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Hal is the person I believe was Satoshi. All of the evidence points to him more than anyone else I have read about. But wanting to keep his identity secret make

Hal is the person I believe was Satoshi. All of the evidence points to him more than anyone else I have read about. But wanting to keep his identity secret makes perfect sense given what happened.

FrendlyReminder 6y ago
I don't believe it at all and there's plenty of evidence to the contrary that people can find for themselves. That's my honest opinion and you are entitled to yours, fairly sure no one will ever know for certain. There's a journalist that went deep diving on this and came out with the same conclusion, from timelines to stylometric analysis, it doesn't add up to being Hal. He's just that guy who actually listened on the mailing list rather than be the snarky one where everyone else nods in agreement congratulating themselves how smart they are. In the last years of his abled life, the man was getting involved in whatever cutting edge technology he could find, most of this is documented, nearly all of them failed, except for twitter and bitcoin. He's now cryopreserved, something that has virtually no chance of ever succeeding in the next 1000 years, yet...
- nobrains 6y ago
  My guesstimate is Nick Szabo.
  - bhaak 6y ago
    If you look at Szabo's twitter feed these days, I surely hope he isn't. Luckily, there is not that much that points towards him being Satoshi: https://archive.is/N3rYx https://archive.is/N3rYx https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/12/16/no-nick-szabo-wasnt-satoshi-in-2014-either/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/12/16/no-nick-szab...
    - svd4anything 6y ago
      His twitter feed is very libertarian and Austrian economics themed. That doesn’t surprise me at all, should it?
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        He says he hopes it isn't him, not that it lends evidence against it.
        svd4anything 6y ago
        I understand but that’s a strange hope a bit based on his twitter bring too right-wing or libertarian than he would prefer, yet those beliefs are actually very consistent with a lot of Satoshi’s known leanings and beliefs. The block zero comment is pretty libertarian for example and many of his comments on email lists are also. So it’s a bit illogical for the OP to hope for otherwise.
        mhluongo 6y ago
        I'm a libertarian Bitcoiner myself, and I hope it's not Szabo. You can be right libertarian without being a xenophobe or an outright racist.
        svd4anything 6y ago
        I guess I missed the xenophobia and racism in his twitter feed. That wouldn’t surprise me however I’m just not sure what you are referring to specifically.
        someguydave 6y ago
        you can also be right libertarian without demeaning others with modern-day heresy accusations
      - seibelj 6y ago
        Expecting Satoshi not to be libertarian is like expecting Karl Marx not to be socialist. Satoshi devoted his life to creating uncensorable money outside of government control!
        nix23 6y ago
    - justinmeiners 6y ago
      > hope he isn't You wish he was more like you? This is a good reason why he hid his identity. Any real person would be more disappointing then the legend constructed in imagination.
      - bhaak 6y ago
        Yes, there's not much that can destroy a legend easier than meeting them in person. But it in this case, the legend was a rather nice person. Getting this aspect of his personality destroyed would be a shame.
        justinmeiners 6y ago
        Is he mean? Or do associate those views with mean people. I just don't understand why everyone needs to be a PR polished suit. These people work on computers, not administer public policy. We can appreciate their contributions and ignore their quirks or the fact they don't have all the popular opinions.
        bhaak 6y ago
        It's the other way around. Just because somebody is good in one area that doesn't mean they have any authority in another, unrelated one. Putting people on a podest and excusing untolerable behavior is plain toxic. It is not wanting that everyone needs to be a PR polished suit, just wanting that people are decent human beings.
        justinmeiners 6y ago
        > Just because somebody is good in one area that doesn't mean they have any authority in another Precisely what I am saying. We can applaud Nick for contributions to cryptography without importing his views of other things. We don't have to weigh his political opinions at all. > just wanting that people are decent human beings. This sounds to me like "having views I like, because only undecent people would think otherwise". Do you have an instance of Nick being nasty or indecent?
    - nobrains 6y ago
      Maybe it's to throw off people...
    - boredumb 6y ago
      >If you look at Szabo's twitter feed these days, I surely hope he isn't. I just glanced at it and it looks innocuously right wing. In the context of being contender for the creator of a decentralized currency I was expecting a "far-right" libertarian type.
- tim333 6y ago
  Dunno about virtually no chance - we just need exponential improvements in scanning and computing to go on a while longer.
- seibelj 6y ago
  The fact he lived very close to Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto (2 blocks away) is the most damning evidence to me. Explains why he selected that name - he thought it was a good name and he noticed it! Secondly him being the first person to respond to Satoshi is highly suspect to me, he could have been responding to himself.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Huh, that's an interesting fact! I wonder what percentage of people outside of Japan live that close to someone named Satoshi Nakamoto?
  - lallysingh 6y ago
    That's a terrible reason!! Name your alias as Other Guy in My Town? What kind of idiot would do that? He's not collecting packages.
    - ivalm 6y ago
      I mean, more likely to be primed by a name of a guy in the town then randomly selecting a low prevalence name that happens to ALSO be the name of the guy in the town. It’s not that the marginal probability of using a known name is high, it’s that for a fact the name used IS a known name that makes it suspect.
    - em3rgent0rdr 6y ago
      People do choose aliases by odd relations like this.
      - lallysingh 6y ago
        Yes, but I'd expect the inventor of Bitcoin to be a little not-dumb about it.
  - nadaviv 6y ago
    Source?
- bdcravens 6y ago
  > ather than be the snarky one where everyone else nods in agreement Satoshi's discussions on BitcoinTalk were definitely not snarky, but fairly well measured and objective.
api 6y ago
If the creator of Bitcoin is in cryostasis, then I propose that we officially move all cyberpunk novels to the nonfiction section. All we are missing is Rastafarians in space.
- dfischer 6y ago
  Better to put anything as nonfiction as fiction at this rate!
meowface 6y ago
There's zero good evidence it was him. There hasn't been good evidence for anyone named, so far. Him living kind of close to someone with the last name Nakamoto (it was actually more than two blocks away, I believe) is not good evidence whatsoever, and there's some specific circumstantial evidence to suggest they were different people. No, no smoking gun to disprove it, but no good case has ever been made.
- dfischer 6y ago
  Zero? Definitely more than zero. In fact you’ll find papers if you try that put the probability higher than anyone other than Nick S. But it doesn’t really matter in the end in my opinion. The whole point was to not have a godhead.
  - meowface 6y ago
    I've read those papers. There's ostensible evidence put forward, but I find zero of it to be good evidence, personally. Nick Szabo is definitely a more likely match, with better evidence, but I think there's almost no chance it's him, either. >But it doesn’t really matter in the end in my opinion. The whole point was to not have a godhead. Of course; but it's not about that. It's about the mystery, the challenge, the thrill of the adventure. It's one of the absolute strangest and most enigmatic events in internet history - when else has some open source software blown up to even 0.0001% of this level with a 100% anonymous creator who no one's come close to identifying (that we know of)? Would I reveal who Satoshi was if I found out? Probably not. Their life would probably undeservedly become much harder and much worse. But I still sure as hell would be interested to know who made this thing. Also, if we know who it is, then we know who it isn't. Rumors over certain people being Satoshi can be very irresponsible.
syngrog66 6y ago
one of my pet theories was driven by a language observation. look at these two names written out side by side: Nick Szabo Satoshi Nakamoto the writer in me looks at those two names and sees a kind of echo/mirror/rearrangement pattern, as if someone was either trying to give a clue as to their real identity, or, to mislead in a playful way not decisive obviously. and might have been a coincidence. but if so its a weird one
- brendyn 6y ago
  In japanese, the family name comes first so they actually line up naturally Nick Szabo Nakamoto Satoshi
  - SilasX 6y ago
    The same is true of Hungarian, which Szabo (“tailor”) comes from: https://www.thoughtco.com/szabo-last-name-meaning-and-origin-1422628 https://www.thoughtco.com/szabo-last-name-meaning-and-origin...
gabereiser 6y ago
The only thing we know for sure is that Hal knew Satoshi in some capacity. Anything else is speculation and/or conjecture.
kovach 6y ago
I believe it was actually 3 people: Phil Wilson, Craig Wright and Dave Kleiman. Phil left the project and deleted all evidence in 2011, when the FBI was getting involved. Dave died in 2013, and in 2015 Craig started to proclaim that he is Satoshi. The problem is, Craig is the least technical and least stable of the trio, so almost no one believes him. The source for this info is actually Phil, who comes back in 2017 to tell his story at http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html#bitcoin-origins http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html#bitcoin-origins Of course there is no hard evidence for this, so almost no one believes him as well. But I like the story, and matches some of my priors, so I'm sticking with it. There is also the ongoing lawsuit of the Kleiman estate vs Craig, for the Tulip Trust, a large cache of bitcoins they mined together. The jury trial is scheduled for October 13, so that might also expand on the story when it's concluded: https://coingeek.com/kleiman-v-wright-trial-delayed-until-october-13/ https://coingeek.com/kleiman-v-wright-trial-delayed-until-oc...
- nullc 6y ago
  Please don't promote these despicable scammers.

Hal is the person I believe was Satoshi. All of the evidence points to him more than anyone else I have read about. But wanting to keep his identity secret makes perfect sense given what happened.

FrendlyReminder 6y ago

I don't believe it at all and there's plenty of evidence to the contrary that people can find for themselves. That's my honest opinion and you are entitled to yours, fairly sure no one will ever know for certain. There's a journalist that went deep diving on this and came out with the same conclusion, from timelines to stylometric analysis, it doesn't add up to being Hal. He's just that guy who actually listened on the mailing list rather than be the snarky one where everyone else nods in agreement congratulating themselves how smart they are. In the last years of his abled life, the man was getting involved in whatever cutting edge technology he could find, most of this is documented, nearly all of them failed, except for twitter and bitcoin. He's now cryopreserved, something that has virtually no chance of ever succeeding in the next 1000 years, yet...

nobrains 6y ago
My guesstimate is Nick Szabo.
- bhaak 6y ago
  If you look at Szabo's twitter feed these days, I surely hope he isn't. Luckily, there is not that much that points towards him being Satoshi: https://archive.is/N3rYx https://archive.is/N3rYx https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/12/16/no-nick-szabo-wasnt-satoshi-in-2014-either/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/12/16/no-nick-szab...
  - svd4anything 6y ago
    His twitter feed is very libertarian and Austrian economics themed. That doesn’t surprise me at all, should it?
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      He says he hopes it isn't him, not that it lends evidence against it.
      - svd4anything 6y ago
        I understand but that’s a strange hope a bit based on his twitter bring too right-wing or libertarian than he would prefer, yet those beliefs are actually very consistent with a lot of Satoshi’s known leanings and beliefs. The block zero comment is pretty libertarian for example and many of his comments on email lists are also. So it’s a bit illogical for the OP to hope for otherwise.
        mhluongo 6y ago
        I'm a libertarian Bitcoiner myself, and I hope it's not Szabo. You can be right libertarian without being a xenophobe or an outright racist.
        svd4anything 6y ago
        I guess I missed the xenophobia and racism in his twitter feed. That wouldn’t surprise me however I’m just not sure what you are referring to specifically.
        someguydave 6y ago
        you can also be right libertarian without demeaning others with modern-day heresy accusations
    - seibelj 6y ago
      Expecting Satoshi not to be libertarian is like expecting Karl Marx not to be socialist. Satoshi devoted his life to creating uncensorable money outside of government control!
      - nix23 6y ago
  - justinmeiners 6y ago
    > hope he isn't You wish he was more like you? This is a good reason why he hid his identity. Any real person would be more disappointing then the legend constructed in imagination.
    - bhaak 6y ago
      Yes, there's not much that can destroy a legend easier than meeting them in person. But it in this case, the legend was a rather nice person. Getting this aspect of his personality destroyed would be a shame.
      - justinmeiners 6y ago
        Is he mean? Or do associate those views with mean people. I just don't understand why everyone needs to be a PR polished suit. These people work on computers, not administer public policy. We can appreciate their contributions and ignore their quirks or the fact they don't have all the popular opinions.
        bhaak 6y ago
        It's the other way around. Just because somebody is good in one area that doesn't mean they have any authority in another, unrelated one. Putting people on a podest and excusing untolerable behavior is plain toxic. It is not wanting that everyone needs to be a PR polished suit, just wanting that people are decent human beings.
        justinmeiners 6y ago
        > Just because somebody is good in one area that doesn't mean they have any authority in another Precisely what I am saying. We can applaud Nick for contributions to cryptography without importing his views of other things. We don't have to weigh his political opinions at all. > just wanting that people are decent human beings. This sounds to me like "having views I like, because only undecent people would think otherwise". Do you have an instance of Nick being nasty or indecent?
  - nobrains 6y ago
    Maybe it's to throw off people...
  - boredumb 6y ago
    >If you look at Szabo's twitter feed these days, I surely hope he isn't. I just glanced at it and it looks innocuously right wing. In the context of being contender for the creator of a decentralized currency I was expecting a "far-right" libertarian type.
tim333 6y ago
Dunno about virtually no chance - we just need exponential improvements in scanning and computing to go on a while longer.
seibelj 6y ago
The fact he lived very close to Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto (2 blocks away) is the most damning evidence to me. Explains why he selected that name - he thought it was a good name and he noticed it! Secondly him being the first person to respond to Satoshi is highly suspect to me, he could have been responding to himself.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Huh, that's an interesting fact! I wonder what percentage of people outside of Japan live that close to someone named Satoshi Nakamoto?
- lallysingh 6y ago
  That's a terrible reason!! Name your alias as Other Guy in My Town? What kind of idiot would do that? He's not collecting packages.
  - ivalm 6y ago
    I mean, more likely to be primed by a name of a guy in the town then randomly selecting a low prevalence name that happens to ALSO be the name of the guy in the town. It’s not that the marginal probability of using a known name is high, it’s that for a fact the name used IS a known name that makes it suspect.
  - em3rgent0rdr 6y ago
    People do choose aliases by odd relations like this.
    - lallysingh 6y ago
      Yes, but I'd expect the inventor of Bitcoin to be a little not-dumb about it.
- nadaviv 6y ago
  Source?
bdcravens 6y ago
> ather than be the snarky one where everyone else nods in agreement Satoshi's discussions on BitcoinTalk were definitely not snarky, but fairly well measured and objective.

api 6y ago

If the creator of Bitcoin is in cryostasis, then I propose that we officially move all cyberpunk novels to the nonfiction section. All we are missing is Rastafarians in space.

dfischer 6y ago
Better to put anything as nonfiction as fiction at this rate!

meowface 6y ago

There's zero good evidence it was him. There hasn't been good evidence for anyone named, so far. Him living kind of close to someone with the last name Nakamoto (it was actually more than two blocks away, I believe) is not good evidence whatsoever, and there's some specific circumstantial evidence to suggest they were different people. No, no smoking gun to disprove it, but no good case has ever been made.

dfischer 6y ago
Zero? Definitely more than zero. In fact you’ll find papers if you try that put the probability higher than anyone other than Nick S. But it doesn’t really matter in the end in my opinion. The whole point was to not have a godhead.
- meowface 6y ago
  I've read those papers. There's ostensible evidence put forward, but I find zero of it to be good evidence, personally. Nick Szabo is definitely a more likely match, with better evidence, but I think there's almost no chance it's him, either. >But it doesn’t really matter in the end in my opinion. The whole point was to not have a godhead. Of course; but it's not about that. It's about the mystery, the challenge, the thrill of the adventure. It's one of the absolute strangest and most enigmatic events in internet history - when else has some open source software blown up to even 0.0001% of this level with a 100% anonymous creator who no one's come close to identifying (that we know of)? Would I reveal who Satoshi was if I found out? Probably not. Their life would probably undeservedly become much harder and much worse. But I still sure as hell would be interested to know who made this thing. Also, if we know who it is, then we know who it isn't. Rumors over certain people being Satoshi can be very irresponsible.

syngrog66 6y ago

one of my pet theories was driven by a language observation. look at these two names written out side by side: Nick Szabo Satoshi Nakamoto the writer in me looks at those two names and sees a kind of echo/mirror/rearrangement pattern, as if someone was either trying to give a clue as to their real identity, or, to mislead in a playful way not decisive obviously. and might have been a coincidence. but if so its a weird one

brendyn 6y ago
In japanese, the family name comes first so they actually line up naturally Nick Szabo Nakamoto Satoshi
- SilasX 6y ago
  The same is true of Hungarian, which Szabo (“tailor”) comes from: https://www.thoughtco.com/szabo-last-name-meaning-and-origin-1422628 https://www.thoughtco.com/szabo-last-name-meaning-and-origin...

gabereiser 6y ago

The only thing we know for sure is that Hal knew Satoshi in some capacity. Anything else is speculation and/or conjecture.

kovach 6y ago

I believe it was actually 3 people: Phil Wilson, Craig Wright and Dave Kleiman. Phil left the project and deleted all evidence in 2011, when the FBI was getting involved. Dave died in 2013, and in 2015 Craig started to proclaim that he is Satoshi. The problem is, Craig is the least technical and least stable of the trio, so almost no one believes him. The source for this info is actually Phil, who comes back in 2017 to tell his story at http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html#bitcoin-origins http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html#bitcoin-origins Of course there is no hard evidence for this, so almost no one believes him as well. But I like the story, and matches some of my priors, so I'm sticking with it. There is also the ongoing lawsuit of the Kleiman estate vs Craig, for the Tulip Trust, a large cache of bitcoins they mined together. The jury trial is scheduled for October 13, so that might also expand on the story when it's concluded: https://coingeek.com/kleiman-v-wright-trial-delayed-until-october-13/ https://coingeek.com/kleiman-v-wright-trial-delayed-until-oc...

nullc 6y ago
Please don't promote these despicable scammers.