6 ms·

Sorry if this is a obvious question but I haven't read much about Bitcoin actually. This Satoshi Nakomoto, is he/them a company, person, community or even a gov

by klrr 13y ago

Sorry if this is a obvious question but I haven't read much about Bitcoin actually. This Satoshi Nakomoto, is he/them a company, person, community or even a government?

krapp 13y ago
No person actually named Satoshi Nakomoto, apparently, exists. Beyond that, nobody knows.
neilxdsouza 13y ago
PG himself posted a question on the origin of bitcoin. You can view the responses in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547423
dsrguru 13y ago
From Wikipedia: Fast Company's investigation brought up circumstantial evidence that indicated a link between an encryption patent application filed by Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry on 15 August 2008, and the bitcoin.org domain name which was registered 72 hours later. The patent application (#20100042841) contained networking and encryption technologies similar to bitcoin's. After textual analysis, the phrase "...computationally impractical to reverse" was found in both the patent application and bitcoin's whitepaper. All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Identity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Identity
AlexDanger 13y ago
Thats the million dollar question. Satoshi invented Bitcoin and worked on it for 3 years. Sometime in 2010, just as Bitcoin was gaining traction, he* withdrew from the project and no one has been heard from him since. There have been many attempts to discover the real identity of this person/group/company/government but to no avail. I believe the focus of this new analysis technique, whilst interesting in its own right, was done for the primary purpose of trying to identify Satoshi. The analysis technique purports to show that certain bitcoins were generated by the same person/computer. This information may assist the tracing of historical bitcoin transactions to their original sources. At the top of the tree is the 'genesis' block - the source of the very first bitcoins. Its reasonable to think that Satoshi mined this block considering he invented the system. There is a thread in the Bitcoin forums[1] discussing whether the initial blocks (up to around 50) were mined by an individual or a group. There is heated debate about what, if any, facts can be concluded by analysing the early blockchain events to discover how many (and what type) of CPUs were involved in this early stage. Satoshi appears to have political motivations (he references distain for bailouts and fiat currency): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto The Bitcoin story would make a good movie script. *he/she/they/...I [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.msg1843782#msg1843782 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.msg1843782#ms...
- ultimoo 13y ago
  Thanks for summing up the story till now so succinctly.
- Monkeyget 13y ago
  What an incredible story. Money, technology, mystery, criminals. this would make a great book.
  - AlexDanger 13y ago
    Satoshi's story is just the tip of the iceberg. In the last few years there have been many fascinating technical developments (CPU->GPU->FPGA->ASIC mining), grand heists, price manipulation schemes and even some unexplained events.* I think the future analysis of the blockchain (all Bitcoin transactions are public record) will be a ripe area for economic research. Aside from the technical stuff, watching the growth and mistakes of the economic system is fascinating - like seeing 2000 years of banking/currency evolution packed into a few years. There is also the question of intrinsic worth and how to value a bitcoin - most online debates descend into chaos but the theoretical basis for projecting valuation is a real mind bender. There is no precedent. I'm personally interested in what, if any, nation state involvment there has been with Bitcoin. Regardless of Bitcoin thriving or dying, the system has unequivocally demonstrated that cryptographic systems relying on decentralised trust can work. The theoretical underpinnings of Bitcoin solve the Byzantine's Generals' Problem. And it doesnt just apply to money, it can apply to anything. There is already a decentralised DNS (NameCoin) based on the same protocol. I would have thought this type of system would be of keen interest to many nation states, as it could potentially undermine their own authority or be used as a weapon against other nation states. So yeah, a book would be interesting :) I strongly believe the decentralisation technology underpinning Bitcoin will be a notable part of history. *In 2011 a 'msytery miner' nearly doubled the total network's computing power for a short period only to disappear within a couple of days. The theories are this miner was a clever botnet utilising host GPUs,a supercomputer, or someone testing very early stage ASIC hardware, despite none of the known ASIC producers having working hardware at that point in time. http://bitcoin.atspace.com/mysteryminer.html http://bitcoin.atspace.com/mysteryminer.html
WhoIsSatoshi 13y ago
Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto?
- batgaijin 13y ago
  Who Is John Galt? Considering the pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin, the people it attracts and who most likely funded the creation of it, this inevitable question and its alluding nature is a laugh riot.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

by klrr 13y ago

Sorry if this is a obvious question but I haven't read much about Bitcoin actually. This Satoshi Nakomoto, is he/them a company, person, community or even a government?

krapp 13y ago

No person actually named Satoshi Nakomoto, apparently, exists. Beyond that, nobody knows.

neilxdsouza 13y ago

PG himself posted a question on the origin of bitcoin. You can view the responses in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547423

dsrguru 13y ago

From Wikipedia: Fast Company's investigation brought up circumstantial evidence that indicated a link between an encryption patent application filed by Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry on 15 August 2008, and the bitcoin.org domain name which was registered 72 hours later. The patent application (#20100042841) contained networking and encryption technologies similar to bitcoin's. After textual analysis, the phrase "...computationally impractical to reverse" was found in both the patent application and bitcoin's whitepaper. All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Identity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Identity

AlexDanger 13y ago

Thats the million dollar question. Satoshi invented Bitcoin and worked on it for 3 years. Sometime in 2010, just as Bitcoin was gaining traction, he* withdrew from the project and no one has been heard from him since. There have been many attempts to discover the real identity of this person/group/company/government but to no avail. I believe the focus of this new analysis technique, whilst interesting in its own right, was done for the primary purpose of trying to identify Satoshi. The analysis technique purports to show that certain bitcoins were generated by the same person/computer. This information may assist the tracing of historical bitcoin transactions to their original sources. At the top of the tree is the 'genesis' block - the source of the very first bitcoins. Its reasonable to think that Satoshi mined this block considering he invented the system. There is a thread in the Bitcoin forums[1] discussing whether the initial blocks (up to around 50) were mined by an individual or a group. There is heated debate about what, if any, facts can be concluded by analysing the early blockchain events to discover how many (and what type) of CPUs were involved in this early stage. Satoshi appears to have political motivations (he references distain for bailouts and fiat currency): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto The Bitcoin story would make a good movie script. *he/she/they/...I [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.msg1843782#msg1843782 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.msg1843782#ms...

ultimoo 13y ago
Thanks for summing up the story till now so succinctly.
Monkeyget 13y ago
What an incredible story. Money, technology, mystery, criminals. this would make a great book.
- AlexDanger 13y ago
  Satoshi's story is just the tip of the iceberg. In the last few years there have been many fascinating technical developments (CPU->GPU->FPGA->ASIC mining), grand heists, price manipulation schemes and even some unexplained events.* I think the future analysis of the blockchain (all Bitcoin transactions are public record) will be a ripe area for economic research. Aside from the technical stuff, watching the growth and mistakes of the economic system is fascinating - like seeing 2000 years of banking/currency evolution packed into a few years. There is also the question of intrinsic worth and how to value a bitcoin - most online debates descend into chaos but the theoretical basis for projecting valuation is a real mind bender. There is no precedent. I'm personally interested in what, if any, nation state involvment there has been with Bitcoin. Regardless of Bitcoin thriving or dying, the system has unequivocally demonstrated that cryptographic systems relying on decentralised trust can work. The theoretical underpinnings of Bitcoin solve the Byzantine's Generals' Problem. And it doesnt just apply to money, it can apply to anything. There is already a decentralised DNS (NameCoin) based on the same protocol. I would have thought this type of system would be of keen interest to many nation states, as it could potentially undermine their own authority or be used as a weapon against other nation states. So yeah, a book would be interesting :) I strongly believe the decentralisation technology underpinning Bitcoin will be a notable part of history. *In 2011 a 'msytery miner' nearly doubled the total network's computing power for a short period only to disappear within a couple of days. The theories are this miner was a clever botnet utilising host GPUs,a supercomputer, or someone testing very early stage ASIC hardware, despite none of the known ASIC producers having working hardware at that point in time. http://bitcoin.atspace.com/mysteryminer.html http://bitcoin.atspace.com/mysteryminer.html

WhoIsSatoshi 13y ago

Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto?

batgaijin 13y ago
Who Is John Galt? Considering the pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin, the people it attracts and who most likely funded the creation of it, this inevitable question and its alluding nature is a laugh riot.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]