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Another court case fails to unlock the mystery of Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto

h2odragon 4y ago
Lots of speculation about who Satoshi was; some code wasn't so brilliant, the idea was, etc. looking at the question today the smartest action he took was maintaining anonymity (no small task then) and the second smartest was bailing out before the predators began to use his work. I am convinced (with no evidence to offer others) that there are several people who know how the original bitcoin work came together and became public; probably not all of them were involved. Those who were not involved directly have Snowden as an example of "why we don't talk about that."
- RL_Quine 4y ago
  There's nothing whatsoever about the code released for Bitcoin which is "not brilliant". It is concise, it escapes all of the normal vulnerabilities you would expect to find in code that has extensive network access, and absolutely anybody can jump into the repository and get a very solid understanding of what is going on for what was then a completely novel and unheard of system. It is tightly integrated for its purpose, but there was no necessity for it be anything else, and it enabled the code to be released when it was. "Satoshi was a bad coder" has absolutely no basis in reality.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    From http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bitcoin.html http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bi... > It turns out that actually using the Bitcoin protocol is harder than I expected. As you will see, the protocol is a bit of a jumble: it uses big-endian numbers, little-endian numbers, fixed-length numbers, variable-length numbers, custom encodings, DER encoding, and a variety of cryptographic algorithms, seemingly arbitrarily. As a result, there's a lot of annoying manipulation to get data into the right format. At least s/he should have made everything big-endian or little-endian.
    - RL_Quine 4y ago
      Satoshi assembled something that works out of the primitives available, and that is party of the reason that it was able to be produced to begin with. Taken in isolation it is already of mind boggling complexity, and it had to be presented to people who didn't have any clue what a distributed consensus is even shaped like. Some hashes being in the wrong endianness, serializations being a bit funky are irrelevant in the larger picture. Knowing that it isn't the place to make your own serialization for ECDSA signatures and just using what was available in OpenSSL is the hallmark of a great coder, else the project might never have been realized in the first place.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - nibbleshifter 4y ago
      That's largely a result of relying on OpenSSL to build your shit.
achow 4y ago
Excerpt From: Kings of Crypto. (A book on Coinbase) So who is Satoshi Nakamoto? ..there’s enough evidence to make a strong guess about who the white paper’s author really is. The signs point to an American polymath named Nick Szabo. Szabo is a lawyer and sophisticated coder with deep ties to an online community, known as cypherpunks, that spent years experimenting with digital money. This community shares a love of cryptography and a deep distrust of government, which is reflected in Szabo’s Twitter feed and rare public appearances. While there are other cypherpunks closely associated with the first days of bitcoin—notably, the late programmer Hal Finney—some big clues point to Szabo as the paper’s author. These include anecdotes, set out by New York Times reporter and Digital Gold author Nathaniel Popper, that put Szabo at the center of early development of bitcoin. Additionally, linguists have compared the white paper and Satoshi’s emails with writing samples from Szabo, Finney, and other possible candidates. Szabo is far and away the closest match. Satoshi Nakamoto’s initials are also the inverse of Nick Szabo’s. It could be a coincidence. All of it could be a coincidence. But if you subscribe to the philosophical principle known as Occam’s Razor, which holds that simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones, it makes far more sense to accept that Szabo is the author than to insist it’s either someone else or a mystery incapable of being unraveled. In fact, most longtime bitcoin owners will concede quietly in a one-on-one conversation that they, too, accept Szabo as Satoshi. Just don’t ask them to do it publicly.
- glitchc 4y ago
  It’s unlikely to be Szabo. He has already publicly denied it numerous times.
  - aflag 4y ago
    That's exactly what the real Satoshi Nakamoto would say!
  - hresvelgr 4y ago
    It's not in their interest to confirm if they are indeed Satoshi. Pretty sure their wallet is worth over a billion USD, and irrespective of whether they have access to it anymore, someone will probably want to try and extract that from them forcibly.
anm89 4y ago
Cmon. We all know it's Szabo
300bps 4y ago
Craig Wright has now been called out as dishonest by multiple judges from multiple cases. https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-slams-craig-wright-for-forged-documents-and-perjured-testimony https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-slams-craig-wright-for-... Look up the history of the 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF wallet that Craig claimed in court documents to own but actually contains coins stolen from Mt Gox. https://mylegacykit.medium.com/the-faketoshi-tale-of-1feex-5dbeb230a090 https://mylegacykit.medium.com/the-faketoshi-tale-of-1feex-5...
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  It's 100% not Craig Wright, that man is a habitual liar.
Kukumber 4y ago
My guess: Satoshi doesn't exist, it's a code name, and it's a CIA/FED project to test digital currencies, we all know the digital USD / EUR are coming, what better way to test the security and get ideas/suggestions? Releasing it in the wild is perfect for that Why do i believe this? No western government wanted to ban or regulate them despite massive adoption, money laundering risks, scams, ponzi schemes, insider trading and all the nice stuff that comes with it Bonus: https://whoissatoshi.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/satoshi-in-california/ https://whoissatoshi.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/satoshi-in-cal... Just like with DDG, what a surprise :D ;)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nslzk 4y ago
  Why would they ban it when they can tax it instead and benefit from it?
  - Kukumber 4y ago
    Because it is used to circumvent international trade sanctions, and for illegal activities (drugs, weapons and dark sexual activities) You can't tax a transaction in cryptocurrency
    - game-of-throws 4y ago
      0.5% of Bitcoin's volume is illegal activity. [1] 11%-12% of the USA's economy is illegal activity. [2] If you wanted to commit a crime or evade taxes, probably the dumbest thing you could do is record permanent evidence on a public, immutable ledger. [1]: https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-and-anti-money-laundering-report/ https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-a... > Cash—anonymous and liquid—has long served as a tool for criminals. Cryptocurrency, with its similar characteristics, may likewise struggle to ever completely shake its bad reputation, despite illicit transactions making up less than 0.5% of Bitcoin’s yearly volume in 2020. [2]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big-underground-economy-america.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big... > Estimates vary widely, but some put the underground economy at 11% to 12% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).
kkfx 4y ago
IMVHO instead of trying to know "details" I'll prefer focus on a wide thing: my theory is simple, big tech at a certain point in time feel big&powerful enough to try substitute banks. Perpetrating an even better classic scam. That's the probable genesis of cryptocurrencies, not a nerd project, just a small coup in the financial world...
ETH_start 4y ago
The people most likely to deduce Nakamoto's identity are the least likely to want to divulge it.
patchtopic 4y ago
no mention of Len Sassaman ? https://news.bitcoin.com/the-many-facts-pointing-to-cypherpunk-len-sassaman-being-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://news.bitcoin.com/the-many-facts-pointing-to-cypherpu...
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Pretty much all of Lens close friends reckon it ain't him.
- acco102 4y ago
  Len Sassaman or/and Adam Back. Hal Finney managed hostings, etc.
game-of-throws 4y ago
> “Because he [Wright] advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial, he will recover only nominal damages,” wrote the judge. He should be charged with perjury. Why are the courts letting him submit fraudulent evidence with no consequences?
- 300bps 4y ago
  Why are the courts letting him submit fraudulent evidence with no consequences? In a U.S. case anyway the judge said he lied under oath but was not going to sanction him because he claims he has Asperger’s. In fact, any bizarre behavior he gets caught with he throws up his hands and says, “Asperger’s!!!” https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-accepts-craig-wrights-autism-defense-says-no-to-sanctions https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-accepts-craig-wrights-a...
- rasz 4y ago
  perjury charges are for poor people, even swine like Alex Jones are immune.
- nextweek2 4y ago
  I saw one of the analysts of the Depp vs Heard trial explain why perjury is hard. It requires you to prove deliberate intent. The bar is a lot higher to prevent punishing mistakes.
syklep 4y ago
Don't see anything on HN mentioning Adam Back getting called out as being Satoshi and the massive campaign launched to disprove this. One of the only people who isn't attempting to capitalize on the claim, but who directly benefits from Bitcoin's flaws. In a case of a white knight turning to the dark side. Part 3: https://youtu.be/XfcvX0P1b5g https://youtu.be/XfcvX0P1b5g The conspiracy YouTuber making the claim was attacked and slandered heavily after making the claim despite convincing evidence that wasn't disproven: 1 Same English typing mannerisms 2 Misspelling the same words 3 A conspicuous gap in his career while Bitcoin was being developed 4 entering the bitcoin scene in forums very early acting authoritative Not to mention 5 A history of working on bitcoin-like technologies: "hashcash" 6 early involvement with the cypherpunks I'm still convinced its him.
- johnnymorgan 4y ago
  It's not Adam, there was another player that was linked to Craig that I'd have to look up but he got cancer and died around the time Satoshi exited. Hence why his keys are lost, if Adam was Satoshi he could prove it quickly, it not him. Also this doesn't make sense from a timeline and project view.
  - 28194608 4y ago
    This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kleiman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kleiman Yeah i do believe he may be Satoshi.
    - johnnymorgan 4y ago
      Nice, thank you I only caught the reference in a small article ages ago and couldn't remember his name. It's, imo, why craig thought he could make his pitch that he was Satoshi, he probably did contribute to the discussion as he knew Dave but that is like me saying I invest amazing because I chatted with Bezos about marketplaces. It may also explain why he tried to do it to 'save' the OG vision...which current Bitcoin is not anymore. Thank you, good find imo he lines up the best but I won't discount the romantic in me loving the story of genius and self sacrifice
throwaway89201 4y ago
Not paywalled: https://archive.ph/frTnK https://archive.ph/frTnK
seibelj 4y ago
I believe Satoshi is Hal Finney. The 2 damning reasons are 1) Dorian Satoshi Nakomoto (someone Newsweek claimed was Satoshi incorrectly) lived very close to Hal. I believe Hal either knew of him or saw his name somewhere. 2) Satoshi disappeared at the same time when Hal’s ALS made him unable to work anymore. Hal’s death and Satoshi’s silence are at the same time. Plus Hal was the first person to communicate with Satoshi publicly. All signs point to Hal and only a dead man could keep a secret like this for so long. RIP
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Yes this could be plausible, also his -very- mysterious death must be mentioned. Anyway I couldn’t figure out why the story of Bitcoin isn’t already a movie/TV serie! It’s really fascinating.
- Lutzb 4y ago
  I am still wondering why Satoshi used a GMX.com address in the beginning. This address is from a German email service. Addresses with gmx.com domain were only available for paying customers. So at least there might be some trace there.
  - necovek 4y ago
    Uhm, gmx.com was a free email provider probably in the 90s already. I still have an address with them, though I don't use it at all. FWIW, it was much better email service than the other email services from that era.
bambax 4y ago
An article in The Economist was debated in this HN thread in May 2016 [0]. It was already completely obvious at the time (6 years ago!) that Craig Wright wasn't Satoshi, but was indeed a fraud, a liar and a conman. The only person causing "serious harm to Wright’s reputation" is Craig Wright. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609611
anony23 4y ago
Does anyone actually for one second think that CW is Satoshi?
tintedfireglass 4y ago
Honestly does it matter who is Satoshi? What's the point of all this?
- sneak 4y ago
  Humans are literally addicted to narratives. It doesn't matter, but "x did y to z" is critically important to many people's monkey brains, and so the referent for the first term matters more than anything else to most people.
  - tintedfireglass 4y ago
    We as humans tend to ask WHO MADE IT first and then the next question about a new product/invention and then move forward being oblivious to the fact that every invention from agriculture to insulin wasn't made by a single person. Even things like a voltaic cell and an incandescent bulb was not invented by a single person. Humans are social creatures so human inventions also have to be made by a group of people. I don't know if me transitioning into being an adult and learning that adults aren't as perfect as I thought them to be when I was 12-13 makes me feel kinda negative about Homo sapiens as a whole. Edit : looks like I just went off-topic down a rabbit hole lol
  - throwoutway 4y ago
    And addicted to idols. CEOs, presidents, etc. Which is self-fulfilling prophecy. Steve Jobs. Gates. Musk. Satoshi. Vitalik Buterin. You name it. I think people are annoyed that they don't know who the real person behind Satoshi is, because they can't idolize them, or talk about "how they grew up" or "what they said"
    - Lammy 4y ago
      I think the most interesting part is how many people seem to automatically assume “Satoshi Nakamoto” is a single person.
      - tintedfireglass 4y ago

Lots of speculation about who Satoshi was; some code wasn't so brilliant, the idea was, etc. looking at the question today the smartest action he took was maintaining anonymity (no small task then) and the second smartest was bailing out before the predators began to use his work. I am convinced (with no evidence to offer others) that there are several people who know how the original bitcoin work came together and became public; probably not all of them were involved. Those who were not involved directly have Snowden as an example of "why we don't talk about that."

RL_Quine 4y ago
There's nothing whatsoever about the code released for Bitcoin which is "not brilliant". It is concise, it escapes all of the normal vulnerabilities you would expect to find in code that has extensive network access, and absolutely anybody can jump into the repository and get a very solid understanding of what is going on for what was then a completely novel and unheard of system. It is tightly integrated for its purpose, but there was no necessity for it be anything else, and it enabled the code to be released when it was. "Satoshi was a bad coder" has absolutely no basis in reality.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  From http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bitcoin.html http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bi... > It turns out that actually using the Bitcoin protocol is harder than I expected. As you will see, the protocol is a bit of a jumble: it uses big-endian numbers, little-endian numbers, fixed-length numbers, variable-length numbers, custom encodings, DER encoding, and a variety of cryptographic algorithms, seemingly arbitrarily. As a result, there's a lot of annoying manipulation to get data into the right format. At least s/he should have made everything big-endian or little-endian.
  - RL_Quine 4y ago
    Satoshi assembled something that works out of the primitives available, and that is party of the reason that it was able to be produced to begin with. Taken in isolation it is already of mind boggling complexity, and it had to be presented to people who didn't have any clue what a distributed consensus is even shaped like. Some hashes being in the wrong endianness, serializations being a bit funky are irrelevant in the larger picture. Knowing that it isn't the place to make your own serialization for ECDSA signatures and just using what was available in OpenSSL is the hallmark of a great coder, else the project might never have been realized in the first place.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    That's largely a result of relying on OpenSSL to build your shit.

achow 4y ago

Excerpt From: Kings of Crypto. (A book on Coinbase) So who is Satoshi Nakamoto? ..there’s enough evidence to make a strong guess about who the white paper’s author really is. The signs point to an American polymath named Nick Szabo. Szabo is a lawyer and sophisticated coder with deep ties to an online community, known as cypherpunks, that spent years experimenting with digital money. This community shares a love of cryptography and a deep distrust of government, which is reflected in Szabo’s Twitter feed and rare public appearances. While there are other cypherpunks closely associated with the first days of bitcoin—notably, the late programmer Hal Finney—some big clues point to Szabo as the paper’s author. These include anecdotes, set out by New York Times reporter and Digital Gold author Nathaniel Popper, that put Szabo at the center of early development of bitcoin. Additionally, linguists have compared the white paper and Satoshi’s emails with writing samples from Szabo, Finney, and other possible candidates. Szabo is far and away the closest match. Satoshi Nakamoto’s initials are also the inverse of Nick Szabo’s. It could be a coincidence. All of it could be a coincidence. But if you subscribe to the philosophical principle known as Occam’s Razor, which holds that simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones, it makes far more sense to accept that Szabo is the author than to insist it’s either someone else or a mystery incapable of being unraveled. In fact, most longtime bitcoin owners will concede quietly in a one-on-one conversation that they, too, accept Szabo as Satoshi. Just don’t ask them to do it publicly.

glitchc 4y ago
It’s unlikely to be Szabo. He has already publicly denied it numerous times.
- aflag 4y ago
  That's exactly what the real Satoshi Nakamoto would say!
- hresvelgr 4y ago
  It's not in their interest to confirm if they are indeed Satoshi. Pretty sure their wallet is worth over a billion USD, and irrespective of whether they have access to it anymore, someone will probably want to try and extract that from them forcibly.

anm89 4y ago

Cmon. We all know it's Szabo

300bps 4y ago

Craig Wright has now been called out as dishonest by multiple judges from multiple cases. https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-slams-craig-wright-for-forged-documents-and-perjured-testimony https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-slams-craig-wright-for-... Look up the history of the 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF wallet that Craig claimed in court documents to own but actually contains coins stolen from Mt Gox. https://mylegacykit.medium.com/the-faketoshi-tale-of-1feex-5dbeb230a090 https://mylegacykit.medium.com/the-faketoshi-tale-of-1feex-5...

bufferoverflow 4y ago
It's 100% not Craig Wright, that man is a habitual liar.

Kukumber 4y ago

My guess: Satoshi doesn't exist, it's a code name, and it's a CIA/FED project to test digital currencies, we all know the digital USD / EUR are coming, what better way to test the security and get ideas/suggestions? Releasing it in the wild is perfect for that Why do i believe this? No western government wanted to ban or regulate them despite massive adoption, money laundering risks, scams, ponzi schemes, insider trading and all the nice stuff that comes with it Bonus: https://whoissatoshi.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/satoshi-in-california/ https://whoissatoshi.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/satoshi-in-cal... Just like with DDG, what a surprise :D ;)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nslzk 4y ago
Why would they ban it when they can tax it instead and benefit from it?
- Kukumber 4y ago
  Because it is used to circumvent international trade sanctions, and for illegal activities (drugs, weapons and dark sexual activities) You can't tax a transaction in cryptocurrency
  - game-of-throws 4y ago
    0.5% of Bitcoin's volume is illegal activity. [1] 11%-12% of the USA's economy is illegal activity. [2] If you wanted to commit a crime or evade taxes, probably the dumbest thing you could do is record permanent evidence on a public, immutable ledger. [1]: https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-and-anti-money-laundering-report/ https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-a... > Cash—anonymous and liquid—has long served as a tool for criminals. Cryptocurrency, with its similar characteristics, may likewise struggle to ever completely shake its bad reputation, despite illicit transactions making up less than 0.5% of Bitcoin’s yearly volume in 2020. [2]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big-underground-economy-america.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big... > Estimates vary widely, but some put the underground economy at 11% to 12% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

kkfx 4y ago

IMVHO instead of trying to know "details" I'll prefer focus on a wide thing: my theory is simple, big tech at a certain point in time feel big&powerful enough to try substitute banks. Perpetrating an even better classic scam. That's the probable genesis of cryptocurrencies, not a nerd project, just a small coup in the financial world...

ETH_start 4y ago

The people most likely to deduce Nakamoto's identity are the least likely to want to divulge it.

patchtopic 4y ago

no mention of Len Sassaman ? https://news.bitcoin.com/the-many-facts-pointing-to-cypherpunk-len-sassaman-being-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://news.bitcoin.com/the-many-facts-pointing-to-cypherpu...

nibbleshifter 4y ago
Pretty much all of Lens close friends reckon it ain't him.
acco102 4y ago
Len Sassaman or/and Adam Back. Hal Finney managed hostings, etc.

game-of-throws 4y ago

> “Because he [Wright] advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial, he will recover only nominal damages,” wrote the judge. He should be charged with perjury. Why are the courts letting him submit fraudulent evidence with no consequences?

300bps 4y ago
Why are the courts letting him submit fraudulent evidence with no consequences? In a U.S. case anyway the judge said he lied under oath but was not going to sanction him because he claims he has Asperger’s. In fact, any bizarre behavior he gets caught with he throws up his hands and says, “Asperger’s!!!” https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-accepts-craig-wrights-autism-defense-says-no-to-sanctions https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-accepts-craig-wrights-a...
rasz 4y ago
perjury charges are for poor people, even swine like Alex Jones are immune.
nextweek2 4y ago
I saw one of the analysts of the Depp vs Heard trial explain why perjury is hard. It requires you to prove deliberate intent. The bar is a lot higher to prevent punishing mistakes.

syklep 4y ago

Don't see anything on HN mentioning Adam Back getting called out as being Satoshi and the massive campaign launched to disprove this. One of the only people who isn't attempting to capitalize on the claim, but who directly benefits from Bitcoin's flaws. In a case of a white knight turning to the dark side. Part 3: https://youtu.be/XfcvX0P1b5g https://youtu.be/XfcvX0P1b5g The conspiracy YouTuber making the claim was attacked and slandered heavily after making the claim despite convincing evidence that wasn't disproven: 1 Same English typing mannerisms 2 Misspelling the same words 3 A conspicuous gap in his career while Bitcoin was being developed 4 entering the bitcoin scene in forums very early acting authoritative Not to mention 5 A history of working on bitcoin-like technologies: "hashcash" 6 early involvement with the cypherpunks I'm still convinced its him.

johnnymorgan 4y ago
It's not Adam, there was another player that was linked to Craig that I'd have to look up but he got cancer and died around the time Satoshi exited. Hence why his keys are lost, if Adam was Satoshi he could prove it quickly, it not him. Also this doesn't make sense from a timeline and project view.
- 28194608 4y ago
  This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kleiman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kleiman Yeah i do believe he may be Satoshi.
  - johnnymorgan 4y ago
    Nice, thank you I only caught the reference in a small article ages ago and couldn't remember his name. It's, imo, why craig thought he could make his pitch that he was Satoshi, he probably did contribute to the discussion as he knew Dave but that is like me saying I invest amazing because I chatted with Bezos about marketplaces. It may also explain why he tried to do it to 'save' the OG vision...which current Bitcoin is not anymore. Thank you, good find imo he lines up the best but I won't discount the romantic in me loving the story of genius and self sacrifice

throwaway89201 4y ago

Not paywalled: https://archive.ph/frTnK https://archive.ph/frTnK

seibelj 4y ago

I believe Satoshi is Hal Finney. The 2 damning reasons are 1) Dorian Satoshi Nakomoto (someone Newsweek claimed was Satoshi incorrectly) lived very close to Hal. I believe Hal either knew of him or saw his name somewhere. 2) Satoshi disappeared at the same time when Hal’s ALS made him unable to work anymore. Hal’s death and Satoshi’s silence are at the same time. Plus Hal was the first person to communicate with Satoshi publicly. All signs point to Hal and only a dead man could keep a secret like this for so long. RIP

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Yes this could be plausible, also his -very- mysterious death must be mentioned. Anyway I couldn’t figure out why the story of Bitcoin isn’t already a movie/TV serie! It’s really fascinating.
Lutzb 4y ago
I am still wondering why Satoshi used a GMX.com address in the beginning. This address is from a German email service. Addresses with gmx.com domain were only available for paying customers. So at least there might be some trace there.
- necovek 4y ago
  Uhm, gmx.com was a free email provider probably in the 90s already. I still have an address with them, though I don't use it at all. FWIW, it was much better email service than the other email services from that era.

bambax 4y ago

An article in The Economist was debated in this HN thread in May 2016 [0]. It was already completely obvious at the time (6 years ago!) that Craig Wright wasn't Satoshi, but was indeed a fraud, a liar and a conman. The only person causing "serious harm to Wright’s reputation" is Craig Wright. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609611

anony23 4y ago

Does anyone actually for one second think that CW is Satoshi?

tintedfireglass 4y ago

Honestly does it matter who is Satoshi? What's the point of all this?

sneak 4y ago
Humans are literally addicted to narratives. It doesn't matter, but "x did y to z" is critically important to many people's monkey brains, and so the referent for the first term matters more than anything else to most people.
- tintedfireglass 4y ago
  We as humans tend to ask WHO MADE IT first and then the next question about a new product/invention and then move forward being oblivious to the fact that every invention from agriculture to insulin wasn't made by a single person. Even things like a voltaic cell and an incandescent bulb was not invented by a single person. Humans are social creatures so human inventions also have to be made by a group of people. I don't know if me transitioning into being an adult and learning that adults aren't as perfect as I thought them to be when I was 12-13 makes me feel kinda negative about Homo sapiens as a whole. Edit : looks like I just went off-topic down a rabbit hole lol
- throwoutway 4y ago
  And addicted to idols. CEOs, presidents, etc. Which is self-fulfilling prophecy. Steve Jobs. Gates. Musk. Satoshi. Vitalik Buterin. You name it. I think people are annoyed that they don't know who the real person behind Satoshi is, because they can't idolize them, or talk about "how they grew up" or "what they said"
  - Lammy 4y ago
    I think the most interesting part is how many people seem to automatically assume “Satoshi Nakamoto” is a single person.
    - tintedfireglass 4y ago