from Hacker News

Who I think Satoshi Nakamoto is

by markessien on 1/29/18, 9:19 PM with 35 comments

  • by fragsworth on 1/29/18, 11:07 PM

    I don't buy it. Satoshi Nakamoto was most likely Hal Finney.

    1) Finney lived in very close to Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto (who happened to be unrelated to Bitcoin) - it's possible that he used his name.

    2) Finney was the first person to perform a bitcoin transaction with Satoshi Nakamoto

    3) Satoshi Nakamoto stopped writing messages after Finney died

    There are a few other reasons I'm forgetting, but the coincidences are too many.

    Interestingly, Hal Finney had himself cryopreserved. He may have invented Bitcoin, to get resurrected 150 years later...

  • by Waterluvian on 1/29/18, 11:06 PM

    Have we had the conversation yet about the politeness of not trying to hunt down someone who quite apparently does not want to be found?

    I feel that there's no value to trying to figure out his/her identity other than personal gain at his/her expense. It doesn't help us collectively.

  • by tlb on 1/29/18, 11:07 PM

    You shouldn't publish something like that without at least reaching out to the person for comment.

  • by emsal on 1/29/18, 11:07 PM

    Regarding point A:

    How can you really date a person's writing style to be from pre-2010? Is there really a way to prove this? And why does that necessarily date the person writing it as a 35-50-year-old?

  • by berberous on 1/30/18, 12:13 AM

    I'm not a professional programmer, but I'd imagine the amount of code available for both BitTorrent and Bitcoin might be enough for someone with a lot of experience coding to say whether or not this is likely to be true based on coding style.

    My bet is it's not.

    Also, agree with the other comments here that these sort of articles are both dangerous and disrespectful.

  • by devereaux on 1/29/18, 11:59 PM

    What not leave that person alone?

    They have not come forward and may dislike the publicity.

    Maybe they just want a normal happy life?

    They haven't cashed a single bitcoin in almost 10 years. They would have every right to do that: They gave humanity a wonderful new tool, a technological solution to a social problem!!

    It may also be safer for them to never come forward, even if they destroyed their own keys and bitcoins. Criminals and government would never believe that, and still attempt to attack that person.

  • by Crontab on 1/29/18, 11:24 PM

    Is it really so hard to give someone the anonymity they want?

  • by bratao on 1/29/18, 11:38 PM

    This is a very good hypothesis, I only see one big counter-point. He announced a Bitcoin alternative https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/chia-network-cryptocurrenc...

  • by bitmapbrother on 1/29/18, 11:34 PM

    There needs to be a #NotMe movement.

  • by pbreit on 1/29/18, 11:45 PM

    Was this killed because it's dox-ish?

  • by bb88 on 1/30/18, 2:05 AM

    Why are the topics critical of bitcoin more likely being flagged than not?