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Bitcoin was designed by an individual with intimate knowledge of the state of the art in suspicions of NSA backdoors. You are assuming Satoshi is sitting on mo

Bitcoin was designed by an individual with intimate knowledge of the state of the art in suspicions of NSA backdoors. You are assuming Satoshi is sitting on money. Satoshi took care to hide it’s identity, and thus would have switched mining to different addresses very early in bitcoins history. It would have been obvious to Satoshi that spending from a known address would blow it’s identity, so only did so for testing. Satoshi may well be a billionaire and spending bitcoin every day. People seem to take comfort in this idea that bitcoin was created by a government... because bitcoin seems radical when you first learn about it. However the attempts to create it date back a couple decades before it was created. Satoshi combined existing inventions with just the new element of his time chain. But even if the NSA were behind it, what could they do? Anything they could do could also be done by someone with a math breakthrough. So whether the attacker is the NSA or not bitcoin has to be robust against it. So where is bitcoin vulnerable? It’s easy to imagine vulnerabilities in the cryptography, but hard to produce them. Further, if you did, it doesn’t necessarily affect bitcoin. This is bitcoin’s genius. It’s not software, it’s a set of incentives. Show an error in the software, it will be patched and bitcoin will carry on. Worst case is a hard fork.

real_satoshi 7y ago
> Bitcoin was designed by an individual with intimate knowledge of the state of the art in suspicions of NSA backdoors. Insiders at the NSA (or any other TLA, foreign or domestic) also fit this description. The strongest position is to know both the truth, and the most compelling misconceptions.
- cyphertruck 7y ago
  I think it is a mistake for me to fight the “NSA created bitcoin” narrative. I am gleeful at Nelson not owning any bitcoin and want all like him who reject it for ideological reasons to continue to misunderstand it. Freedom and human rights need financial backing, and bitcoin does that.
  - NelsonMinar 7y ago
    Nothing like personalized comments coming from a brand new pseudonym.
    - cyphertruck 7y ago
      It took quite awhile to understand what narcissists are and to recognize that attempting to talk to them is pointless. They are simply incapable of valuing any other human being, let alone comprehending that such human being might have superior knowledge in any area. After all, the narcissist is the supreme being. At least in their reality. To be fair, “Unabashedly elitist” was a confession — if one were wise enough to recognize it.
  - dang 7y ago
    That crosses into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that on HN. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

real_satoshi 7y ago

> Bitcoin was designed by an individual with intimate knowledge of the state of the art in suspicions of NSA backdoors. Insiders at the NSA (or any other TLA, foreign or domestic) also fit this description. The strongest position is to know both the truth, and the most compelling misconceptions.

cyphertruck 7y ago
I think it is a mistake for me to fight the “NSA created bitcoin” narrative. I am gleeful at Nelson not owning any bitcoin and want all like him who reject it for ideological reasons to continue to misunderstand it. Freedom and human rights need financial backing, and bitcoin does that.
- NelsonMinar 7y ago
  Nothing like personalized comments coming from a brand new pseudonym.
  - cyphertruck 7y ago
    It took quite awhile to understand what narcissists are and to recognize that attempting to talk to them is pointless. They are simply incapable of valuing any other human being, let alone comprehending that such human being might have superior knowledge in any area. After all, the narcissist is the supreme being. At least in their reality. To be fair, “Unabashedly elitist” was a confession — if one were wise enough to recognize it.
- dang 7y ago
  That crosses into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that on HN. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html