time on a project like this. What in it for them?
- macspoofing 10y ago
  Governments fund all kinds of zany programs.
  - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
    The Tor Project, for example.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > What in it for them? A nice way to transfer money to clandestine operations world-wide, risk-free, for example. For example, to fund a spy in China, you'd need to pay him in Yuan but the Yuan is a highly controlled currency... and guess what e-currency is highly popular in China? Bitcoin. Just transfer your spy a couple of btc and have him trade the btc for local currency, in an eyeblink. Prior to btc, e.g. the CIA and other spy agencies had to fly in (and hand over!) literal bags of cash. Guess this is why the Chinese government tried to crack down on BTC so hard, aside from the fact that BTC allows bypassing their currency controls and an outflow of money.

CookieMon 10y ago

> "the palm trees were throwing summer shade onto the concrete walkways – ‘Tailor Made Office Solutions’, it said on a nearby billboard – and people were drinking coffee in Deli 32 on the ground floor. Wright’s office on level five was painted red, and looked down on the Macquarie Park Cemetery, known as a place of calm for the living as much as the dead." Ugh, it's like wading through a New Yorker article. Less paying by the word please.

Falcon9 10y ago
There have been plenty of terse short form blog entries about the saga, if you don't like the style of this piece you're free to close it and walk away without shitting on it. I spent the afternoon reading this piece and thoroughly enjoyed the writing, including the flavor and detail you call out.
- stangeek 10y ago
  I enjoyed it a lot as well. This piece is a story about Wright, not cold, raw news about whethers he's Satoshi or not. Quite fitting, given that the Satoshi persona is fictive by construction...
vithlani 10y ago
They do get paid by the word at the LRB, 30 pence/word. May they continue writing even longer such essays: reading one of these is enough to give you all the information on the issue.

kirrent 10y ago

There are so many believable candidates for Satoshi, it's hard to know which one to pick. For another just as credible example: http://hackaday.com/2006/06/08/i-just-invented-bitcoin/ http://hackaday.com/2006/06/08/i-just-invented-bitcoin/

Nadya 10y ago
Another favorite proof of mine is screenshots! :) http://i.imgur.com/uoRncry.png http://i.imgur.com/uoRncry.png

moyix 10y ago

It's worth your time (and extremely entertaining) to read Sarah Jeong's twitter commentary on this piece. She does a really nice job of highlighting all of the places where basic journalism, asking for outside expertise, or really any shred of skepticism and tough questioning would have killed the story: https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/744950977090838528 https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/744950977090838528

grw_ 10y ago
On the contrary, you'll get a lot more out of reading the article without preconceptions. I don't think it's really worth reading someones comments about an article made before they had even finished reading it.
- moyix 10y ago
  Sure, you should absolutely read the article first! But I found that even after reading the article it was very valuable to read a journalistic perspective on the reportage. It's also really interesting to contrast this story with the recent piece in The Atlantic about the provenance of a papyrus that mentions Jesus had a wife: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbe... The reporter does outside research, solicits opposing points of view, and generally is very diligent about trying not to be snowed. And, tellingly, he doesn't use unfamiliarity with the field as an excuse not to investigate Compare with this article: "From time to time during those months, I wondered what if, in some brutally postmodern way, the true identity of Satoshi could never be fully ascertained? What if Wright had every single element necessary to prove himself, but somehow couldn’t? Anonymity – or at least pseudonymity – is an essential part of the cryptographic world."
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sgnelson 10y ago

Nobody wants to believe they were conned. Check this out: the link in which Wright uses to say he can't prove he's Satoshi or risk going to jail, appears to be completely fraudulent: http://bitcoinist.net/uk-law-enforcement-sources-hint-at-impending-craig-wright-arrest/ http://bitcoinist.net/uk-law-enforcement-sources-hint-at-imp... "Editor’s Note (5-6-2-16, 2:43 AM EST): The SiliconAngle piece cited in this article was produced by an impostor site posing as the real SiliconAngle. This source article does not appear on the real SiliconAngle website, and was not written by SiliconAngle reporter Collen Kriel. Bitcoinist would like to apologize to SiliconAngle and our readers for any confusion. To ensure that you are reading articles produced by the real SiliconAngle, make sure you are using the correct URL: www.siliconangle.com."

rwbhn 10y ago

Towards the end of the 1st section we find an interesting strategy for getting through airport security - have an accomplice just behind you who causes a fuss at just the right moment.

chadcmulligan 10y ago
A similar device was employed in the Mel Brooks movie - High Anxiety.

nxzero 10y ago

Given people appear unable to let go of the desire to find Satoshi, maybe it's for the best that the media believes they've found Satoshi.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Is Craig Satoshi? Maybe. To say that he definitely is is to be an idiot. But to say that he certainly isn't is equally dumb. If it's a con, it's a pretty good con. If it's not, than this story is accurate. But the people who are saying a complicated a complicated situation is as black and white as "sign the block or fuck off, you're not Satoshi" isn't thinking. In a world of lifeless robots, it would be that simple. But it's not, and we don't. A man who has the identity may not want to prove it. But a con artist would do the same.

um_ya 10y ago
No, it really is that simple. He showed an interest in saying he is Satoshi, but didn't prove it. He's not "trying to hide his identity", he's trying to hide that he isn't Satoshi.
- Falcon9 10y ago
  He showed an interest in not proving he is Satoshi as well, and didn't prove it. This isn't a negative you can prove (certainly not in the way you're saying.)
chucksmash 10y ago
> To say that he definitely is is to be an idiot. But to say that he certainly isn't is equally dumb. This is a false equivalency. Just because there are two options (ignoring "I don't know/I don't care/Satoshi who?") doesn't mean they are equally valid. The only way your statement makes sense to me given what has transpired is if you are saying that at a philosophical level nothing can be known with certainty and therefore to be certain of anything is to be wrong. That's a good way to get excused from a jury but not a great way of making sense of the world.

tr1ck5t3r 10y ago

I'd agree with you on the spook involvement based on what I have seen having been one who first started using it when it was still in beta. Money in its current implementation has some problems, namely it favours the low credit risk individuals as they get the best (lowest) rates of interest in order to speculate on assets like property, so just like people have been ethnically cleansed in the past, todays version of FIAT money financially cleanses individuals regardless of their abilities. Thats not really fair is it for bright minds who could have a massive positive effect on mankinds future. The laws in most countries favour the rich, not the most intelligent and when I was invited to spend the day with Michael Cusumano along with 13 other individuals from across Europe back in the early 00's, I learnt that once VC money enters a company, typically a founder will be kicked out in a year or two's time. Of course, we see this has now changed with the likes of Page & Brin and others with big tech firms who have special shareholder rights, but back then thats kind of how things operated with VC money. Money also needs a constantly expanding money supply in order to stand still which is why we saw the introduction of Quantative Easing right after the financial crisis and the abolition of the Gold standard decades ago. Another problem with inflation is it does not measure the decline in quality, so cheaper ingredients in food, or the shrinking product sizes are not measured in Govt inflation reports so people can be misled by company bosses who typically gave pay rises based on annual inflation rates. As some of the biggest tax avoiding companies have shown, theres no traceability for Govt's to pursue tax as it goes around the planet into different legal entities in tax havens and so on. Bitcoins can be traced providing a certain level of anonymity but even bitcoins put through tumblers can be traced when you have the network oversight that the spooks have. www.zdnet.com/article/after-silk-road-seizure-fbi-bitcoin-wallet-identified-and-pranked/ The spooks also like their experiments, after all who invented the IQ test? You see debt is money, but as we learnt with the Weimer Republic, when a currency falls out of favour, hyper inflation is a dead cert not to mention trouble and strife. In addition gold & cash is untraceable which facilitates crime, Bitcoins is traceable and is also very quick to move around the world so its ideal for keeping the money velocity up, one of the reasons why QE was carried out. http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user51698/imageroot/2012/08/8-10-12_M2%20Velocity.png http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5169... When the publics appetite for debt goes, the Govt has to step in a print money to fill the gap. You see everytime someone takes on debt like a mortgage it increases the money supply, the govt gets its slice with taxes and so on. Under FIAT, debt is money, most of it is printed out of thin air although different lenders were operating on different leverage rates, partly why banks like Northern Rock collapased. So many people dont know how money is created and still believe its backed by Gold, but Gold is not finite, it can be mined and created by bacteria in small amounts, it also slows up the global economy which is why the Gold Standard was abolished. Whilst taxation addresses the redistribution problem for the less fortunate and provides public services like education and roads, if people stop spending, trade dries up and thats how wars start with the added risk that we now have nuclear options. You also have "logistical" problems with computer systems that need to start accounting for ever greater amounts of money under the FIAT system. I'll never forget having to increase the digits for a payroll system some years back the day after Boxing day when a traders bonus couldnt be paid as there were not enough digits to transfer the funds. At the time the system was written, it was thought that would be sufficient for decades into the future. We also live on a finite planet, and considering so much of our lives are restricted by the amount of money we have in our pockets, its a useful control mechanism when laws do not deter criminal behaviour. This even applies to Govt's who print their own currencies. The FED and CIA have the only plates, so who wants the CIA printing money to fund revolutions around the world destablising countries, harming innocents caught in the cross fire? Other problems with FIAT money include things the derivatives market. The global GDP is around $70 trillion, the derivatives market is anyone's guess but whilst in theory everything should cancel each other out if it was unwound, no one really wants to test the theory as it standards at over $700 trillion! I also cant help but notice the irony that Panama where the Bitcoins domain is registered is the only country that has no central bank. I think you will see Satoshi pop up sometime in the future, after all the entity is on their way to being a billionaire when it takes off, although some would argue its already taken off, yet its market capitalisation is miniscule in the global scheme of things compared to say Gold or other financial products. In the meantime, the experiment will continue to run and be observed, no doubt with many psychologists using this to further study human behaviour.

zuzun 10y ago

This might be part of the reason he still wants people to believe he invented all of this: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-wright-patents-idUSKCN0Z61GM http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-wright-patents-idU...

kriro 10y ago

Strangely opinionated intersection in an otherwise pretty entertaining article: """(Like the governments they despise, bitcoiners deal – when it comes to ideas – in ‘white papers’, as if they were issuing laws.)""" Not sure if the author read it but the original paper is structured more like a regular journal paper than a traditional white paper.

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arisAlexis 10y ago

I think what people need to understand is that he can both be satoshi and fail to provide proof, its not a binary. Factors affecting the outcome could be sociopathology, mental illness, ulterior motives and others.

cantrevealname 10y ago
Yes, exactly. People are yelling fraud. I'm also very skeptical, but the following is not a correct deduction: "he didn't move any original Bitcoin" -> "he's a scam artist". I remember a TV reality-type show in which people took their heirlooms to be assessed for auction. One woman had what she thought was a priceless Stradivarius violin. The appraiser took one look at it and immediately said it was a fraud. The violin was stamped "Made in China" somewhere inside. The guy says to her, "Strads are not made in China -- you've been scammed." A funny thought occurred to me at that moment. Suppose that for some unfathomable reason, you stamped your Strad with the words "Made in China". Now, everyone calls you a fraud without a second look. Why would you do something so dumb? Maybe you were trying to make your treasured violin less tempting for thieves, maybe you were trying to hide its value from the tax authorities, maybe you forget to take your meds and were acting irrationally that day.
- chadcmulligan 10y ago
  that's how I read it, maybe he is or isn't Satoshi, but he just wanted to be left alone. It was fun being Satoshi for a while, but then the whole circus became overwhelming so he stepped out of it. An extreme introvert maybe, or he really believed it was better that the mystery of Satoshi remained. Maybe we'll never know.
- Sacho 10y ago
  Interesting - this story came up last time I read a thread about Satoshi on HN. Here's my reply to it: The appraiser did not do his work properly - after all, anyone can place a sticker on a Strad, but that doesn't make it any less of a Strad. It's also a poor analogy to use in the current situation. Multiple people did appraisals of Wright's claims and his show with Gavin Anderson, and found it lacking. They also noted the "Made in China" stamps - all the gotchas along the way - but they were only part of the analysis.

dash2 10y ago

George Orwell said there are some people you can fool all the time. What he didn't mention: those people are all LRB readers.

retsibsi 10y ago
In what way do you think LRB readers are being fooled here? What false claims does the article make? If you just pattern-matched it as a 'Craig Wright = Satoshi' piece, you're mistaken -- it is really a (somewhat) behind-the-scenes story of how the whole affair played out. Although he doesn't come to any definite conclusions, the author is nowhere near as credulous as some commentors seem to have assumed.