11 ms·

I Am Not Satoshi Nakamoto

165 points by zdw 5y ago

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I resent the implication from the person that wrote the letter that Bitcoin was made to make the rich richer. This is exactly the opposite reason I love Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. How can anyone look at the current extremely unequal world and think the system of endless printed money going to the people closest to the printer is working? https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/ https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-ameri... I dream of a decentralized world currency where you can trace where the money the governments use is going, exactly how much money is being created, and where poor people have a chance to not have their money constantly lose value. This is what got me going the first time I read The Age of Cryptocurrency from Vigna and Casey from the WSJ. https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cryptocurrency-Blockchain-Challenging-Economic/dp/1250081556 https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cryptocurrency-Blockchain-Challen...
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Doesn't Cryptocurrency have a significantly higher gini coefficient than most developed nations? Cryptocurrency might have not been created to make the rich richer, but that sure seems to be the outcome.
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html Vitalik answers this much more eloquently than I could. And I would say what is the Gini coefficient for stocks? It isn't great either. Crypto is in its infancy. Bitcoin was created in 2009. What was the Gini coefficient for the first US dollars, the Continentals, in 1775? I'm going to assume most went to those closest to and believing in that new currency. I make no apologies or excuses for crypto. I fully admit it isn't perfect. But I only state what it could be and dream of the future. That future I dream of is a more equitable society.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      > But in an internet community, measured inequality can come from two sources: (i) inequality in total resources available to different participants, and (ii) inequality in level of interest in participating in the community. Oh man, that is some seriously shaky foundations to rest your argument on. It also only holds for very early day cryptocurrencies; nowadays the main thing that limits your ability to hold a lot of crypto is not interest, but how much disposable income you've got. Maybe if you intended your cryptocurrency to remain niche this argument might be fine, but if your currency is supposed to replace fiat (as Bitcoin claims) then that argument is pure unadulterated bullshit. All it's saying is that inequality is fine because it's about who cared earlier, please ignore all the people that bought in with USD. I suspect that Vitalk knows he's playing a rhetorical trick here, he's too smart to not be aware of that. > The average person with $15 in fiat currency is poor and is missing out on the ability to have a good life. The average person with $15 in cryptocurrency is a dabbler who opened up a wallet once for fun. Inequality in level of interest is a healthy thing; every community has its dabblers and its full-time hardcore fans with no life. So if a cryptocurrency has a very high Gini coefficient, but it turns out that much of this inequality comes from inequality in level of interest, then the number points to a much less scary reality than the headlines imply. Yeah, except if your currency "wins" and replaces fiat, then that dabbler becomes a new feudal lord, and everyone who didn't have "interest" starves. Not really a comforting argument in that context, is it? Worse still if that "dabbler" "dabbled" because they had spare cash to spare; e.g. if they were already rich. > Cryptocurrencies, even those that turn out to be highly plutocratic, will not turn any part of the world into anything close to dystopia A. I do not trust this argument coming from someone who is in fact a plutocrat of a crypto currency.
- deleted 5y ago
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cyphertruck 5y ago
Of course he isn’t Satoshi. Satoshi isn’t a big mystery, but the person(s) deserves the anonymity they can maintain. Bitcoin is the one true thing that has not been corrupted in this world, despite the decade of FUD thrown at it. Bruce however has shown my esteem for him was misplaced, worse by linking to WIRED, which long ago became an ideological propaganda site with no interest in advanced technology. Bitcoiners would love a good anti-bitcoin argument. It’s a tragedy nobody has any.
- theparanoid 5y ago
  Bruce linked to his own opinion piece in Wired.
  - cyphertruck 5y ago
    That’s much worse. A shame he has proven to be corrupt, not even able to be honest in criticizing bitcoin.
    - monkeyfacebag 5y ago
      In fact it’s not worse at all. I guess when your attack on WIRED failed, you needed to find another target, huh?
- gnabgib 5y ago
  He linked to his own essay published by wired.
- pope_meat 5y ago
  A fixed supply that always grows in value doesn't encourage investment, just "hodl". And I ain't an economist, but hoarding wealth for the sake of hoarding wealth isn't good for society. If you have to invent another coin to encourage investment/spending rather than hoarding...well why not use that coin. I'm not entirely anti-crypto, I think Monero is neat.
  - 5y ago
tuyguntn 5y ago
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- tuyguntn 5y ago
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  - Satoshiyaex 5y ago
    Hi, I'm Satoshi. I lost my private keys to all wallets associated with that pseudonym so I cannot sign a message to prove it, but I swear on my (newly created) account that it is me. There's your hello. Do you now understand why people downvoted your comment?
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  - walrus01 5y ago
    there's a difference between a shitpost and a shit post.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  'sup bro!
unemphysbro 5y ago
** IRS noises intensifying **
- other_herbert 5y ago
  LOL my wife has this past year started keeping bees “keeping” they aren’t kept you are just lucky they like to live in boxes you provide… anyway this resonates with me because if you do things that alarm a few of them (thousand) they gradually alert the rest … that can really make you reconsider any action you take after that point
  - alophawen 5y ago
    Here's some periods for you: . . . .
spurgu 5y ago
Quickly skimming through the Wired piece, am I weird for not being that uncomfortable with companies like Coinbase managing your crypto? Or Namebase.io managing Handshake domains? Most people don't care about self-hosting/self-managing their stuff and just want something that works and is easy to use. With both of these (Bitcoin & HNS) you can still have 100% control over it if you choose to. So what if 90% of people decide to instead trust a third party with their holdings (like 100% now do with banks)? A portion of Coinbases holdings are even insured[0], gasp. And with regular banks you're paying increasing amounts in "management fees" to maintain this insurance. Cryptocurrencies have proven that you don't have to have traditional layers of trust and that's where I see the technological breakthrough. Disclaimer: Somewhat neutral about crypto in general. [0] The USD/EUR holding rather than crypto IIRC
- golemotron 5y ago
  > am I weird for not being that uncomfortable with companies like Coinbase managing your crypto? It's almost like using git, a decentralized version control system, through GitHub.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    It's actually completely different. Your code can co-exist on GitHub and your PC, which coins (mostly) can not [0]. Git's decentralization is also just a side feature, most people use it for managing versions and collaborating. On the coin side, though, decentralization is the main selling point. When you manage your coins via regulated exchange your really don't have much more than stocks with some added payment functionality. The threat scenario is completely different. [0] Technically, your code could still be stolen from GitHub, but it won't be a total loss like coins would be.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Most people don't care about self-hosting/self-managing their stuff and just want something that works and is easy to use. Crypto is no different to regular currencies in this regard. There's nothing stopping you from physically withdrawing all of your cash and stuffing it under your mattress. If you're concerned about the government devaluing your cash through dodgy bailouts of financial institutions, you can even convert a significant percentage of it to precious metals that you bury in your garden. The reality, though, is that people generally take the convenient option when presented with it.
arrakis2021 5y ago
N akamoto SA toshi
paulpauper 5y ago
A random person called me satoshi..so I am going to write an entire blog post about it.
- deleted 5y ago
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- dustintrex 5y ago
  Schneier is one of a fairly limited set people in the world who has the technical skills and background to be Satoshi, so it's not a completely ridiculous assertion. However, virtually nothing else about Schneier and Satoshi lines up, Schneier being a notable crypto skeptic and having distinctive writing style quite unlike Satoshi's. Nevertheless, he's prominent enough that it makes sense to forcefully deny the rumor, just to make it less likely that he'll be targeted by kidnappers, cranks, etc.
Cyclone_ 5y ago
I believe based on timestamps of forums posts they believe Satoshi is somewhere in Japan.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Someone may have come up with that theory, but 10 years ago there was an analysis that suggested he slept between 6am and 11am GMT, which fits best with a US timezone.[0] There is other timestamp evidence linking him to the US, but a recent analysis suggests that the totality of the data (including Satoshi's use of British/Commonwealth spelling, vernacular, and date format) indicate he was based in London or the UK.[1] [0] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37743.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37743.0 [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/new-research-suggests-satoshi-nakamoto-lived-in-london-creating-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/new-research-suggests-satoshi-nakam...
SkyMarshal 5y ago
> For the record, I am not Satoshi Nakamoto. I suppose I could have invented the bitcoin protocols... That's not a given. Nick Szabo provides a good explanation [1] of the state of things when Bitcoin was invented, and why very few people were capable of it then: "The overlap between cryptographic experts and libertarians who might sympathize with such a "gold bug" idea is already rather small, since most cryptographic experts earn their living in academia and share its political biases. Even among this uncommon intersection as stated very few people thought it was a good idea. Even gold bugs didn't care for it because we already have real gold rather than mere bits and we can pay online simply by issuing digital certificates based on real gold stored in real vaults, a la the formerly popular e-gold." Schneier has the cryptographic knowledge, but I've never gotten the sense he as any deep interest in the nature of money, at least not enough to drive him to put together something like Bitcoin. That drive, that obsession with something, is a prerequisite for making something as unprecented and dissimilar to anything previously existing as Bitcoin. [1]:https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-ye-so-long.html https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-...
- Sebb767 5y ago
  I think the could is meant as "technically, it would have been in my skillset to create something akin to this". It's clear that either motivation and/or ideas were missing, otherwise we would be crediting him for inventing bitcoin ;)
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    Afaik he doesn't actually have the full skillset required. He has the cryptographic and systems knowledge, but not the deep interest in or knowledge of monetary theory. The latter is prereq too.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      I guess that's a theoretical question in the end, but it's definitely a valid point.
- 5y ago
seibelj 5y ago
Hal Finney is Satoshi, IMO. Not only is he the first person to respond to Satoshi and receive bitcoin, he lived minutes away from Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, an unrelated person who Newsweek falsely claimed was Satoshi. Satoshi also stopped posting at the same time Hal's ALS disease became unbearable, and after Hal's death Satoshi never posted again. I believe Hal either interacted with Dorian or drove by his house and saw the name, and decided he liked it as a pseudonym. RIP Hal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist...
- 0des 5y ago
  This is a likely and plausible assumption.
- dools 5y ago
  I reckon this guy has hit the nail on the head: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=628344.msg48198887#msg48198887 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=628344.msg48198887#m... "I contend that James Simons put the team together that made up Satoshi Nakamoto and that Nick Szabo was the main public-facing voice behind the nym." The overlap of Austro-libertarianism and crypto is not an accident.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  Satoshi isn't Hal, and please stop suggesting it is. You put Hal's family in danger with this nonsense.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Alternatively, the suggestion that Satoshi's billions are lost forever with Hal's death is perhaps the best way to stop treasure hunters from doing some nasty things to the other potential Satoshi candidates who are still alive.
    - nullc 5y ago
      These "billions" are conjectural based on limited analysis of early minded blocks with no-to-little connection to Satoshi, FWIW. Essentially there are a set of early blocks which have never been spent whos structure indicated non-standard software was used to mine them. People assume Satoshi because that's the exciting thing to assume, and it isn't like anyone else who mined a lot of Bitcoin early on is becoming increasingly eager to self-identify and potentially get themselves targeted for kidnapping. The pattern started a couple weeks after Bitcoin started and continued until it had mined on the order of 16k blocks. Sometimes people use figures which are dramatically higher which come from counting literally every block in the first year which is unspent, not just ones matching that pattern. That is provably a radical overestimate, as it includes blocks mined by varrious known parties. A common characterisic of almost all musing about Satoshi is extensive confirmation bias e.g. "Satoshi was an early Bitcoin user thus any early Bitcoin user is satoshi!". In any case, regardless of who Satoshi is/was, wouldn't you like to live in the timeline where some early Bitcoin fortune was used to fund turning cryonics into something that works? Hal is cryogenically preserved, so maybe he's not dead-- only resting [1]. :) I think the idea that someone managed to get cryonic recovery working specifically because they believed doing so would get them access to a Bitcoin fortune would make for an amusing science fiction novel. ... and really, Science Fiction would be an aspirational level of rigor for most speculation about the identity of Bitcoin's creator. Fortunately, Bitcoin was designed so that it hopefully doesn't matter who created it. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2evdr8/hal_finney_19562014/ck3dq61/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2evdr8/hal_finney_...
ailac 5y ago
That is exactly what Satoshi Nakamoto would say.
- maximp 5y ago
  Of course, it's also what not Satoshi Nakamoto would say!
tptacek 5y ago
Bitcoin uses elliptic curves. Schneier has infamously forsworn them, saying he doesn't trust the math. He hasn't to my knowledge (admittedly limited!) published any analyses of elliptic curve systems. He didn't need to tell anyone he wasn't Satoshi Nakamoto.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Not quite: he doesn't trust the constants. That's a big difference. He believes based on reading secret Snowden papers that the NSA has manipulated them via relationships with the industry. There are other curves that are NOT from NIST, like C25519, that are popular. In fact, the twisted edwards curve computation variant is also growing, which isn't the "traditional" (does that even make sense?) elliptic curve. Now that doesn't mean the NSA hasn't fiddled with C25519, but I'd be surprised if they mind-controlled (or extorted) Bernstein into publishing a compromised curve.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    My feeling is that I could back up both of these statements; the one you made, but also the one I made. He was saying these things before Snowden. And: again, just look at what he's published. He's not Satoshi. (The NIST P-curves aren't backdoored.)
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - SavantIdiot 5y ago
      > I could back up both of these statements; That's what I did, Bernstein could be compromised. > He's not Satoshi. I sat on a panel with him at an Arm conference, he's a great guy and easy to talk to and doesn't write anything like Satoshi: but I could care less if he is Satoshi. FWIW, I, too, think crypto currency is a huge scam.
      - nullc 5y ago
        The design of Curve25519 and its analogs has an extremely limited design space. If there is an engineered weakness in Curve25519 than it is likely that any curve that we could select would be likely to have the same unknown weakness. In the literature this is called "rigid" design.
bouncycastle 5y ago
Here we go again. Everyone just goes off on a tangent and the comments section develops into another flame war! Flagging this.
voxic11 5y ago
I thought this youtuber makes a good argument Satoshi is Adam Back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcvX0P1b5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcvX0P1b5g
- arrakis2021 5y ago
  Saw it a while back it’s pretty compelling that it is Adam
  - cyphertruck 5y ago
    It’s not Adam. Adam was “late” to Bitcoin. Saying it is Adam is a psyop from some anti-bitcoin types. I’ve read the code and Adam’s code and interacted with Adam a great deal and read everything Satoshi wrote.
    - voxic11 5y ago
      Adam claims he wasn't late, he claims to have corresponded with Satoshi from the beginning of the project, though he hasn't shown any proof of this.
  - nullc 5y ago
    That is disinfo mostly being circulated by anti-bitcoin types who are trying to cause problems for Adam. It has no basis in reality.
0des 5y ago
While I can't say who I think is Satoshi Nakamoto, I can say that I believe with all my heart Craig S Wright is NOT Satoshi Nakamoto.
- burnte 5y ago
  I don't know who it was, but I can agree with you I don't think it was Craig, and I can say with 75% certainty that I am not Satoshi Nakamoto, as well.
AnonC 5y ago
The linked article [1] from 2019 has this: > Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless. They're only used by speculators looking for quick riches, people who don't like government-backed currencies, and criminals who want a black-market way to exchange money. I guess “cryptocurrencies” could be replaced in this paragraph by many other things (past, present and forthcoming) that allow exchange of value and this would ring true to some or many people. The entire article had many great points, but this paragraph sullied it. I have a lot of respect for Bruce Schneier and his work, but I also realize that every human has their own biases and blind spots.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  > I guess “cryptocurrencies” could be replaced in this paragraph by many other things (past, present and forthcoming) that allow exchange of value and this would ring true to some or many people Outside of the exclusions given in the original quote what kinds of things might be examples?
rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
Speculating on the identity of Satoshi is unproductive, and false accusations can put people in real danger.
joseluis 5y ago
this will become more obvious as time passes, specially after November, but for whomever is ready now to explore beyond the intoxicating veil of pervasive propaganda and censorship in the space, this article will prove itself useful for connecting crucial pieces of information and perspectives that can tear apart many preconceptions and falsehoods: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-believe-craig-wright-most-likely-satoshi-zeming-m-gao https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-believe-craig-wright-mo...
mbar84 5y ago
No shit. Bitcoin is both a technological, economic and a political project. Nobody who understands this would mistake Schneier for a likely candidate to be the creator of Bitcoin.
trixie_ 5y ago
It’s probably some hacker who wrote open source windows encryption software who had a real need to transfer money internationally outside of traditional banks. But what do I know.
arrakis2021 5y ago
N akamoto SA toshi

165 points by zdw 5y ago

I resent the implication from the person that wrote the letter that Bitcoin was made to make the rich richer. This is exactly the opposite reason I love Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. How can anyone look at the current extremely unequal world and think the system of endless printed money going to the people closest to the printer is working? https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/ https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-ameri... I dream of a decentralized world currency where you can trace where the money the governments use is going, exactly how much money is being created, and where poor people have a chance to not have their money constantly lose value. This is what got me going the first time I read The Age of Cryptocurrency from Vigna and Casey from the WSJ. https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cryptocurrency-Blockchain-Challenging-Economic/dp/1250081556 https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cryptocurrency-Blockchain-Challen...

ashtonkem 5y ago
Doesn't Cryptocurrency have a significantly higher gini coefficient than most developed nations? Cryptocurrency might have not been created to make the rich richer, but that sure seems to be the outcome.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html Vitalik answers this much more eloquently than I could. And I would say what is the Gini coefficient for stocks? It isn't great either. Crypto is in its infancy. Bitcoin was created in 2009. What was the Gini coefficient for the first US dollars, the Continentals, in 1775? I'm going to assume most went to those closest to and believing in that new currency. I make no apologies or excuses for crypto. I fully admit it isn't perfect. But I only state what it could be and dream of the future. That future I dream of is a more equitable society.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    > But in an internet community, measured inequality can come from two sources: (i) inequality in total resources available to different participants, and (ii) inequality in level of interest in participating in the community. Oh man, that is some seriously shaky foundations to rest your argument on. It also only holds for very early day cryptocurrencies; nowadays the main thing that limits your ability to hold a lot of crypto is not interest, but how much disposable income you've got. Maybe if you intended your cryptocurrency to remain niche this argument might be fine, but if your currency is supposed to replace fiat (as Bitcoin claims) then that argument is pure unadulterated bullshit. All it's saying is that inequality is fine because it's about who cared earlier, please ignore all the people that bought in with USD. I suspect that Vitalk knows he's playing a rhetorical trick here, he's too smart to not be aware of that. > The average person with $15 in fiat currency is poor and is missing out on the ability to have a good life. The average person with $15 in cryptocurrency is a dabbler who opened up a wallet once for fun. Inequality in level of interest is a healthy thing; every community has its dabblers and its full-time hardcore fans with no life. So if a cryptocurrency has a very high Gini coefficient, but it turns out that much of this inequality comes from inequality in level of interest, then the number points to a much less scary reality than the headlines imply. Yeah, except if your currency "wins" and replaces fiat, then that dabbler becomes a new feudal lord, and everyone who didn't have "interest" starves. Not really a comforting argument in that context, is it? Worse still if that "dabbler" "dabbled" because they had spare cash to spare; e.g. if they were already rich. > Cryptocurrencies, even those that turn out to be highly plutocratic, will not turn any part of the world into anything close to dystopia A. I do not trust this argument coming from someone who is in fact a plutocrat of a crypto currency.
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cyphertruck 5y ago

Of course he isn’t Satoshi. Satoshi isn’t a big mystery, but the person(s) deserves the anonymity they can maintain. Bitcoin is the one true thing that has not been corrupted in this world, despite the decade of FUD thrown at it. Bruce however has shown my esteem for him was misplaced, worse by linking to WIRED, which long ago became an ideological propaganda site with no interest in advanced technology. Bitcoiners would love a good anti-bitcoin argument. It’s a tragedy nobody has any.

theparanoid 5y ago
Bruce linked to his own opinion piece in Wired.
- cyphertruck 5y ago
  That’s much worse. A shame he has proven to be corrupt, not even able to be honest in criticizing bitcoin.
  - monkeyfacebag 5y ago
    In fact it’s not worse at all. I guess when your attack on WIRED failed, you needed to find another target, huh?
gnabgib 5y ago
He linked to his own essay published by wired.
pope_meat 5y ago
A fixed supply that always grows in value doesn't encourage investment, just "hodl". And I ain't an economist, but hoarding wealth for the sake of hoarding wealth isn't good for society. If you have to invent another coin to encourage investment/spending rather than hoarding...well why not use that coin. I'm not entirely anti-crypto, I think Monero is neat.
- 5y ago

tuyguntn 5y ago

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tuyguntn 5y ago
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- Satoshiyaex 5y ago
  Hi, I'm Satoshi. I lost my private keys to all wallets associated with that pseudonym so I cannot sign a message to prove it, but I swear on my (newly created) account that it is me. There's your hello. Do you now understand why people downvoted your comment?
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- walrus01 5y ago
  there's a difference between a shitpost and a shit post.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
'sup bro!

unemphysbro 5y ago

** IRS noises intensifying **

other_herbert 5y ago
LOL my wife has this past year started keeping bees “keeping” they aren’t kept you are just lucky they like to live in boxes you provide… anyway this resonates with me because if you do things that alarm a few of them (thousand) they gradually alert the rest … that can really make you reconsider any action you take after that point
- alophawen 5y ago
  Here's some periods for you: . . . .

spurgu 5y ago

Quickly skimming through the Wired piece, am I weird for not being that uncomfortable with companies like Coinbase managing your crypto? Or Namebase.io managing Handshake domains? Most people don't care about self-hosting/self-managing their stuff and just want something that works and is easy to use. With both of these (Bitcoin & HNS) you can still have 100% control over it if you choose to. So what if 90% of people decide to instead trust a third party with their holdings (like 100% now do with banks)? A portion of Coinbases holdings are even insured[0], gasp. And with regular banks you're paying increasing amounts in "management fees" to maintain this insurance. Cryptocurrencies have proven that you don't have to have traditional layers of trust and that's where I see the technological breakthrough. Disclaimer: Somewhat neutral about crypto in general. [0] The USD/EUR holding rather than crypto IIRC

golemotron 5y ago
> am I weird for not being that uncomfortable with companies like Coinbase managing your crypto? It's almost like using git, a decentralized version control system, through GitHub.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  It's actually completely different. Your code can co-exist on GitHub and your PC, which coins (mostly) can not [0]. Git's decentralization is also just a side feature, most people use it for managing versions and collaborating. On the coin side, though, decentralization is the main selling point. When you manage your coins via regulated exchange your really don't have much more than stocks with some added payment functionality. The threat scenario is completely different. [0] Technically, your code could still be stolen from GitHub, but it won't be a total loss like coins would be.
AussieWog93 5y ago
>Most people don't care about self-hosting/self-managing their stuff and just want something that works and is easy to use. Crypto is no different to regular currencies in this regard. There's nothing stopping you from physically withdrawing all of your cash and stuffing it under your mattress. If you're concerned about the government devaluing your cash through dodgy bailouts of financial institutions, you can even convert a significant percentage of it to precious metals that you bury in your garden. The reality, though, is that people generally take the convenient option when presented with it.

arrakis2021 5y ago

N akamoto SA toshi

paulpauper 5y ago

A random person called me satoshi..so I am going to write an entire blog post about it.

deleted 5y ago
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dustintrex 5y ago
Schneier is one of a fairly limited set people in the world who has the technical skills and background to be Satoshi, so it's not a completely ridiculous assertion. However, virtually nothing else about Schneier and Satoshi lines up, Schneier being a notable crypto skeptic and having distinctive writing style quite unlike Satoshi's. Nevertheless, he's prominent enough that it makes sense to forcefully deny the rumor, just to make it less likely that he'll be targeted by kidnappers, cranks, etc.

Cyclone_ 5y ago

I believe based on timestamps of forums posts they believe Satoshi is somewhere in Japan.

dane-pgp 5y ago
Someone may have come up with that theory, but 10 years ago there was an analysis that suggested he slept between 6am and 11am GMT, which fits best with a US timezone.[0] There is other timestamp evidence linking him to the US, but a recent analysis suggests that the totality of the data (including Satoshi's use of British/Commonwealth spelling, vernacular, and date format) indicate he was based in London or the UK.[1] [0] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37743.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37743.0 [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/new-research-suggests-satoshi-nakamoto-lived-in-london-creating-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/new-research-suggests-satoshi-nakam...

SkyMarshal 5y ago

> For the record, I am not Satoshi Nakamoto. I suppose I could have invented the bitcoin protocols... That's not a given. Nick Szabo provides a good explanation [1] of the state of things when Bitcoin was invented, and why very few people were capable of it then: "The overlap between cryptographic experts and libertarians who might sympathize with such a "gold bug" idea is already rather small, since most cryptographic experts earn their living in academia and share its political biases. Even among this uncommon intersection as stated very few people thought it was a good idea. Even gold bugs didn't care for it because we already have real gold rather than mere bits and we can pay online simply by issuing digital certificates based on real gold stored in real vaults, a la the formerly popular e-gold." Schneier has the cryptographic knowledge, but I've never gotten the sense he as any deep interest in the nature of money, at least not enough to drive him to put together something like Bitcoin. That drive, that obsession with something, is a prerequisite for making something as unprecented and dissimilar to anything previously existing as Bitcoin. [1]:https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-ye-so-long.html https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-...

Sebb767 5y ago
I think the could is meant as "technically, it would have been in my skillset to create something akin to this". It's clear that either motivation and/or ideas were missing, otherwise we would be crediting him for inventing bitcoin ;)
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  Afaik he doesn't actually have the full skillset required. He has the cryptographic and systems knowledge, but not the deep interest in or knowledge of monetary theory. The latter is prereq too.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    I guess that's a theoretical question in the end, but it's definitely a valid point.
5y ago

seibelj 5y ago

Hal Finney is Satoshi, IMO. Not only is he the first person to respond to Satoshi and receive bitcoin, he lived minutes away from Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, an unrelated person who Newsweek falsely claimed was Satoshi. Satoshi also stopped posting at the same time Hal's ALS disease became unbearable, and after Hal's death Satoshi never posted again. I believe Hal either interacted with Dorian or drove by his house and saw the name, and decided he liked it as a pseudonym. RIP Hal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist...

0des 5y ago
This is a likely and plausible assumption.
dools 5y ago
I reckon this guy has hit the nail on the head: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=628344.msg48198887#msg48198887 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=628344.msg48198887#m... "I contend that James Simons put the team together that made up Satoshi Nakamoto and that Nick Szabo was the main public-facing voice behind the nym." The overlap of Austro-libertarianism and crypto is not an accident.
rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
Satoshi isn't Hal, and please stop suggesting it is. You put Hal's family in danger with this nonsense.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Alternatively, the suggestion that Satoshi's billions are lost forever with Hal's death is perhaps the best way to stop treasure hunters from doing some nasty things to the other potential Satoshi candidates who are still alive.
  - nullc 5y ago
    These "billions" are conjectural based on limited analysis of early minded blocks with no-to-little connection to Satoshi, FWIW. Essentially there are a set of early blocks which have never been spent whos structure indicated non-standard software was used to mine them. People assume Satoshi because that's the exciting thing to assume, and it isn't like anyone else who mined a lot of Bitcoin early on is becoming increasingly eager to self-identify and potentially get themselves targeted for kidnapping. The pattern started a couple weeks after Bitcoin started and continued until it had mined on the order of 16k blocks. Sometimes people use figures which are dramatically higher which come from counting literally every block in the first year which is unspent, not just ones matching that pattern. That is provably a radical overestimate, as it includes blocks mined by varrious known parties. A common characterisic of almost all musing about Satoshi is extensive confirmation bias e.g. "Satoshi was an early Bitcoin user thus any early Bitcoin user is satoshi!". In any case, regardless of who Satoshi is/was, wouldn't you like to live in the timeline where some early Bitcoin fortune was used to fund turning cryonics into something that works? Hal is cryogenically preserved, so maybe he's not dead-- only resting [1]. :) I think the idea that someone managed to get cryonic recovery working specifically because they believed doing so would get them access to a Bitcoin fortune would make for an amusing science fiction novel. ... and really, Science Fiction would be an aspirational level of rigor for most speculation about the identity of Bitcoin's creator. Fortunately, Bitcoin was designed so that it hopefully doesn't matter who created it. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2evdr8/hal_finney_19562014/ck3dq61/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2evdr8/hal_finney_...

ailac 5y ago

That is exactly what Satoshi Nakamoto would say.

maximp 5y ago
Of course, it's also what not Satoshi Nakamoto would say!

tptacek 5y ago

Bitcoin uses elliptic curves. Schneier has infamously forsworn them, saying he doesn't trust the math. He hasn't to my knowledge (admittedly limited!) published any analyses of elliptic curve systems. He didn't need to tell anyone he wasn't Satoshi Nakamoto.

SavantIdiot 5y ago
Not quite: he doesn't trust the constants. That's a big difference. He believes based on reading secret Snowden papers that the NSA has manipulated them via relationships with the industry. There are other curves that are NOT from NIST, like C25519, that are popular. In fact, the twisted edwards curve computation variant is also growing, which isn't the "traditional" (does that even make sense?) elliptic curve. Now that doesn't mean the NSA hasn't fiddled with C25519, but I'd be surprised if they mind-controlled (or extorted) Bernstein into publishing a compromised curve.
- tptacek 5y ago
  My feeling is that I could back up both of these statements; the one you made, but also the one I made. He was saying these things before Snowden. And: again, just look at what he's published. He's not Satoshi. (The NIST P-curves aren't backdoored.)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    > I could back up both of these statements; That's what I did, Bernstein could be compromised. > He's not Satoshi. I sat on a panel with him at an Arm conference, he's a great guy and easy to talk to and doesn't write anything like Satoshi: but I could care less if he is Satoshi. FWIW, I, too, think crypto currency is a huge scam.
    - nullc 5y ago
      The design of Curve25519 and its analogs has an extremely limited design space. If there is an engineered weakness in Curve25519 than it is likely that any curve that we could select would be likely to have the same unknown weakness. In the literature this is called "rigid" design.

bouncycastle 5y ago

Here we go again. Everyone just goes off on a tangent and the comments section develops into another flame war! Flagging this.

voxic11 5y ago

I thought this youtuber makes a good argument Satoshi is Adam Back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcvX0P1b5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcvX0P1b5g

arrakis2021 5y ago
Saw it a while back it’s pretty compelling that it is Adam
- cyphertruck 5y ago
  It’s not Adam. Adam was “late” to Bitcoin. Saying it is Adam is a psyop from some anti-bitcoin types. I’ve read the code and Adam’s code and interacted with Adam a great deal and read everything Satoshi wrote.
  - voxic11 5y ago
    Adam claims he wasn't late, he claims to have corresponded with Satoshi from the beginning of the project, though he hasn't shown any proof of this.
- nullc 5y ago
  That is disinfo mostly being circulated by anti-bitcoin types who are trying to cause problems for Adam. It has no basis in reality.

0des 5y ago

While I can't say who I think is Satoshi Nakamoto, I can say that I believe with all my heart Craig S Wright is NOT Satoshi Nakamoto.

burnte 5y ago
I don't know who it was, but I can agree with you I don't think it was Craig, and I can say with 75% certainty that I am not Satoshi Nakamoto, as well.

AnonC 5y ago

The linked article [1] from 2019 has this: > Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless. They're only used by speculators looking for quick riches, people who don't like government-backed currencies, and criminals who want a black-market way to exchange money. I guess “cryptocurrencies” could be replaced in this paragraph by many other things (past, present and forthcoming) that allow exchange of value and this would ring true to some or many people. The entire article had many great points, but this paragraph sullied it. I have a lot of respect for Bruce Schneier and his work, but I also realize that every human has their own biases and blind spots.

zamadatix 5y ago
> I guess “cryptocurrencies” could be replaced in this paragraph by many other things (past, present and forthcoming) that allow exchange of value and this would ring true to some or many people Outside of the exclusions given in the original quote what kinds of things might be examples?

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago

Speculating on the identity of Satoshi is unproductive, and false accusations can put people in real danger.

joseluis 5y ago

this will become more obvious as time passes, specially after November, but for whomever is ready now to explore beyond the intoxicating veil of pervasive propaganda and censorship in the space, this article will prove itself useful for connecting crucial pieces of information and perspectives that can tear apart many preconceptions and falsehoods: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-believe-craig-wright-most-likely-satoshi-zeming-m-gao https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-believe-craig-wright-mo...

mbar84 5y ago

No shit. Bitcoin is both a technological, economic and a political project. Nobody who understands this would mistake Schneier for a likely candidate to be the creator of Bitcoin.

trixie_ 5y ago

It’s probably some hacker who wrote open source windows encryption software who had a real need to transfer money internationally outside of traditional banks. But what do I know.

arrakis2021 5y ago

N akamoto SA toshi