For the past year Nathaniel Popper has been working on a book about the history of Bitcoin and writes in the NYT that it is hard to avoid being drawn in by the almost mystical riddle of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. Popper has his own candidate for founder of Bitcoin, a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo. Szabo worked in a loosely organized group of digital privacy activists who over decades laid the foundation for Bitcoin and created many parts that later went into the virtual currency. Bitcoin was not a bolt out of the blue, as is sometimes assumed, but was instead built on the ideas of multiple people over several decades. Several experiments in digital cash circulated on the Cypherpunk lists in the 1990s. Adam Back, a British researcher, created an algorithm called hashcash that later became a central component of Bitcoin. Another, called b money, was designed by an intensely private computer engineer named Wei Dai.
It may be impossible to prove Satoshi’s identity until the person or people behind Bitcoin’s curtain decide to come forward and prove ownership of Satoshi’s old electronic accounts and at this point, the creator’s identity is no longer important to Bitcoin’s future. Since Satoshi stopped contributing to the project in 2011, most of the open-source code has been rewritten by a group of programmers whose identities are known. According to Popper whoever it is, the real Satoshi Nakamoto has many good reasons for wanting to stay anonymous. Perhaps the most obvious is potential danger. Satoshi Nakamoto most likely collected nearly a million Bitcoins during the system’s first year. Given that each Bitcoin is now worth about $240, the stash could be worth more than $200 million. That could make Satoshi a target. "With his modest clothes and unassuming manner, Mr. Szabo could be the kind of person who could have a fortune and not spend any of it," concludes Popper, "or even throw away the keys to the bank."
[ Editor's note: The "b money" link does not appear to work. ]
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When Canadian developer Peter Todd found out that a new HBO documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, was set to identify him as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, he was mostly just pissed. "This was clearly going to be a circus," Todd told WIRED in an email.
[...]
The mystery has proved all the more irresistible for the trove of bitcoin Satoshi is widely believed to have controlled, suspected to be worth many billions of dollars today. When the documentary was released on October 8, Todd joined a long line of alleged Satoshis.
[...]
Since the documentary aired, Todd has repeatedly and categorically denied that he created Bitcoin: "For the record, I am not Satoshi," he alleges. "I think Cullen made the Satoshi accusation for marketing. He needed a way to get attention for his film."
[...]
The search for the creator of Bitcoin has dragged into its orbit a colorful cast of characters, among them Hal Finney, recipient of the first ever bitcoin transaction; Adam Back, designer of a precursor technology cited in the Bitcoin white paper; and cryptographer Nick Szabo, to name just a few. Journalists at Newsweek, The New York Times, and WIRED, among others, have all taken stabs at solving the Satoshi riddle. But irrefutable proof has never been unearthed.
[...]
The case for Sassaman was first outlined in 2021 by Evan Hatch, founder of crypto gaming platform Worlds. Whenever speculation about Sassaman bubbles periodically to the surface, the spotlight is thrown on his widow, software developer Meredith Patterson, who believes the theory is unfounded."People used to be really fucking nosy and entitled. I'd get people writing me with a two-page list of dates and locations, asking where I was at such and such a time or place," says Patterson. "Where do you get off? A complete stranger walking up to a widow and trying to interrogate her. It's like, fuck off Sergeant Joe Friday."
[...]
"I was relieved for myself and my family that they named Peter Todd," says Patterson. "But I feel sorry for Peter Todd. Frankly, nobody deserves getting a target painted on their back."
[...]
Todd expects that "continued harassment by crazy people" will become the indefinite status quo. But he says the potential personal safety implications are his chief concern—and the reason he has gone into hiding.
[...]
Hoback sees things very differently. Though there have been cases where violent extortionists have targeted crypto holders, plenty of people have been unmasked as Satoshi before—and nothing terrible is known to have happened to them, he argues. "I think the idea that it puts their life [at risk] is a little overblown," says Hoback.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 18 2015, @11:21AM
I'm assuming the credit card companies crushed it, but how?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @12:11PM
To me, the prefix "digi" sounds a lot like "geni". So "digital" sounds like "genital".
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday May 18 2015, @12:38PM
Nathaniel Popper, you are a bottom feeding piece of shit. Your obsession with outing Satoshi Nakamoto is one of personal gain. If he/she doesn't want to be found then leave it that way. The public at large doesn't need to know nor do they really care. But you want to make them care so they buy a book full of speculation.
I have no interest whatsoever in who Satoshi Nakamoto is. All I can say is thank you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday May 18 2015, @12:50PM
By analogy I'm not sure how he intends to profit, unless its some kind of weird elaborate extortion plan.
Hey guys, did you know Viktoras Baranauskas designed the USA copper penny? Somehow I don't think I would hit the publishing jackpot with a book about that dude. I mean he was a nice sculptor and most people know him by his "americanized" new name, but its still pretty much "whatever".
My suspicion is someone with vested interests is bankrolling the "journalist" with the hope and prayer that once upon a time the inventor/author had said something nice about Marx or inhaled while smoking weed or anything felt politically incorrect by anyone. The advantage of turning America into a 1970s eastern block KGB surveillance society is every human being is somehow, in some weird irrelevant detail, an enemy of the state, because everything has been defined to be an enemy of the state except itself. So anything the leaders want, can be denounced during the two minutes hate, given enough info. And this situation of anonymous invention REALLY pisses off big brother, how do they denounce the author of BTC without knowing who that is?
So I hope the guy never finds him. Ever.
My gut suspicion is there isn't "a" inventor anyway. Beyond the algo discussion in the article, there might not be one author, just code passed around an anon remailer between a couple participants and next thing you know one of the guys gets it up and running and slaps it on github and we're off to the races.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @12:53PM
George Washington designed the US copper penny.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday May 18 2015, @01:17PM
This is how I see it: There has been some interest in identifying the author. It has even been discussed on national news.
From the article: "For the past year Nathaniel Popper has been working on a book about the history of Bitcoin and writes in the NYT that it is hard to avoid being drawn in by the almost mystical riddle of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity.
If he outs the bitcoin dev then he will national recognition, and face time to promote his book. If he truly cared about the purpose of bitcoin, anonymity, then he would respect that and leave the dev alone.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @01:03PM
Of course, a good way for the true Satoshi Nakamoto to hide his true identity is to pretend to be someone who tries to find out who Satoshi Nakamoto is. It's the perfect cover: Most people would immediately conclude that he is not Satoshi, because otherwise he'd know Satoshi's identity, so what would be the point in trying to find out?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @12:41PM
Why the heck was this submission accepted?
It's total crap. It's pure speculation.
And it's completely irrelevant!
Now we have to put up with this shitty submission taking up space on the front page, and we'll have to wait 2.5 hours until some other story comes along.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @01:36AM
Maybe you could use some of that 2.5 hours to submit something better? If this story is so bad, you should have no trouble with doing so... right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @12:51PM
What is a "Cypherpunk"? Why did they choose such a silly name?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @01:00PM
Nobody gives a fuck. It also doesn't matter. Bitcoin failed. Average users can't download 25 GB of blockchain data, and this goddamn number will only continue to grow, even with the few Bitcoin stragglers who are left. The only other option is to use some centralized third party service, which DEFEATS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF USING A DECENTRALIZED CURRENCY! All of this is totally irrelevant. The Bitcoin bubble burst. Just like Ruby on Rails, the reality didn't live up to the hype. And now nobody cares about it, aside from a few kooks and crazies.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 18 2015, @05:14PM
I'd like to set up a bitcoin wallet sometime but I don't want to leave the entire balance in the hands of a network-connected box.
Not even my own.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by demonlapin on Monday May 18 2015, @07:43PM
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 18 2015, @08:31PM
Actually, you don't even need money.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 18 2015, @08:30PM
The only other option is to use some centralized third party service, which DEFEATS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF USING A DECENTRALIZED CURRENCY!
It doesn't have to be centralized. In fact, BTC is well served by a vast network of smaller, but fully trustworthy exchanges - like Mt. Gox, for example. They will never fail you, even though they are unregulated and free from government's oversight. Your money will be stored in a wallet on their servers, but that's OK because they are super-secure, protected by the latest cryptographic ciphers, like double ROT13.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday May 18 2015, @03:19PM
Nick Szabo has an interest piece on the origins of money available here. [vwh.net] He argues that it goes pretty far back into prehistory, and that humans have a natural inclination to collect items that have good properties for currency, the most obvious requirements being:
(1) More secure from accidential loss and theft. For most of history this meant carriable on the person and easy to hide.
(2) Harder to forge its value. An important subset of these are products that are unforgeably costly, and therefore considered valuable, for reasons explained below.
(3) This value was more accurately approximated by simple observations or measurements. These observations would have had more reliable integrity yet have been less expensive.
Such as seashells, and intricate beads. There are obvious benefits that a loose network of tribes can gain from a common currency; I like this hypothesis.
Unrelatedly, from TFS:
"Mr. Szabo could be the kind of person who could have a fortune and not spend any of it," concludes Popper, "or even throw away the keys to the bank."
Nakamoto said that you should never throw away a private key. Not saying that an entity can't say one thing and do another, but it is worth pointing out that this would go against his stated advice. I'm not sure why people love to speculate that Nakamoto might have thrown away his private keys, but Popper isn't the first.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday May 18 2015, @07:08PM
Journalist in slime mode fills book with speculations that might hurt real people for profit. While contributing nothing worthwhile to know. Correct?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @08:13PM
That sounds just like a typical gewg_ submission here at SoylentNews.