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> Peter makes it just after joining the form, so he is unlikely to have detailed knowledge of bitcoin. The fact that the inputs, outputs, and fee of a transact

> Peter makes it just after joining the form, so he is unlikely to have detailed knowledge of bitcoin. The fact that the inputs, outputs, and fee of a transaction must add up isn't exactly "detailed knowledge" :) I don't think it took me all that long to figure that out when I first tried understanding how Bitcoin worked. And frankly, the core of Bitcoin really isn't all that complex! You can have a very good understanding of all the parts after just a few days carefully studying it. Which is exactly what I did: I sat down with the Bitcoin Core codebase and figured out what all the code did. Especially at the time, it really wasn't that big of a codebase. > After watching the doc it does seem like Adam and Peter know a good deal more than they are letting on, even if it wasn't them specifically, it seems likely that they have some idea who it was. I can't speak for Adam. But I have no idea who Satoshi is. If anything, I think it could be literally hundreds or even thousands of potential people. Bitcoin is something so simple that you didn't need to be a super-genius to come up with it. You just needed to understand some relatively high-level, basic, cryptography and have a brilliant flash of inspiration. Satoshi was a very competent C++ programmer (it's a myth that his code was bad). But there's lots and lots of very competent C++ programmers out there.

jawiggins 2y ago
Cool to get a reply from you directly, thanks! It seems unlikely to me that it could be thousands of people, given the correspondence had with various people it seems likely to me that a few people have information that could lead in the correct direction. But I guess we'll never know.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xOSBERTx 2y ago
  I think you misunderstood the context of 'thousands' - - "If anything, I think it could be literally hundreds or even thousands of potential people." - - meaning that, literally, thousands of DIFFERENT people, could be considered, as a potential possibility, of being a possible candidate, of being, Satoshi. Simply put :-P Not that 'thousands' of people are Satoshi, like you misunderstood. - anywho -
  - petertodd 2y ago
    Exactly. The world is a big place. It's likely that in 2008 thousands of people had the right skillset to create Bitcoin, any one of which might have done it. As long as Satoshi wants to stay hidden, we're not going to find them.
    - vizzah 2y ago
      Gov/CIA most definitely knows who Satoshi is. Even if he always used TOR/anonymous IPs, when accessing his @gmx.com account, with the number of sign-in's he had, it must be an absolute certainty, that he want through rogue exit nodes or some other de-anonymization methods we are not aware of, but deployed by gov. agencies.
      - paulpauper 2y ago
        An IP was leaked in 2009 though tied to Satoshi in Los Angles
        nullc 2y ago
        I think that "IP leak" is extremely dubious and is predicated on both misunderstandings of how freenode worked and an incorrect assumption that no one else was running Bitcoin early on.
        alchemist1e9 2y ago
        It would be great if you could elaborate on that technically. Are you saying Satoshi wasn’t running a node that day? or there were more than the two nodes? I plan to read the code tomorrow they were running and look at the debug.log and would like to understand what you are trying to say technically.
      - acjohnson55 2y ago
        > Gov/CIA most definitely knows who Satoshi is. This is my assumption. It's too critical a question to leave unanswered, from a national security perspective.
alchemist1e9 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29728339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29728339 Can you prove what you were doing on 2009-01-10? I find it interesting you have a curious prior interest in that IP leak and your spin on it. If you are Satoshi then you should think carefully if you have any other OPSEC slip ups and then if you think there might be more … It’s better to confess and handle the issue of your coins. Your safety should be priority number one. It’s not bad for Bitcoin or you if it is you. Whomever Satoshi is they gifted the world with something incredible and it’s bigger than them now. The problem is the coins and the uncertainty around the intentions of them. Destroying the evidence, I’m guessing smashed and/or magnets on drives, that one is Satoshi probably seemed like the best idea at the time. Perhaps burning the coins wasn’t given enough consideration. It means there is a dilemma. What in the game is the best move next? Investigators who work in the real world have intuitive skills and will find the connections if they exist. Those of us who live in computers and data and math can sometimes underestimate the human pattern finding capabilities. They might be able to see and prove clearly who is Satoshi even if Satoshi thinks well all the data is gone, wiped, they “can’t” prove it, but that doesn’t mean that’s how the rest of society sees “proof” they might be able to “tell”.
- nullc 2y ago
  > Can you prove what you were doing on 2009-01-10? Can you? it was more than 15 years ago.
  - alchemist1e9 2y ago
    Now it is starting to look to me almost like you and Peter Todd are panicking and making huge slip ups. Let me explain. I see that you are now also arguing the IP leak is questionable and that others were running Bitcoin or could have been. Now combine this with the absurd idea that “retep” could have just been abandoned and it means nothing, even peter backwards, there are a million Peters whatever. This is crazy you guys are basically accidentally admitting to technical somewhat knowledgable people like myself that retep is Satoshi because the excuses don’t pass the smell test. We know Peter was an actual wiz kid, it’s clear, Hal was emailing him in 2000, all using the email address that included … wait for it … “retep”, his IRC, his website, his freenode. It’s now obvious that he likely changed to his real name because the “cat was out of the bag” among the insiders. Hal would have immediately known Satoshi was Peter. OMG guys get your act together fast. You need a plan B, no pun intended, because real investigators will tease it out, the top people doing that, have almost supernatural human intuition. Regarding IP leak. Come on. Obviously it’s his IP. Was there a conference or vacation he was on maybe? I’m just a dumb ass Bitcoiner from OG days and I can see though this charade so easily. I’m concerned. Bitcoin is a gift to humanity from Satoshi (perhaps not retep!) and if the keys aren’t destroyed already and Satoshi is alive and has them then perhaps he should consider publicly burning the 1M coins or at least most of them. The nebulous case of supposedly the keys are destroyed is not a good situation tbh. To answer your question. Yes I can definitely figure out where I was on January 10th, 2009. I know where I lived and worked then. I know if I took any vacations. I’m hoping Peter Todd has a good alibi if he isn’t Satoshi. If he is … well time to confess and handle it in a way that doesn’t hurt the amazing invention. EDIT: I wish I didn’t open this can of worms on HN. But I can’t delete it now …
cachvico 2y ago
So basically you're saying that the 3 day gap between your first post and your demonstrated understanding is actually reasonable, assuming you spent those 3 days immersed in understanding the code & design at play.
midmagico 2y ago
> The fact that the inputs, outputs, and fee of a transaction must add up isn't exactly "detailed knowledge" :) They don't have to! (re: txid 5d80a29be1609db91658b401f85921a86ab4755969729b65257651bb9fd2c10d)
- olalonde 2y ago
  That's a coinbase transaction.

jawiggins 2y ago

Cool to get a reply from you directly, thanks! It seems unlikely to me that it could be thousands of people, given the correspondence had with various people it seems likely to me that a few people have information that could lead in the correct direction. But I guess we'll never know.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
xOSBERTx 2y ago
I think you misunderstood the context of 'thousands' - - "If anything, I think it could be literally hundreds or even thousands of potential people." - - meaning that, literally, thousands of DIFFERENT people, could be considered, as a potential possibility, of being a possible candidate, of being, Satoshi. Simply put :-P Not that 'thousands' of people are Satoshi, like you misunderstood. - anywho -
- petertodd 2y ago
  Exactly. The world is a big place. It's likely that in 2008 thousands of people had the right skillset to create Bitcoin, any one of which might have done it. As long as Satoshi wants to stay hidden, we're not going to find them.
  - vizzah 2y ago
    Gov/CIA most definitely knows who Satoshi is. Even if he always used TOR/anonymous IPs, when accessing his @gmx.com account, with the number of sign-in's he had, it must be an absolute certainty, that he want through rogue exit nodes or some other de-anonymization methods we are not aware of, but deployed by gov. agencies.
    - paulpauper 2y ago
      An IP was leaked in 2009 though tied to Satoshi in Los Angles
      - nullc 2y ago
        I think that "IP leak" is extremely dubious and is predicated on both misunderstandings of how freenode worked and an incorrect assumption that no one else was running Bitcoin early on.
        alchemist1e9 2y ago
        It would be great if you could elaborate on that technically. Are you saying Satoshi wasn’t running a node that day? or there were more than the two nodes? I plan to read the code tomorrow they were running and look at the debug.log and would like to understand what you are trying to say technically.
    - acjohnson55 2y ago
      > Gov/CIA most definitely knows who Satoshi is. This is my assumption. It's too critical a question to leave unanswered, from a national security perspective.

alchemist1e9 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29728339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29728339 Can you prove what you were doing on 2009-01-10? I find it interesting you have a curious prior interest in that IP leak and your spin on it. If you are Satoshi then you should think carefully if you have any other OPSEC slip ups and then if you think there might be more … It’s better to confess and handle the issue of your coins. Your safety should be priority number one. It’s not bad for Bitcoin or you if it is you. Whomever Satoshi is they gifted the world with something incredible and it’s bigger than them now. The problem is the coins and the uncertainty around the intentions of them. Destroying the evidence, I’m guessing smashed and/or magnets on drives, that one is Satoshi probably seemed like the best idea at the time. Perhaps burning the coins wasn’t given enough consideration. It means there is a dilemma. What in the game is the best move next? Investigators who work in the real world have intuitive skills and will find the connections if they exist. Those of us who live in computers and data and math can sometimes underestimate the human pattern finding capabilities. They might be able to see and prove clearly who is Satoshi even if Satoshi thinks well all the data is gone, wiped, they “can’t” prove it, but that doesn’t mean that’s how the rest of society sees “proof” they might be able to “tell”.

nullc 2y ago
> Can you prove what you were doing on 2009-01-10? Can you? it was more than 15 years ago.
- alchemist1e9 2y ago
  Now it is starting to look to me almost like you and Peter Todd are panicking and making huge slip ups. Let me explain. I see that you are now also arguing the IP leak is questionable and that others were running Bitcoin or could have been. Now combine this with the absurd idea that “retep” could have just been abandoned and it means nothing, even peter backwards, there are a million Peters whatever. This is crazy you guys are basically accidentally admitting to technical somewhat knowledgable people like myself that retep is Satoshi because the excuses don’t pass the smell test. We know Peter was an actual wiz kid, it’s clear, Hal was emailing him in 2000, all using the email address that included … wait for it … “retep”, his IRC, his website, his freenode. It’s now obvious that he likely changed to his real name because the “cat was out of the bag” among the insiders. Hal would have immediately known Satoshi was Peter. OMG guys get your act together fast. You need a plan B, no pun intended, because real investigators will tease it out, the top people doing that, have almost supernatural human intuition. Regarding IP leak. Come on. Obviously it’s his IP. Was there a conference or vacation he was on maybe? I’m just a dumb ass Bitcoiner from OG days and I can see though this charade so easily. I’m concerned. Bitcoin is a gift to humanity from Satoshi (perhaps not retep!) and if the keys aren’t destroyed already and Satoshi is alive and has them then perhaps he should consider publicly burning the 1M coins or at least most of them. The nebulous case of supposedly the keys are destroyed is not a good situation tbh. To answer your question. Yes I can definitely figure out where I was on January 10th, 2009. I know where I lived and worked then. I know if I took any vacations. I’m hoping Peter Todd has a good alibi if he isn’t Satoshi. If he is … well time to confess and handle it in a way that doesn’t hurt the amazing invention. EDIT: I wish I didn’t open this can of worms on HN. But I can’t delete it now …

cachvico 2y ago

So basically you're saying that the 3 day gap between your first post and your demonstrated understanding is actually reasonable, assuming you spent those 3 days immersed in understanding the code & design at play.

midmagico 2y ago

> The fact that the inputs, outputs, and fee of a transaction must add up isn't exactly "detailed knowledge" :) They don't have to! (re: txid 5d80a29be1609db91658b401f85921a86ab4755969729b65257651bb9fd2c10d)

olalonde 2y ago
That's a coinbase transaction.