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There's a somewhat credible theory that the inventor of bitcoin is dead now. That could explain why his bitcoins are untouched and why he doesn't emerge to clai
by changoplatanero 3y ago
There's a somewhat credible theory that the inventor of bitcoin is dead now. That could explain why his bitcoins are untouched and why he doesn't emerge to claim credit for his invention.
- gizajob 3y agoBy the same token (no pun) the inventor might not have been alive in the first place, at least not as a singular individual. Individuals sitting on billions find it very hard to keep quiet about it.
- meowface 3y agoI'd personally bet money on it being a solo project from him (until he open sourced it). I never saw compelling evidence for the collective theory. If you dig through all of his forum posts, emails, and code, it's entirely consistent with a solo dev reading a bunch of papers, combining ideas (digital currency + hashcash), iterating on some software, and interacting with his community.
- gizajob 3y agoYou’re correct. I’m not really denying any evidence, just there remain a bunch of mysteries around Satoshi’s identity, that all we can do is say “it could be this OR it could be this OR this could have happened OR they could have been this”. One can “or” oneself all day long in the face of a mystery or a paradox.
- lesuorac 3y agoEven if he is alive the lottery curse is probably good enough reason to never claim them now. When the coins were only worth a few million he could've cashed out then but now he's just in for permanent trouble.
- wombat-man 3y agoWell, whatever the process is to cash out coins you mined could be used I assume? Such a person could likely afford top legal talent. Also, lotteries in many states require you to claim with your real name. A corporation could be used for bitcoin.
- lesuorac 3y agoCorporations hiding a name only obscures it from the general population. Kind of like how your social security number is private. Sophisticated criminals who actually are interested in targeting you can play your shell game until they figure out who you are.
- meowface 3y agoIt's definitely possible. But one could think of plenty of other hypotheses for why they're unmoved and why he hasn't taken credit. In my opinion, there was a real (but vague) clue to his identity that was not a red herring: the IP leak in the debug logs he sent to Hal Finney. He used Tor most of the time but briefly slipped up and likely divulged his real, residential IP address. If that's the case, then he was living in California, possibly around the LA area, as of January 2009. https://whoissatoshi.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/satoshi-in-california/ https://whoissatoshi.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/satoshi-in-cal...