Bitcoin’s creator has hidden behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto for 17 years. But a trail of clues buried deep in crypto lore led to a 55-year-old computer scientist named Adam Back. (gifted lnk)
For the record, I continue to not care at all, who Nakamoto is, except perhaps in a "general curiosity" sense. But I do care quite a lot about how someone -- anyone -- has managed to remain 100%...
For the record, I continue to not care at all, who Nakamoto is, except perhaps in a "general curiosity" sense.
But I do care quite a lot about how someone -- anyone -- has managed to remain 100% anonymous online, after 17 years of possibly the biggest, most aggressive doxxing effort ever in the history of the Internet.
Smart money last I looked was on a security focused software engineer who was dead which would explain quite a bit. Further I suspect some people KNOW who it is and the reason it’s still a secret...
Smart money last I looked was on a security focused software engineer who was dead which would explain quite a bit.
Further I suspect some people KNOW who it is and the reason it’s still a secret is because the answer is something like that where it basically changes nothing
I also don't really buy "the guy got tense when it was suggested he was a controversial shadowy figure". Like a few years ago if a reporter had suggested I was behind the Snowden leaks or...
I also don't really buy "the guy got tense when it was suggested he was a controversial shadowy figure". Like a few years ago if a reporter had suggested I was behind the Snowden leaks or something I would also have been a bit startled and asked them not to print that.
I know this is the guy that broke Theranos, but there's a lot of leaps in technical understanding going on in this article. Claiming PGP and Bitcoin are related because they use public key cryptography is like saying Gears of War and Three Thousand Years of Longing are related because they use English. Saying it's suspicious that Black and Satoshi both used C++, in the 90s, is basically connecting the dots that they both used keyboards to program. I think that successfully narrows Satoshi candidates to anyone who read 2600 in the 90s.
Generally he seems to be finding things a group of people were doing and every commonality is 'proof' of his suspicions. This is ridiculous reasoning:
How was I going to find someone so good at hiding his tracks?
As I wrestled with this question, it occurred to me that Mr. Back, too, was adept at operating anonymously on the internet. Deeply paranoid about government monitoring, he constantly gamed out ways to elude it. In fact, like Satoshi, Mr. Back was a big fan of using pseudonyms.
And again, describes everyone from the phone phreaks in the 60s to Banksy. Half of getting online in the 90s was having a handle.
IDK, some of the later sections are more compelling. Maybe Black is Satoshi but this article doesn't seem to have proof of anything other than the author wanting to find Satoshi.
I listened the podcast version of this story on NYT's "The Daily" and the evidence is pretty felt pretty compelling to me. They actually play the tape from the interview with Back, and he actually...
I listened the podcast version of this story on NYT's "The Daily" and the evidence is pretty felt pretty compelling to me. They actually play the tape from the interview with Back, and he actually reached out and did a second interview to dispute he's Nakamoto. I don't think Back has given a compelling reason why he's not Nakamoto, considering the evidence.
I doubt anything will come of the matter. Theoretically, if he is Nakamoto, he lied on his SCC filings. However, given their track record on crypto and criminal prosecutions, I wouldn't trust the current administration to prosecute or take action.
Additionally, I think the biggest irony might be, if Back/Nakamoto is planning on giving out the bitcoin to his heirs, crypto will need to be worth something at the time of his death. Should they live sufficiently long, the bitcoin might end up not being worth anything.
Regardless, I guess my main takeaway, is I wonder if someone will end up trying to wrench attack Back. Even if he's not Nakamoto, I'm sure some enterprising criminals would be interested taking that risk at a chance for 70 Billion USD.
If he actually is worth that much money I'm guessing he's got some pretty good personal security. A crypto nerd doesn't strike me as someone who would solely rely on security through obscurity.
If he actually is worth that much money I'm guessing he's got some pretty good personal security. A crypto nerd doesn't strike me as someone who would solely rely on security through obscurity.
Another point of clarification. If he does have "135b" worth of bitcoin, but he never uses any of it, not for anything, not even a security on loans or such ... he's not actually rich. He cannot...
Another point of clarification. If he does have "135b" worth of bitcoin, but he never uses any of it, not for anything, not even a security on loans or such ... he's not actually rich. He cannot afford to pay for security, or anything else that his regular day-job salary can't cover.
It remains quite possible that, whoever Nakamoto actually is, they lost/deleted/destroyed those initial coins long before bitcoin actually became a "thing".
Can’t read the full article but I’m not sure how much satoshi is supposed to be worth in liquid funds. This gets back to the problem with net worth and wealth taxes because while there’s “135b” in...
Can’t read the full article but I’m not sure how much satoshi is supposed to be worth in liquid funds.
This gets back to the problem with net worth and wealth taxes because while there’s “135b” in that wallet, that’s not a real number.
The current price of bitcoin is based on the idea that that wallet CAN’T move funds and is watched like hawk. The moment a single transaction hits that wallet, before it even clears, bitcoins price is going to fucking crater.
Edit-
To put it another way I think there’s some 20 million bitcoin in circulation and we can round to 1 million of that sitting in Satoshis wallets.
If those moved it would essentially be like the US printing an extra 1/20th of all US dollars in circulation at once in an instant. You would at the bare minimum get massive inflation
I'm not educated enough in crypto to know, but is it possible he could have other wallets that aren't known to be tied to him? I imagine having your theoretical wealth not all in one basket would...
I'm not educated enough in crypto to know, but is it possible he could have other wallets that aren't known to be tied to him? I imagine having your theoretical wealth not all in one basket would be an attractive idea.
Sure but Bitcoin is a public ledger so it’s not possible to hide major wealth on it, only who is pulling it out. So if the assumption is they also had smaller and more reasonable wallets that...
Sure but Bitcoin is a public ledger so it’s not possible to hide major wealth on it, only who is pulling it out.
So if the assumption is they also had smaller and more reasonable wallets that they’ve been cashing out since the beginning that’s possible, but that’s also just possible given this Adam guy has been around since nearly the start and wouldn’t need for him to be Satoshi to do that.
For the record, I continue to not care at all, who Nakamoto is, except perhaps in a "general curiosity" sense.
But I do care quite a lot about how someone -- anyone -- has managed to remain 100% anonymous online, after 17 years of possibly the biggest, most aggressive doxxing effort ever in the history of the Internet.
Smart money last I looked was on a security focused software engineer who was dead which would explain quite a bit.
Further I suspect some people KNOW who it is and the reason it’s still a secret is because the answer is something like that where it basically changes nothing
Edit-
I am apparently thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Sassaman
Seriously, dude could probably make almost as much money with a book deal.
Unless he lost that cold wallet he should be the richest person on the planet. On paper anyways.
It'll make for a mildly interesting Netflix documentary that I'll watch.
Ran across a tweet referencing this article earlier. Apparently there's very little stylistic similarity between Back's code and Nakamoto's.
I also don't really buy "the guy got tense when it was suggested he was a controversial shadowy figure". Like a few years ago if a reporter had suggested I was behind the Snowden leaks or something I would also have been a bit startled and asked them not to print that.
I know this is the guy that broke Theranos, but there's a lot of leaps in technical understanding going on in this article. Claiming PGP and Bitcoin are related because they use public key cryptography is like saying Gears of War and Three Thousand Years of Longing are related because they use English. Saying it's suspicious that Black and Satoshi both used C++, in the 90s, is basically connecting the dots that they both used keyboards to program. I think that successfully narrows Satoshi candidates to anyone who read 2600 in the 90s.
Generally he seems to be finding things a group of people were doing and every commonality is 'proof' of his suspicions. This is ridiculous reasoning:
And again, describes everyone from the phone phreaks in the 60s to Banksy. Half of getting online in the 90s was having a handle.
IDK, some of the later sections are more compelling. Maybe Black is Satoshi but this article doesn't seem to have proof of anything other than the author wanting to find Satoshi.
I listened the podcast version of this story on NYT's "The Daily" and the evidence is pretty felt pretty compelling to me. They actually play the tape from the interview with Back, and he actually reached out and did a second interview to dispute he's Nakamoto. I don't think Back has given a compelling reason why he's not Nakamoto, considering the evidence.
I doubt anything will come of the matter. Theoretically, if he is Nakamoto, he lied on his SCC filings. However, given their track record on crypto and criminal prosecutions, I wouldn't trust the current administration to prosecute or take action.
Additionally, I think the biggest irony might be, if Back/Nakamoto is planning on giving out the bitcoin to his heirs, crypto will need to be worth something at the time of his death. Should they live sufficiently long, the bitcoin might end up not being worth anything.
Regardless, I guess my main takeaway, is I wonder if someone will end up trying to wrench attack Back. Even if he's not Nakamoto, I'm sure some enterprising criminals would be interested taking that risk at a chance for 70 Billion USD.
If he actually is worth that much money I'm guessing he's got some pretty good personal security. A crypto nerd doesn't strike me as someone who would solely rely on security through obscurity.
Another point of clarification. If he does have "135b" worth of bitcoin, but he never uses any of it, not for anything, not even a security on loans or such ... he's not actually rich. He cannot afford to pay for security, or anything else that his regular day-job salary can't cover.
It remains quite possible that, whoever Nakamoto actually is, they lost/deleted/destroyed those initial coins long before bitcoin actually became a "thing".
Can’t read the full article but I’m not sure how much satoshi is supposed to be worth in liquid funds.
This gets back to the problem with net worth and wealth taxes because while there’s “135b” in that wallet, that’s not a real number.
The current price of bitcoin is based on the idea that that wallet CAN’T move funds and is watched like hawk. The moment a single transaction hits that wallet, before it even clears, bitcoins price is going to fucking crater.
Edit-
To put it another way I think there’s some 20 million bitcoin in circulation and we can round to 1 million of that sitting in Satoshis wallets.
If those moved it would essentially be like the US printing an extra 1/20th of all US dollars in circulation at once in an instant. You would at the bare minimum get massive inflation
I'm not educated enough in crypto to know, but is it possible he could have other wallets that aren't known to be tied to him? I imagine having your theoretical wealth not all in one basket would be an attractive idea.
Sure but Bitcoin is a public ledger so it’s not possible to hide major wealth on it, only who is pulling it out.
So if the assumption is they also had smaller and more reasonable wallets that they’ve been cashing out since the beginning that’s possible, but that’s also just possible given this Adam guy has been around since nearly the start and wouldn’t need for him to be Satoshi to do that.
Hal Finney will always be my satoshi
Barely Sociable did a great series on this