4 ms·

From all that I've read about the founding of Bitcoin, my guess would be that it was the guy in the wheelchair who died before bitcoin got really big. I forget

From all that I've read about the founding of Bitcoin, my guess would be that it was the guy in the wheelchair who died before bitcoin got really big. I forget his name, but he was involved early on in crypto, he was a white guy, not Japanese. Everything points towards the guy being dead.

clarkmoody 7y ago
Hal Finney! https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1110302988 https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1110302988
- darkcha0s 7y ago
  https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1153096538 https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1153096538 That guy was a real forward thinker-- just the other day there was a HN post addressing just that. Seems that even the original team knew BTC wasn't perfect...
speeder 7y ago
He was an HNer, and explained he got into BTC early but he wasn't Satoshi, and didn't met Satoshi in person so he has no idea who Satoshi is.
JshWright 7y ago
The counter argument there is that if he had access to Satoshi's wallet in the last year of his life, why wouldn't he have cashed at least some of it out to provide for his family (and donate the rest to the ALS foundation which he spent a lot of energy raising money for)?
- hackermailman 7y ago
  His family was getting attacked by a group of ransom seeking criminals the last years of his life who believed he had a substantial coin stash, so he kept a low profile and may have donated without telling anybody. He did write once he gave to his family as inheritance 'a lot of coins' without saying how much it was. It's unlikely he was Satoshi, the early code was full of security problems.
trixie_ 7y ago
My money is on Paul Le Roux. He is a pragmatic programmer who wrote encryption software for Windows in the 90s and in the 2000s he had a real need to move money around outside the traditional systems. Bitcoin was scrappy windows software as well like E4M. A lot of academics, open source activists and hacker purists would never write their software for Windows. Le Roux's writing style is similar, his attitude, streak for innovation, and timeline all kind of fit for a possible Satoshi candidate. He also had a real motive to be anonymous and release the software anonymously unlike many other candidates.
- sireat 7y ago
  Paul Le Roux is a promising candidate except for one thing: by 2009 he was running his crime empire branching in pretty much every direction possible. Would he have had time to write the software and also kick back to play the part of Satoshi? It would be interesting to compare the coding style in E4M and original BTC software. PS. Fascinating series of articles on Paul Le Roux: https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind
  - trixie_ 7y ago
    I think so. If you look at the total amount of code, his total emails and forum posts - there really isn't much. I wouldn't put it past him as a side project given his past. Also most of the code was done by the beginning of 2009 and he stopped posting at the end of 2010. It wasn't until 2012 he was arrested. Given that he was already wealthy and didn't need the attention - he had good reason to stay anonymous.
hollerith 7y ago
>it was the guy in the wheelchair who died before bitcoin got really big. The problem with that guess is that the guy (Hal Finney) designed, implemented and deployed an alternative to Bitcoin, called Reusable Proof of Work. The alternative never gained traction, but was actively deployed for quite a few years (starting if I remember correctly before the start of Bitcoin and ending after Bitcoin had been deployed for a while). "actively deployed": the design entailed at least one server with constant connectivity to the public internet, which of course entails at least some cost in hosting fees and some effort at monitoring things. The server ran a few thousand lines of C code written by Finney.

clarkmoody 7y ago

Hal Finney! https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1110302988 https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1110302988

darkcha0s 7y ago
https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1153096538 https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1153096538 That guy was a real forward thinker-- just the other day there was a HN post addressing just that. Seems that even the original team knew BTC wasn't perfect...

speeder 7y ago

He was an HNer, and explained he got into BTC early but he wasn't Satoshi, and didn't met Satoshi in person so he has no idea who Satoshi is.

JshWright 7y ago

The counter argument there is that if he had access to Satoshi's wallet in the last year of his life, why wouldn't he have cashed at least some of it out to provide for his family (and donate the rest to the ALS foundation which he spent a lot of energy raising money for)?

hackermailman 7y ago
His family was getting attacked by a group of ransom seeking criminals the last years of his life who believed he had a substantial coin stash, so he kept a low profile and may have donated without telling anybody. He did write once he gave to his family as inheritance 'a lot of coins' without saying how much it was. It's unlikely he was Satoshi, the early code was full of security problems.

trixie_ 7y ago

My money is on Paul Le Roux. He is a pragmatic programmer who wrote encryption software for Windows in the 90s and in the 2000s he had a real need to move money around outside the traditional systems. Bitcoin was scrappy windows software as well like E4M. A lot of academics, open source activists and hacker purists would never write their software for Windows. Le Roux's writing style is similar, his attitude, streak for innovation, and timeline all kind of fit for a possible Satoshi candidate. He also had a real motive to be anonymous and release the software anonymously unlike many other candidates.

sireat 7y ago
Paul Le Roux is a promising candidate except for one thing: by 2009 he was running his crime empire branching in pretty much every direction possible. Would he have had time to write the software and also kick back to play the part of Satoshi? It would be interesting to compare the coding style in E4M and original BTC software. PS. Fascinating series of articles on Paul Le Roux: https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind
- trixie_ 7y ago
  I think so. If you look at the total amount of code, his total emails and forum posts - there really isn't much. I wouldn't put it past him as a side project given his past. Also most of the code was done by the beginning of 2009 and he stopped posting at the end of 2010. It wasn't until 2012 he was arrested. Given that he was already wealthy and didn't need the attention - he had good reason to stay anonymous.

hollerith 7y ago

>it was the guy in the wheelchair who died before bitcoin got really big. The problem with that guess is that the guy (Hal Finney) designed, implemented and deployed an alternative to Bitcoin, called Reusable Proof of Work. The alternative never gained traction, but was actively deployed for quite a few years (starting if I remember correctly before the start of Bitcoin and ending after Bitcoin had been deployed for a while). "actively deployed": the design entailed at least one server with constant connectivity to the public internet, which of course entails at least some cost in hosting fees and some effort at monitoring things. The server ran a few thousand lines of C code written by Finney.