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Mystery creator of Bitcoin identified, new HBO documentary claims
- pjkundert 2y ago[flagged]
- pjkundert 2y agoDisclosure of an inventor for Bitcoin is spectacularly technically interesting! I've been deploying continent-wide distributed industrial systems and writing, theorizing and producing prototypes for scalable digital money since before 2009 (when Bitcoin was "invented"). It was a gobsmacking breakthrough then -- and it has only gotten more interesting, as we discover the profound insights of its "inventor", by watching other nascent cryptocurrencies and other distributed systems make mistakes that Bitcoin's "inventor" somehow knew to avoid (UTXOs vs. account balances, I'm lookin' at you..., and that's the least of them). For someone to ex nihilo solve byzantine fault tolerant global consensus w/ robust authority-free rejection of sybils? And then go dark for 15 years? Any non-trivial semi-reliable claim of identification (see: HBO's skin in the game) is automatically almost the most technically interesting claim this year! So, for some religious (see: beliefs based in faith in a narrative rather than observation, hypothesis and testing) "expert" to "Flag" this post as uninteresting is pretty much the opposite of the credo of the HN of the decade past. HN seems to have become the "mainstream media" of the technical world -- interested only in findings acceptable to righteously-aligned cultists, boring to everyone actually observing interesting and novel facts about the technical world.
- amy-petrik-214 2y ago> Disclosure of an inventor for Bitcoin is spectacularly technically interesting! Sure. Okay. Point us to the disclosure. I couldn't find anything being disclosed.
- pjkundert 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoUsers flagged the post correctly, since the article doesn't actually include the critical bit of information that it's dangling. The actual (new) content of this article can be summarized as "TV special soon to be released", which is not an intellectually interesting story. Perhaps the show itself will contain interesting information, and if so, the community may find something to discuss about it then. On HN, there's no harm in waiting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... There's also the aspect that Satoshi speculation is one of the most-trodden topics in HN history, so a new story has a pretty high bar to clear to count as interesting.
- pjkundert 2y ago[flagged]
- dennisgideon 2y ago[flagged]
- agilob 2y agoDoes it even matter at this point?
- mrkramer 2y agoTo historians it does matter.
- mikeyouse 2y agoThere's historical interest here and in some case, the fate of the "1 million Satoshi bitcoins" depends on who the creator is. If it was someone like Finney who passed away a decade ago, it's extremely unlikely that those coins will ever be recovered/spent.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ablation 2y agoThere's nothing of substance in the article. I suppose we'll wait and see, but I have no reason to believe there'll be any more accuracy or veracity behind the unmasking that the countless previous attempts. It'll certainly get viewers with articles like this touting it, though.
- knotimpressed 2y agoI don’t know how many other very early wallets have suddenly become active in the last decade, and it could be a complete coincidence, but those wallets being drained is the smallest crumb of evidence that someone’s figured something out in my eyes.
- eep_social 2y agoAgree. I’d be interested in a deeper dive into this activity if anyone has a link. TFA was short on details. Edit: found some sources on this and it seems like no one knows anything
- gwbas1c 2y agoOr, the allegations could be 100% wrong, but someone decided to sell because it will lend credibility to the allegations. (And get them filthy stinking rich, too.)
- neom 2y agoSaving future people a google: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/09/20/satoshi-era-wallets-move-16m-in-bitcoin-after-15-years-of-dormancy/ https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/09/20/satoshi-era-wall...
- cempaka 2y agoThere's very little veracity to his claims QAnon was run by some 8chan rando in the Philippines as well, so I agree with your guess here.
- api 2y agoQanon had several phases. The original Q was probably a 4chan LARP. The "insider LARP" is a fairly established genre on 4chan, Reddit, and other places. Then it seems that actual propagandists of some kind took it over and turned it into a weaponized conspiracy ARG for Trump and the alt-right. Then it was kicked off 4chan and from there probably ended up in the hands of the 8chan people or someone connected to them. At least that's a shortened summary of the most credible chain I've seen. Q never used any real security like a PGP key, so there's really no way to know how many Qs there were or how many times the ARG was ARG-jacked.
- jcranmer 2y ago... is it going to claim it's Craig Wright?
- thisconnect 2y agoThat would be hilarious
- block_dagger 2y ago…it was Craig Wright all along!
- thisconnect 2y agoHow do you know?
- knotimpressed 2y agoI know the general public sees Satoshi as somehow the mastermind behind Bitcoin even now, but they aren’t. Bitcoin is open source, being maintained by a team, and its current implementation is the result of a community effort. It’s built on the crucial work Satoshi did, but arresting them or charging them or anything of the sort won’t magically change anything. To the general public who’s never interacted with open source communities before I’m sure this is very exciting and so it’ll definitely impact Bitcoin’s value (maybe that’s why those early wallets were drained?) but I can’t see it actually impacting the future of Bitcoin or any other coin. I wish they’d respect Satoshi’s privacy, but I’m also super curious to know who it is.
- gwbas1c 2y agoShow me a "community effort," and I'll find a leadership hierarchy, influential people, ect.
- thisconnect 2y agoSegwit activation
- IncreasePosts 2y agoAnybody who has the skills to identify the creator of Bitcoin would not sit on it waiting for an HBO documentary. I'm guessing they're just going to say Hal Finney without any new evidence. Safer than saying Szabo who could push back since he's alive.
- stainablesteel 2y agomy moneys on le roux
- reducesuffering 2y agoit's not
- cypherpunks01 2y agoIt's intriguing, but writing and coding style seemed to be totally different iirc? And to me, the whole Halfin-key signed message thing that Shkreli posted kind of seemed to point away from LeRoux due to the suspicious circumstances.
- readthenotes1 2y agoFunny! But who's your cryptocurrency on??
- IncreasePosts 2y agoLe Roux's current fate is: 1) Sit in a prison in NJ until he is 70+ years old. 2) When he is released, immediately be deported to the Philippines where he will face another trial, and get thrown in jail for the rest of his life. If he had $50B+ in BTC, why wouldn't he break out of the not super secure prison in New Jersey, and go live like a king in Indonesia or something?
- SAI_Peregrinus 2y agoI'm guessing it was a national intelligence agency trying to create a mostly deniable way to pay their agents.
- 2y ago
- altdataseller 2y agoShockwaves? yawns it doesnt affect me, my bank account, my family, my health or my happiness. Who cares?
- nieve 2y agoThe only way there'd be shockwaves is if it turned out to be Theo de Raadt.
- ldargin 2y agoUnless there is hard evidence, I'd consider this a waste of time. I don't know the purpose of "revealing" Satoshi if he's someone who doesn't want the attention.
- rthnbgrredf 2y agoCould you provide some instances of how hard evidence might look like?
- ldargin 2y agoProof, something that people can observe and recognize as true, not just circumstantial evidence. They should avoid repeating the Dorian Nakamoto situation.
- rthnbgrredf 2y agoSure, but how would such a proof look like? How could one prove to be the real Nakamoto?
- big-green-man 2y agoIf you're on the edge of your seat, let me dispense with the suspense: Len Sassaman. Anybody who's actually looked into this topic beyond reading someone else's theories and nodding in agreement knows the answer to this question. If the documentary is worth it's salt that will be it's answer as well. No other person who would've been connected to cypherpunk and cryptography groups at that time fits the bill better, and he fits it basically perfectly. I'm sure other early contributors also knew this, which is why https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/black-ops-of-tcpip-2011-black-hat-usa-2011/8776015 https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/black-ops-of-tcpip-2011...
- adastra22 2y agoYes, you are absolutely correct, but please don't continue to spread this. Len Sassaman left behind family and heirs, and although it is very unlikely that Satoshi's mining keys survived in any form, if this rumor spreads they will never be safe.
- School-Cotton 2y agoLen Sassaman is already very widely suspected to be Satoshi. Probably second only to Hal Finney. That ship has sailed.
- adastra22 2y agoAmong us technical folks. The kind of people likely to pull off a kidnapping aren’t going to know until this hits mainstream media.
- midmagico 2y agoComplete nonsense, lol.
- reducesuffering 2y agoIt’s so interesting how people are so confident in multiple different people that have known exculpatory issues. Stylometry and code style doesn’t match at all.
- tim333 2y agoI think Satoshi should be left in peace if he wants to be so I hope the documentary gets the wrong person. Ideally someone not around.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoThis appears to be about as useful as mediums, fortune tellers, and alien history hunters.
- slater 2y agoi bet a billion bitcoins that they'll end it with "we have the name, but the individual requested we not publish it"