Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has publicly identified himself as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
His admission ends years of speculation about who came up with the original ideas underlying the digital cash system.
Mr Wright has provided technical proof to back up his claim using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin's creator.
Prominent members of the Bitcoin community and its core development team have also confirmed Mr Wright's claim.
Will the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up? Seriously, though, how deep and dark will be the hole that this guy is thrown into?
takyon writes:
Craig Wright has declared himself to be "Satoshi Nakamoto," the alias of the creator behind Bitcoin:
I have been staring at my screen for hours, but I cannot summon the words to express the depth of my gratitude to those that have supported the bitcoin project from its inception – too many names to list. You have dedicated vast swathes of your time, committed your gifts, sacrificed relationships and REM sleep for years to an open source project that could have come to nothing. And yet still you fought. This incredible community's passion and intellect and perseverance has taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it. You have given the world a great gift. Thank you.
Be assured, just as you have worked, I have not been idle during these many years. Since those early days, after distancing myself from the public persona that was Satoshi, I have poured every measure of myself into research. I have been silent, but I have not been absent. I have been engaged with an exceptional group and look forward to sharing our remarkable work when they are ready.
Satoshi is dead. But this is only the beginning.
What's missing is the math. Wright's demonstration showed both reporters and Andresen a signature produced by a unique private key believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. But that signature seems to have be pulled from a public message signed by Nakamoto in 2009, as researcher Patrick McKenzie showed on Github. The message failed to verify when McKenzie attempted to test it, a result of changes made to the OpenSSL protocol in the last seven years.
Other proof has turned out to be difficult to come by. Wright says the early Satoshi-linked bitcoin are all owned by a trust, so he can't prove his identity by spending them.
BBC: Bitcoin industry 'sceptical' of Satoshi identity claim
Related Stories
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: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 02 2016, @11:01PM
It is as if a sperm whale has suddenly been called into existence several miles in the air...
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by bitstream on Monday May 02 2016, @11:11PM
Nik Cubrilovic, an Australian former hacker and leading internet security blogger, wrote, "I don't believe for a second Wright is Satoshi [twitter.com]. I know two people who worked with Wright, characterized him as crazy and schemer/charlatan." Michele Spagnuolo, Information Security Engineer at Google added, "He's not Satoshi [twitter.com]. He just reused a signed message (of a Sartre text) by Satoshi with block 9 key as 'proof.'"
Perhaps not the creator after all..
Whenever i doubt, just ask Newsweek journalist Leah McGrath :P
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:09AM
"crazy and schemer/charlatan"
Sounds like exactly the sort of person that would come up with a crypto-currency.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:20AM
How do you figure? I'm genuinely curious because I can think of about 10,000 different ways people could be defrauded that have less overhead and would be way easier to get away with. Why go to all the effort? Just doesn't make sense.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:09AM
I'm guessing that was an offhand comment because he has a mild-dislike for bitcoins or cryptocurrency in general.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:35AM
People really seem to throw logic out the window when it comes to ideas (and people) they dislike.
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:37AM
Yeah probably, but I find it's always best to ask. Got warned away from Paycoin early on by someone who made a similar dismissal but then went full tilt with a little coaxing. Glad I listened.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BasilBrush on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:26PM
A currency that has nothing to back it. That's a pretty crazy idea. (Which doesn't mean it can't work.)
Traditional currencies have something to back their value. I don't mean the old gold standard, although that was useful for getting existing currencies accepted. But the fundamental thing that backs traditional currency is a government or governments backing it, and using it as the one and only way of paying tax. Thus a traditional currency has an intrinsic value because people need at least enough of it to settle their tax bill.
Crypto currencies have nothing to back them. They only have rarity. It's not certain that that's enough. Gold has rarity, but it also has underlying value as a raw material for jewellery and electronics.
And a schemer/charlatan would be just the kind of person to have a desire for a transaction method that grants anonymity to those that want it. Do I need to say anything more than Silk Road?
So I'm not implying whether Bitcoin has a future in what I said. The jury is still out on that. Just that ""crazy and schemer/charlatan"" does indeed sound exactly the kind of person that would have invented it.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:22AM
But he admitted that he is. So I think he's going to get a visit real soon from some law enforcement agencies - I understand more than a few governments want a word. Not everyone is happy with Bitcoin.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:47AM
On 9 December [2015], only hours after Wired claimed Wright was Nakamoto, Wright's home in Gordon, New South Wales was raided by at least ten police officers. His business premises in Ryde, New South Wales were also searched by police. The Australian Federal Police stated they conducted searches to assist the Australian Taxation Office and that "This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin." According to a document released by Gizmodo alleged to be a transcript of a meeting between Wright and the ATO, he had been involved in a taxation dispute with them for several years.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bitstream on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:42AM
Little to near in time to just be a coincidence. Anyway, what are they gonna do? find bitcoin.c and figure out out steal all those bitcoins? no-go. Whoever authored is most likely irrelevant for the technical future of bitcoin.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 03 2016, @11:21PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JNCF on Monday May 02 2016, @11:13PM
The claim about the genesis block being owned by a trust seems to originate in an article published by The Economist. Here is the full paragraph:
Still, questions remain. Mr Wright does not want to make public the proof for block 1, arguing that block 9 contains the only bitcoin address that is clearly linked to Mr Nakamoto (because he sent money to Hal Finney). Repeating the procedure for other blocks, he says, would not add more certainty. He also says he can’t send any bitcoin because they are now owned by a trust. And he rejected the idea of having The Economist send him another text to sign as proof that he actually possesses these private keys, rather than simply being the first to publish a proof which was generated at some point in the past by somebody else. Either people believe him now—or they don’t, he says. “I’m not going to keep jumping through hoops.”
Sounds like he is unwilling to produce any mathematical evidence of being Satoshi. The best proof being given is the social validation of Gavin Andresen, who is a known goverment cooperator (Satoshi stopped making contact with anybody after Andresen sent him an email saying that he was giving a presentation on Bitcoin for the FBI). The BBC article also notes that Andresen has an incentive to validate Wright because they are in agreement on a controversial change to the Bitcoin protocol (which they're probably on the right side of history on, in my ignorant opinion). However, it wouldn't seem safe to claim to be Satoshi unless you were sure that the real Satoshi was unwilling or unable to dispute you.
But putting aside questions of validity for a moment, and taking Wright's claims at face value - what trust owns the genesis block? The idea that it is "now" owned by a trust is ridiculous - if it was transfered to another address that would be public knowledge. The genesis block hasn't moved since creation. Whatever key originally had it still has it. Transferring ownership of that key without touching the blockchain would require complete trust that the original owner didn't keep a copy. If the genesis block is owned by a trust, it always has been. Why didn't The Economist follow up on the most tantalizing piece of information mentioned? Did they not understand that this means Satoshi is the name of a group, and Craig Wright is at most the mouthpiece and creative force of Satoshi? Who is this group composed of?
I'd rather Satoshi not be revealed, but if you're revealing it at least do the job correctly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @11:22PM
Also someone made that trust. Also someone owns it. Trusts do not just come into existence 'by themselves'. They are also run by someone.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Monday May 02 2016, @11:32PM
Wouldn't matter who "owned" the genesis block. Due to a bug in the original code, the genesis block can't be spent. The network will reject it.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block#Coinbase [bitcoin.it]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JNCF on Monday May 02 2016, @11:43PM
I'd forgotten about that, but ownership of the address could still be proven.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday May 02 2016, @11:35PM
I think the "owned by a trust" thing is probably due to the Oz gov chasing him for capital gains tax on half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-founder-craig-wrights-home-raided-by-australian-police/ [theguardian.com]
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Monday May 02 2016, @11:54PM
Unless I missed something the point of capital gains is you have made a "gain" which means you'd have to sell it before you owe taxes on it.
amirite?
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:25AM
If so, that would explain why he doesn't want to sell. But you can't just assume that it follows capital gains tax rules if it really is a currency rather than a capital investment. Tax codes are vast and different for every country.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:29AM
Yeah but capital gains is a very specific thing that is essentially universally understood and the only thing that varies is the rate.
It's a term that's spelled our pretty explicitly in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which is sort of an international standard, and basically is the defacto accounting standard in the western world.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gaap.asp [investopedia.com]
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:11PM
Sure. But the question of whether Bitcoin is a currency or some kind of investment isn't so generally agreed upon.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:19PM
It's also possible that it's just something new. Neither and both at the same time.
It's the first monetary instrument in history that is uncensorable and has it's own built in transference mechanism.
My advice treat it like a foreign currency for all purposes. It has the same risk profile of a foreign currency issued by a banana republic which unfortunately has an outsized chinese influence at the moment.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:29AM
The gov is quite capable of claiming that the increase in value is taxable, while simultaneously claiming that bitcoin is already a currency, and that you must pay the tax now.
Did you read the Guardian story I linked? His house was raided by the federal police, executing tax office warrants, back in December 2015.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:45AM
Yeah but clearly you missed the part about why they raided it.
He scammed the ATO by claiming he spent a ton of money on R&D in the form of BTC, then using that claim in order to qualify for a grant he shouldn't have gotten.
As for your claim about what the government can and can't do it's just factually incorrect. For what the government can do just ignore the fact that it's bitcoin for a moment and insert "zimbabwe dollars", "gold bars", or "baseball cards".
It will make more sense.
You have to realize a gain for it to actually be taxable, otherwise the government could force you to sell anything you own as soon as it appreciates in value enough in order for you to pay taxes on that thing. Now keep in mind, they could still force him into liquidating anything and everything he has in order to cover actualized capital gains tax.
For instance, you buy a house for $10,000 and it appreciates to $10,000,000 then you go spend all that money on hookers and blow without paying taxes; then yes they can force you to liquidate your bitcoins, but at that point it's a whole other reason. You evaded tax on x and now you need to pay taxes by liquidating y.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:23PM
And he rejected the idea of having The Economist send him another text to sign as proof that he actually possesses these private keys
Sounds like he is unwilling to produce any mathematical evidence of being Satoshi.
Sounds like he already did?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:23PM
It appears to have been slight of hand. This github explains everything. [github.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:47PM
sleight of hand
(Score: 5, Informative) by devlux on Monday May 02 2016, @11:27PM
I realize the news media is lapping this up like a puppy with chocolate icecream, as it turns out the end result will be the same.
Everyone is going to wake up tomorrow with an upset tummy.
Firstly is Mr Wright's utter lack of understanding of crypto in general and yet his self aggrandizement as some sort of genius.
http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-significance/ [drcraigwright.net] (look at the 5th image, specifically at the linux command used and see if you can spot the bug there)
See also...
http://imgur.com/zsbU1FU [imgur.com]
http://imgur.com/IPDPXZm [imgur.com]
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/coindesk-consensus-2016/reaching-consensus-open-blockchains/ [diyhpl.us]
Secondly the message itself is a replay attack...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hflr3/craig_wrights_signature_is_worthless/ [reddit.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hhreq/how_craig_constructed_the_message_that_he_signed/ [reddit.com]
Thirdly the fact that everyone on the "support craig" side of the debate is also deeply involved in the "let's raise the block size" camp and everyone in the "craig is a weenie" side is in the "let's not raise the block size and instead let the fees increase to make the chinese farmers rich!" side. Makes the whole mess very suspect in my eyes.
I don't care who comes out in support saying "yeah well I sorta knew Satoshi and this guy is saying things that only Satoshi would say and he seems to know things only Satoshi would know", is complete and utter BS. So Ian Grigg and Gavin Andersen can say whatever they want. No one needs to believe them.
The point of public key crypto is that you don't need to trust anyone's opinion about authenticity. If they have the private key they can sign the stinkin message with it and that proves that at a minimum they have the private key and the public key is well known already, because that's what a bitcoin address is (a hashed publickey). This is exactly how bitcoin and all other blockchains are designed to work.
Other problems I have with that. Satoshi very likely is not even a single person. His writing style varied WAY too much for one person, including change up spellings on common words and mixing british and american turns of phrase. (color and colour for example). Anyways whatever your opinion, it's a bloody mess and the only ones getting any benefit from it are those with large open bets against the bitcoin price.
To my mind it's probably a political move. Blockstream got the miners (all based in china) to agree not to go with Bitcoin Classic, but instead to remain on core and they did it with underhanded tactics. By having credible people on the Classic side "resurrect satoshi", then satoshi can be used to serve their interests.
Also personal opinion, the block size limit was a temporary bug fix put in place to fix an exploit in a library that is no longer even used. It serves no legitimate purpose any more except to provide an arbitrary limit to the number of transactions that bitcoin will handle and thus drive up fees unnecessarily.
Now I'm not saying they should ditch the limit, but I am saying if they don't ditch the limit, then people will just switch to whatever coin is cheaper. This is the whole concept of sidechains and the lightning network. In fact the proper term for a sidechain is an altcoin and NMC, DVC etc already exist. Blockstream is just spinning an altcoin and calling it bitcoin. Yet with this stunt I really don't feel like I can support Gavin et al with classic anymore. I'm left with 2 possibilities. Either Gavin was fooled, or he is lying. Neither is something I feel I can support in someone who wants to lead development on a software product that is tasked with handling my money.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday May 02 2016, @11:39PM
Yet with this stunt I really don't feel like I can support Gavin et al with classic anymore.
I wouldn't equate supporting higher block limits with supporting the prominent people holding that view. Otherwise I'm in complete agreement with your post. I keep hoping Bitcoin will eventually be replaced by or incorporate the philosophy of Viacoin and Syscoin, which are trying to encourage people to store arbitrary data on their blockchains (it's been a while since I checked on those projects, so they could be dead and/or replaced for all I know).
(Score: 2) by devlux on Monday May 02 2016, @11:45PM
Oh I still support lifting the block limits, removing them completely in fact. They serve no legitimate purpose and everyone who has made claims to the contrary I have been able to successfully debunk including luke-jr.
However SOMEONE has to be lead dev. Gavin lost my support with this. Either he was tricked but sincerely believes, or he is lying to try and manipulate the conversation when the conversation stands on it's own merits just fine. Either way, I can't support someone in either position.
So at this point I support neither classic nor core. I don't know enough about unlimited to make a judgement call though.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:03AM
I hadn't heard of unlimited, but I think I'm glad it exists! What a ballsy move, setting up the conditions for a fork if the other side won't budge and then waiting. I love it! I haven't really been following Bitcoin for a little over a year, when Hello Block shut down I started focusing on other things.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:50AM
Do you have an opinion on OP_RETURN limits?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:34AM
Oh yes, very much so.
Read the white paper linked below for my thoughts on the subject.
https://nxtforum.org/democracy-counts!/whitepaper-11229/ [nxtforum.org]
By the way, this is neither here nor there, but I'm also working on a fork of bitsquare
https://bitsquare.io/ [bitsquare.io]
(Imagine if shapeshift.io married localbitcoins and they had a lovely baby together).
You can trade any coin for any coin directly on their own blockchain, plus it allows for Localbitcoins style fiat gateways.
My fork will add the ability to issue market pegged fungible assets against any crypto without using a middle coin.
The way the pegging mechanism works is by always ensuring that the issued asset is always worth at least n of the underlaying asset.
For example Alice has $1,000 USD worth of BTC at current rates and would like to ensure that no matter what BTC does she always has at least $1000 USD worth of it.
Bob believes the price of BTC will gain over the next 90 days and he would like get as much upside potential as possible while ensuring he limits the downside risk to a fixed maximum value.
Bob would issue $1,000 USD worth of the asset by locking up $100 USD of BTC at current rates.
Alice would buy the asset for $1,000 USD worth of BTC at current rates. This money is also locked up in the same instrument.
Regardless of how the price moves around, Alice is guaranteed to have always have $1000 USD in BTC.
She can call it at any time and claim it. Alternatively, she can hold it until maturity.
The asset is called automatically in 90 days, and if held until matiruty Alice gets $1,100 USD worth of BTC at then present rates.
No matter if the asset is called or held until maturity, Bob keeps the remainder.
From Alice's perspective, she has a dollar that's paying 10% interest each quarter. From Bob's perspective he's buying future BTC at today's price with a substantial discount, especially if he thinks the coin might take a rocket ride and in the meantime his risk exposure is very limited.
Pretty cool huh?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:39AM
Very cool! These are totally rad projects, homie. I think we have very similar views on how the blockchain should be abused; damn the cowards who would keep it clean and sterile!
I am very interested in the issue of blockchain governments/NGOs. It sucks that voting schemes have to have a central authority issuing identities. So it goes. We can't really have stake determining votes, or it's Citizens United all over again!
Are you going to run your bitsquare fork as a service? If so, are you the one who is taking on the risk of Alice and Bob's bitcoins tanking in value? Not criticising, just think I may be misunderstanding.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @11:24AM
I've got a whitepaper incoming soon that goes into much greater depth but long story short, no I wouldn't be running it as a service, the entire network would be.
The amount that Bob pays in order to issue the contract is effectively equal to the 90 day volatility index. There's unlikely to be a catastrophic change that pushes it outside of the 90 day volix.
The trading network would enforce the contract directly on the blockchain, there is a "limit call" function that will call the contract if there is a ranging problem.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @06:02PM
If I skim your old NXT posts am I gonna find more delicious whitepapers?
The trading network would enforce the contract directly on the blockchain, there is a "limit call" function that will call the contract if there is a ranging problem.
I'm not sure I understand this sentence clearly, by "ranging problem" do you mean if volatility exceeds the 90 day index? Is the limit_call function responsible for automatically selling on that condition, to minimize Alice's loss in case of catastrophe?
If so (still not sure I'm understanding properly), I see the appeal but worry that it might create an incentive for a whale to come into your relatively tiny new decentralized market and buy enough coins to make volatility swing past the automatic limit. Once it's past the limit, they might be able to buy the autoselling coins cheap. Then go to a big market and sell the artificially cheap coins. Not sure if this is a reasonable worry, it's just a thought I had.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:25PM
Yeah you'll find a few whitepapers there, you should see Evolution NXT. Which reminds me, I need to go give that thread some love here soon.
As for what happens in the situation you mention, a whale can do whatever he wants, but the volex only updates daily and it's the volex not the price that determines if a call occurs.
Even If he can sling enough coins to get past the volex on Alices contract he's still going to have to convince Alice to sell at that price.
By ranging, I mean that there is a correlation between price and price stability that people tend to forget about.
The volatility index is a measure of how volatile currency has been historically, as averaged out during the last 90 days.
Imagine a currency we'll call it Kansas because it's basically flat.
The volex is going to be pretty close to 0 on Kansas.
If a whale comes by and shorts the hell out of it, the price will be effected short term, but the 90 day volex would be relatively flat.
However let's say he moves the price down by 90%. From $1 to $0.10
This would cause the contract to call, but it would have called around $0.90 USD. (calls happen when the volex changes by 10%, although this is configurable).
Now Alice has all the coins she put in, plus all the coins Bob put in, which is pretty substantial protection. In fact she's back to $1.00 worth of coin again and with autorebuy she would just re-acquire at the new rate and keep having it called all the way down to the bottom. It's Bob that bears the risk here, not Alice.
In otherwords, the decision to call would be if Bob's deposit is no longer enough to cover her given the current volex, not the current price. Calls are a natural thing and nothing to worry about. The maker is the one doing the gambling, the taker is always protected.*
*as long as there are enough makers to buy back in but that's actually a marketing thing.
Now imagine Colorado, it's has long flat places, but it tends to have sky high rocky points too. It has a much higher volex than Kansas. Ergo Bob has to pay more to play.
The same situation happens as before, it's just that Alice gets more for protection and Bob's downside is increased because he has to put up more cash to potentially get less back. However if it happens to call in Bobs favor, then he also gets corresponding orders of magnitude more in return. Ergo Bob really does want to play with the more volatile stuff assuming he has the stomache for it. Bob and others like him piling into the market would tie up liquidity and cause the coin to flatten out. So he's much better off piling in early into highly volatile coins, than trying to just get a little action on the side from the more stable coins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by jdavidb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:28AM
However SOMEONE has to be lead dev
Not necessarily. Multiple competing implementations that have to interoperate with each other and also have to win the support of those who use the system has a nice ring to it.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @11:58PM
This is basically verbatim of the slashdot one that was posted a few hours ago.
I know it might be a lot to ask, but could the soylentils and slashdotters try and not REPEAT THE SAME CONTROVERSIAL AND KNOWN INACCURATE STORIES VERBATIM?!?!?!
I mean fucking seriously. Serial reposters between the two sites should be banned. I'm looking at you HUGH PICKENS ET ALL!
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:16AM
Well hell, don't look at me Mr AC. :D
Replying inside this thread at like 10 levels deep, I'm likely to be the only person who will ever see your concern and I can't do a thing about it.
Posted by Phoenix666 and approved by n1 you should bring your concerns up there if you want them seen.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:37AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:39PM
If that's so, it's completely coincidental. I've visited Slashdot exactly once in the last 18 months, and that was a couple months ago when they announced that Dice was selling the site; I went to savor the schadenfreude.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:20AM
Google "Cornell professor finding satoshi" and you'll find a summary debunking Wright posted at some site called soylentnews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:44AM
His writing style varied WAY too much for one person, including change up spellings on common words and mixing british and american turns of phrase. (color and colour for example).
I do that all the time. I installed the british-english spell-check dictionary so firefox is always trying to correct my words with the british spelling. Sometimes I let it, sometimes I ignore the red squiggly underlines.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:24AM
Fair enough, but it's more than just the occasional word or two.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto [wikipedia.org]
In one posting he sounds like a highly educated person with strong native English skills and the very next day he's talking completely differently like someone for whom English is a second language. He also switches between colloquial and formal speech in various writings. At a minimum he had an editor at least on anything formal.
There have been analysis done on this that managed to uncover 3 or 4 distinct styles. Hence the theory it's either a team, or he's really damned good at hiding and changing up his style in order to be able to lay low.
I'd give 50/50 odds on either theory. Whatever it is, the writing style of Mr Wright does not match anything I ever saw Satoshi post. It doesn't sound like him.
I've got a pet theory right now and if this thread is still going when I wake up, I'll share it, but it's time to put down for the night go to bed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:49AM
I've got a pet theory right now and if this thread is still going when I wake up, I'll share it, but it's time to put down for the night go to bed.
We've got a cock tease philosopher here, folks!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:14PM
Well, I had a nice pet theory. Then Ian Grigg blew it out of the water...
http://financialcryptography.com/ [financialcryptography.com]
I don't believe in conspiracies, after all the only way 2 people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.
But either Ian Grigg and Wright are lying (stakes are high enough that this does become plausible), or team Satoshi Nakamoto has been partially outed.
That would mean that the reason that David Wright can't prove he's Satoshi is the keys are either lost or inaccessible now. But as he said before, he doesn't need to prove himself to the bitcoin community.
So why out yourself now and in the way they he did? It sure doesn't seem like a very wise foundation to build upon for the future.
Consider that Kleinman died and had a thumbdrive that he held onto for dear life.
http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead-friend-invented-bi-1746958692 [gizmodo.com]
So possibly to get Kleinman's brother to give up said thumbdrive which is currently a part of the Kleinman estate.
This makes sense, NAND flash from 2009 would just about be reaching it's expiration date by now. If they had some plan to cash out in 2020 which is just about the time Bitcoin will likely peak then implode,
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/516 [gutenberg.org]
Then having an inaccessible thumb drive would be a major bummer.
I am going to go on record here as saying that I'm having a hard time swallowing my own theory right now. Something doesn't add up.
I can see Grigg and Kleinman as having the competency to pull this off, both of these guys are actual geniuses. But Wright strikes me as remarkably "outside" of this, he might have more degrees than a thermometer, but I have serious questions as to his academic authenticity after seeing him in action.
So backup pet theory.
http://www.coinscrum.com/2015/10/29/what-satoshi-did/ [coinscrum.com]
http://www.coinscrum.com/2015/12/25/what-further-did-bitcoin-achieve-breaking-the-taboo-on-self-issuance/ [coinscrum.com]
Kleinman, Grigg, Dai, Chaum, Szabo, in some combination were Satoshi either directly or indirectly (original theory).
Kleinman being the "computer security" expert in the bunch had the original wallet.dat file. He mined the genesis block and probably a ton of others. I would not be surprised in the least to find that Kleinman was the key to bringing everyone involved together and the person who was "satoshi to the world".
http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09959.html [mail-archive.com]
His death was unexpected. Once he was suicided, the group fell completely apart due to fear and Wright is Grigg's play on this to get at the thumb drive.
It's starting to read like a poorly written spy novel, I know.
There are clearly other players, players who are laying low and my guess is out of fear.
The next 4 years are going to be very interesting.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @06:33PM
I always liked the Nick Szabo theory. Not that I ever believed it, but I liked it. He's got a really interesting piece on the origins if money. [vwh.net]
I don't believe in conspiracies, after all the only way 2 people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.
Well, you go on top explain how Satoshi may have been a conspiracy! :) Conspiracies are undeniable, humans conspire. It is their prevalence and importance that can be called into question.
It seems strange that Wright went about the reveal in such a questionable way, if he was really involved. It would seem more legit to just say that he couldn't sign anything, than to claim to have signed something that didn't pan out. I find it possible, having followed your links, that he just made a horrible judgement call on how to handle that but actually was involved. I had him pegged as strictly a charlatan beforehand. Still think it's the most probable position, but I like your theory.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @06:54PM
Well true I did go on to explain a "conspiracy", but really there are 2 kinds of "conspiracy" First order and second order.
A first order conspiracy is what I mean when I don't believe in conspiracies. This is the "tin foil hat", type with deep involvement of CIA, NSA, Illuminati, Aliens and Elon Musk who we all know must either be a Martian or someone sent back from the future.
A second order conspiracy is the kind that do happen and they tend to fall apart rather quickly because people blab. This is the kind where a former VP from Microsoft goes to Nokia, runs it into the ground, sells it to MS cheaply and then jumps out of the burning company with a nice golden parachute. Things like that happen all the time.
In the case of Satoshi, I think a small handful of people came together, realized they had a good idea and if it works they'll all be rich, but if it fails they'll all be ruined professionally. Some of these people were intimately involved in crypto and bitcoin's design "fixes" flaws that no one could have anticipated at the time, but which are coming to light. Satoshi dipped out the minute the CIA and Gavin sat down for a palaver and I think that's pretty damning. Anyways I think it's safe to say that the specific way that Ian Grigg supported Craig does mean that Satoshi is in fact dead (finney and kleiman), and Wright is being strapped onto the front of the bus as we go through the next few years.
This would be a second order conspiracy because it's just plain folks trying to be sneaky. Someone will blab so pop some popcorn and relax and enjoy the fireworks.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:24PM
Did the Snowden leaks reveal a "first order" conspiracy? Does Operation Mockingbird [wikipedia.org] (also known as "that awkward time we caught the CIA infiltrating domestic media") count as a first order conspiracy? How about the Manhattan Project? I can keep naming examples, it seems to me there are plenty of government conspiracies that have been revealed throughout history. None involving aliens or timetravelers, unfortunately! I doubt those fellows have visited this corner of the multiverse yet.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:48PM
No Snowden didn't show a conspiracy at all. I'm not defending them. I think it was horrible.
It demonstrated abuse of power and authority.
However it wasn't a conspiracy because all actors can reasonably be assumed to have acted within their believed scope of authority. This is demonstrated by the fact that the only one facing criminal charges is Snowden.
An example of a second order conspiracy would be Watergate. The powers that be, conspired to do something that could not even be construed to be legal.
Again it fell apart really quickly because people can't stop blabbing and we also suck at cleaning up evidence we leave behind.
Anything Illuminati, NWO, Jewish Bankers etc would be "first order" because it would require a master plan and generations of coordinated effort in order to pull off. Humans just aren't that good at coordinating anything long term. Beyond 5 years and most people stop being able to even function. Hell most people can't even be arsed to save for their own retirement. No one has the same values as their parents let alone their grandparents etc.
Which I guess was actually the point I was trying to make.
Occams Lightsaber
There are no conspiracies that effect you which you know about, because conspirators talk.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:13PM
The Illuminati did exist, albeit for less than a generation.
I think we define "conspiracy" differently. We also model state actors differently. I believe that state actors manage to accomplish goals that stretch across administrations. I also believe there to be state secrets which stretch across administrations, and I don't think they all get revealed.
We also conceive of the 4th amendment differently, maybe?
It demonstrated abuse of power and authority.
However it wasn't a conspiracy because all actors can reasonably be assumed to have acted within their believed scope of authority. This is demonstrated by the fact that the only one facing criminal charges is Snowden.
This seems semi-contradictory. Either it was an abuse of authority or it wasn't. If it was an abuse of authority then the lack of criminal charges should be seen as incompetence or malice (appeal to Hanlon, I know), not evidence against conspiracy.
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @09:19PM
Mens rea is all I'm referring to with the bit about abuse of power.
Consider this. A cop pulls you over. He searches your car and finds a large stash of cash.
He takes the cash because of civil forfeiture laws and you're tasked with trying to get it back.
This means you go in front of a judge and the judge will be determining if you get your money back and if the forfeiture was just.
Under your definition, civil forfeiture itself is a conspiracy. Under my definition civil forfeiture is just a shit law. Shit laws can be changed through voting.
Now if the cop took it genuinely believing he was applying the law correctly, under my definition he wasn't a conspirator because there is no mensrea. And to be a conspirator does require that element. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal) [wikipedia.org]
Even if it's later found that he abused his authority to do so, he's still not a conspirator and not part of a conspiracy under my definition because he lacks the element of "willfully wanting to do wrong" that is required for it to be a conspiracy.
However if the cop who took it was instructed by those higher up from him to do so and did so not because he was exercising his given authority, but because he genuinely wanted to comply with what would otherwise be an illegal order, then yes he's part of a conspiracy.
In the case of the Snowden revelations, these people abused the law. However to the best of our knowledge it was not prima facie illegal and they believed they were following the law. The people tasked with giving them legal advice gave them bad advice. There was no mens rea that I'm aware of.
No one said "Hey let's suck up all the data on everyone everywhere!" while sticking their pinky into the corner of their mouth and fantasizing about sharks with laser beams. You just have regular folks doing the job they believed they are supposed to do; because they believed the cause was just and those tasked with making sure things comply with the law really dropped the ball. It wasn't a conspiracy, it was just a fuck up.
Now there is a pattern of fucking up that cannot be disputed and does make one wonder. If I were elected to office I would take those involved in planning this and bring them up on charges. Criminal charges even, particularly malfeasance, but conspiracy is not a charge that could be justified unless you can honestly say that they did this knowing full well they were breaking the law.
Does this make my point more clear?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @10:44PM
I think cooperation in secrecy is a necessary prerequisite for being a conspiracy. Your example of civil forefeiture lacks secrecy, and unless there was more than one cop present or some other coverup after the fact it lacks cooperation. I wouldn't call it a conspiracy. This is a minor nitpick about an example, it doesn't hurt your main point.
Your message did make your point more clear for me, I didn't understand that you were getting at mens rea before. I was worried you might be making a much worse, "if a court says it then MJ didn't touch those children!" sort of argument. Whew!
I don't take the NSA's claims about legal advice at face value. I think the fact that James Clapper lied to congress [thehill.com] (not under oath, because the NSA had requested that he not be under oath) about the collection of data from Americans, and has come up with at least two contradictory explanations for the lie, is damning. If this wasn't malicious, why haven't they been forthcoming? Why did this even have to be leaked? Why didn't congress catch this, and have the authority to look into it properly, when Bill Binney blew the whistle? [npr.org]
"I first knew that they were in there when they were pointing a gun at me as I was coming out of the shower," Binney says.
When I ask him why the agents were there, he replies: "Well, it was to keep us quiet."
The NSA is overseen by Congress, the courts and other government departments. It's also supposed to be watched from the inside by its own workers.
But over the past dozen years, whistleblowers like Binney have had a rough track record.
Those who tried unsuccessfully to work within the system say Edward Snowden — the former National Security Agency contractor who shared top-secret documents with reporters — learned from their bitter experience.
For Binney, the decision to quit the NSA and become a whistleblower began a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he says he discovered the spy agency had begun using software he'd created to scoop up information on Americans — all without a court order.
"I had to get out of there, because they were using the program I built to do domestic spying, and I didn't want any part of it, I didn't want to be associated with it," he says. "I look at it as basically treason. They were subverting the Constitution."
Binney says he and two other NSA colleagues who also quit tried sounding the alarm with congressional committees. But because they did not have documents to prove their charges, nobody believed them. Snowden, he says, did not repeat that mistake.
"He recognized right away, it was very clear to me, that if he wanted anybody to believe him, he'd have to take a lot of documentation with him — which is what he did," Binney says.
And still, despite the obvious inability of the system to check itself, no pardon for Snowden. I can't find a way of modeling the government as not understanding what it is doing here. From my perspective, the intent looks very malicious and the program looks like a red-handed conspiracy.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday May 02 2016, @11:54PM
What's the point of all these attempts to figure out who Satoshi is? Does matter in the slightest?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:00AM
is the modern day X marks the spot for bitcoin treasure?
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:35AM
It matters because debates on key fundamentals that bitcoin will need to address going forward are usually begun with the sentence of "Well Satoshi's vision was ..."
See also this...
https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520 [twitter.com]
Being able to verify who is sending the message does help to allay fears in people who don't realize that they have invested in a developer not a coin.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:56AM
Once we have a name, we can start taking bets, ideally in bitcoin, on how long he has to live.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:06AM
Why? Does he have cancer or something?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday May 03 2016, @04:43AM
If he's Satoshi, he has bitcoins. Lots of them. And someone might decide to use the physical brute force method to get his key.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:54AM
DING-DING-DING! Satoshi Nakamoto is like a piñata filled with bitcoins.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @11:40AM
Oblig XKCD on the subject
https://xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:03AM
Here's what this is like... a journalist named Clifford Irving claimed that Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire who hadn't been seen in public in many years, had appointed him as his autobiographer. Irving came out with the book [amazon.com] and was busy promoting it on TV when Hughes called a press conference [telegraph.co.uk].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:44AM
I just saw this very interesting post linked from Roger Ver's twitter feed: Why I declined to verify Satoshi Nakamoto [reddit.com]. Most important point is that if this was really SN and he wanted to verify his identity he could do it publicly but instead he is doing it privately and resorting to appeal to authority fallacies instead of giving the world a valuable demonstration of how cryptography works.
As I have expressed many times in the past, I think the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto does not matter. More importantly I think it serves to distract from the fact that bitcoin is not controlled by anyone and is not a system of Appeal-to-Authority. Identifying the creator only serves to feed the appeal-to-authority crowd, as if SN is some kind of infallible prophet, or has any say over bitcoin's future.
BTW, interesting how Satoshi Nakamoto and Soylent News are both SN. Coincidence? :D
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 03 2016, @04:19PM
Well damn, all of that and it looks like I may have been wrong...
https://blockchain.info/address/12cbQLTFMXRnSzktFkuoG3eHoMeFtpTu3S [blockchain.info]
I actually like it more when I find out I'm wrong then when I'm proven correct. I'm such a pessimist in real life, that proving me wrong means there's some optimism left somewhere.
So now the question is who owns that ancient dusty address. I guess we'll find out here shortly.