NYT Claims Adam Back Is Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto (nytimes.com) 85
A New York Times investigation by John Carreyrou claims a British cryptographer named Adam Back is the strongest circumstantial candidate yet for being Satoshi Nakamoto. The report citing overlaps in writing style, ideology, technical background, and old posts that outlined key parts of Bitcoin years before its launch. Carreyrou is a renowned investigative journalist and author, best known for exposing the massive fraud at Theranos while at the Wall Street Journal. Here's an excerpt from the report: ... As anyone steeped in Bitcoin lore will tell you, Satoshi was a master at the art of maintaining anonymity on the internet, leaving few, if any, digital footprints behind. But Satoshi did leave behind a corpus of texts, including a nine-page white paper (PDF) outlining his invention and his many posts on the Bitcointalk forum, an online message board where users gathered to discuss the digital currency's software, economics and philosophy. And that corpus, it turned out, had expanded significantly during the impostor's civil trial when Martti Malmi, a Finnish programmer who collaborated with Satoshi in Bitcoin's early days, released a trove of hundreds of emails he had exchanged with him. Emails Satoshi sent to other early Bitcoin adopters had surfaced before, but none came close in volume to the Malmi dump. If Satoshi was ever going to be found, I was convinced the key lay somewhere in these texts.
Then again, others must have gone down this road before me. Journalists, academics and internet sleuths had been trying to identify Satoshi for 16 years. During that span, more than 100 names had been put forward, including those of an Irish cryptography student, an unemployed Japanese American engineer, a South African criminal mastermind and the mathematician portrayed in the movie "A Beautiful Mind." The most alluring theories had focused on coincidences that aligned with what little was known about Satoshi: a particular code-writing style, a mysterious work history, an expertise in Bitcoin's key technical concepts, an anti-government worldview. But they had run aground under the weight of an alibi or some other piece of inconsistent or contrary evidence. Each failure had been met with glee by many members of the Bitcoin community. As they liked to point out, only Satoshi could definitively prove his identity by moving some of his coins. Any evidence short of that would be circumstantial.
It seemed foolish to think that I could somehow crack a case that had confounded so many others. But I craved the thrill of a big, challenging story. So I decided to try once more to unmask Bitcoin's mysterious creator. Back, for his part, denies being Satoshi, writing in a post on X: "i'm not satoshi, but I was early in laser focus on the positive societal implications of cryptography, online privacy and electronic cash, hence my ~1992 onwards active interest in applied research on ecash, privacy tech on cypherpunks list which led to hashcash and other ideas."
Then again, others must have gone down this road before me. Journalists, academics and internet sleuths had been trying to identify Satoshi for 16 years. During that span, more than 100 names had been put forward, including those of an Irish cryptography student, an unemployed Japanese American engineer, a South African criminal mastermind and the mathematician portrayed in the movie "A Beautiful Mind." The most alluring theories had focused on coincidences that aligned with what little was known about Satoshi: a particular code-writing style, a mysterious work history, an expertise in Bitcoin's key technical concepts, an anti-government worldview. But they had run aground under the weight of an alibi or some other piece of inconsistent or contrary evidence. Each failure had been met with glee by many members of the Bitcoin community. As they liked to point out, only Satoshi could definitively prove his identity by moving some of his coins. Any evidence short of that would be circumstantial.
It seemed foolish to think that I could somehow crack a case that had confounded so many others. But I craved the thrill of a big, challenging story. So I decided to try once more to unmask Bitcoin's mysterious creator. Back, for his part, denies being Satoshi, writing in a post on X: "i'm not satoshi, but I was early in laser focus on the positive societal implications of cryptography, online privacy and electronic cash, hence my ~1992 onwards active interest in applied research on ecash, privacy tech on cypherpunks list which led to hashcash and other ideas."
clickbait article (Score:5, Informative)
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No I'm not!
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Re: clickbait article (Score:1)
Yeah, I was unimpressed. I expected more of Carreyrou. While some of the spelling similarities and timing coincidences are interesting, I'm unimpressed about the share ideological and technical backgrounds... I feel like most people participating in the early cryptocurrency scene (e.g. on the cyberpunk and cryptography mailing lists) would know what PGP is, embrace libertarianism, and use some common technical lingo.
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Yes, and with that grammar you'd win.
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Genius mastermind who has done significant damage to the world in terms of CO2 emissions, pointless hardware creation, fucked over consumers who have been screwed at every turn with blockchains, and created a network to facilitate money laundering and illegal deals the world over?
Yeah I wouldn't want anyone to accuse me of developing Bitcoin.
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Can anyone tell me what the CO2 emissions impact is from the entire banking industry?
I bet if you could accurately track money laundering, you'd find that the old paper dollar is responsible for a lot more of that... same goes for illegal deals...
The blockchain rules are as public and immutable as they possibly can be. Consumers should definitely educate themselves before diving in.
It's very different from the old ways of doing things, and people should definitely proceed with caution when risking their li
Re: Here we go again (Score:2)
You can file ansuit for anything you want.
But it's not going to stick when every claim is researched and the speculative parts are stated as such.
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What would be the libel here? For something to be libel it has to be more than false, it has to actually cause damages and, generally, be negative. Calling someone a mastermind behind a technology is not libelous even if it's false.
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The key to Bitcoins creator and author are in the. (Score:2)
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What you're trying to say is that it was created by the NSA, and that it's a honeypot.
Purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
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What is the purpose of these articles?
So that /. can have an excuse for publishing them, since they're clearly bitcoin pushers [slashdot.org].
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Re:Purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
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Since when is Adam Black a publicly traded US company? You're off your rocker.
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Bitcoin treasury companies borrow money and use it to amass bitcoins, providing investors with a more aggressive way to bet on the cryptocurrency. Mr. Back had started his last summer and was merging it with a publicly traded shell created by Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. As chief executive of the merged company, Mr. Back was required under U.S. securities law to disclose any information that was material to its investors. A secret stash of 1.1 million coins that could crash the Bitcoin market if it were suddenly sold, for example, would probably be considered material.
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Nicholas Maduro would like to say something...but he can't.
Neither can the men driving those go-fast boats 1000 miles away
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What is the purpose of these articles?
Bitcoin pump, probably. It's up a bit today because Iran made it the official currency of their oil tanker "tolls".
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They (Iran) obviously chose it because it is at least in the short term comparatively difficult to sanction but also not to difficult to convert. It would not do them much good to collect tolls in some other currency and subsequently have US diplomatic pressure cut them off from the banking networks that generally handle that currency.
I am not saying that Bitcoin isn't highly traceable and that the US and other governments wont try and won't ultimately succeed making it so punitive to accept payments (in bi
Pump (Score:2)
on the one hand (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:on the one hand (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, Satoshi supposedly has $138 billion in Bitcoin and could crash the markets with rapid divestment.
The idea that someone could have access to a vast sum of wealth, but chooses not to, makes for a good story, but I'd say it's more plausible he's dead.
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but I'd say it's more plausible he's dead.
Or lost his private key
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Or lost his private key
Wouldn't that be embarrassing. Talk about being hoisted by your own petard.
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Who are you calling a petard?
It's an explosive allegation, that's for sure.
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It's possible it was lost intentionally - I don't know and I haven't even done a quick google to check, but the first early miners ought to have made out like bandits. $person that invented it, likely mined a whole load as Santoshi, and a whole load more as $person. They deliberately "lost" Santoshi's key so they'd never be tempted to use it, and instead have lived off their early gains as $person.
My guess is, whomever it is, they're not some $78bn billionaire, but they're doing very nicely thank you, proba
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Re:on the one hand (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone with a brain, having just invented a deliberately anonymous cryptocurrency that starts to take off, would NOT EVER touch the seed coins, especially once it became obvious that everyone was watching their movement.
The second that stuff moves, Bitcoin value tanks AND the ultimate destination of all those coins becomes international news. Hardly anonymous.
No, whoever they were, and for literally whatever reason they started the project, they would have created other additional accounts later on, capitalised on those, had no connection to the original accounts, and still be a billionaire now. But just one of hundreds / thousands of others that are all untraceable and not really being watched.
And when Bitcoin mixing services came out, they'd have been all over it - just to preserve anonymity if nothing else.
We know precisely one thing about Satoshi - and that's that they don't want to identify themselves. Maybe there is $138bn sitting in an account they could in theory get access to. But it would immediately reveal information about themselves that may well work against them - taxation authorities would be all over it, press, public, every penny would be traced to its final destinations, etc.
So even if they only had, say, a couple of million in another account... they'd use that. Not everyone wants to be a stupendous billionaire in the public eye. You have to be a bit of a sociopath to be a billionaire at all. And then think of things like security, press, public scrutiny, etc.
Maybe they've got enough to live a life of luxury, that they've properly declared, never have to work again and, ultimately... still stay absolutely anonymous.
The one thing we know is that they understand anonymity. Why on earth would we ever expect them to do the most stupid thing ever and reveal themselves, rather than just hide amongst a large crowd and enjoy the rest of their life?
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This.
You don't need billions to be care-free. Even double-digit millions in some nice safe assets already give you enough fuck-you-money to be good. And while everyone looks at the super-super-rich and they're in various public lists and tracked by not just the tax authorities, barely anyone knows the multi-millionaires. I know three or so that I'm sure nobody on here has ever heard anything about. They stay quiet, comfortable, private.
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I know a few that were made multi-millionaires by Bitcoin specifically...
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but I'd say it's more plausible he's dead.
I'd say its plausible that they know that an attempt to cash out even a portion of that would a) lead to their complete loss of any private life, b) trigger a crash in asset value. There are actually people who don't like the bullshit that comes with *public* wealth.
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Puts anyone accused of being Satoshi at great risk.
When you win the lottery in the UK, they help you hide the wealth. Special bank accounts, advice on how to avoid other people finding out, that sort of thing. There is a risk of both crime and people coming to beg for money.
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Only if it is in the public interest to destroy bitcoin.
Imagine if one person were suddenly revealed to unilaterally posses sole authority/ownership over 1/10th of dollars in circulation with no checks, or limits on how or what they could do with them, when or how fast!
Do you think that would do much for dollar confidence? I think likely lead to a pretty immediate discounting of the dollar probably around 10% in real value. The impact on Bitcoin would be a great deal more pronounced because Bitcoin is so
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someone that would prefer a private life. On the other hand, Satoshi supposedly has $138 billion in Bitcoin
Don't you think you have the absolute best reason to not be revealed right there?
Can you imagine what criminals the world over would do for a few percent of that money?
Tax Evasion (Score:3)
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Re: Tax Evasion (Score:1)
Or, less drastically, prosecute him for creating a competitor to the dollar, similar to the Liberty Reserve guy.
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If you got $138B or so in Bitcoin that you did not really earn, are you really that worried about paying taxes?
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Huh? What taxes? There are no taxes (in the US) for simply owning bitcoin. If/when you sell then capital gains will apply.
Adam Back is currently a resident of Malta (he stated that UK vs Malta taxes were a reason he moved his primary residence). Malta taxes are different than the US or the UK. I'll would let an actual Malta tax lawyer (I am not, and do not know any) determine how much Adam Back might end up paying, should he every realize some of those gains.
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The thing about paying tax is that you do it only if you have income and wealth to pay taxes on. I'd love to be in a situation where I owed the government billions of dollars in capital gains tax. It would mean I would myself be rich and retired.
The truth right here... (Score:1)
Pretty good reporting (Score:1)
The reporting and write-up are quite good. I'd wager the reporter is accurate. Anyone but Craig Wright.
They checked the writing. Nobody checked the chain (Score:1)
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> when your investigative toolkit is journalism
Exactly. The English Majors went where other investigators have previously gone and ruled out.
The stack of blockchain, Merkle Trees, halvings, etc. show a level of insight a quantum above Hashcash.
There's noting wrong with being "quite good" but "engineering genius" is something different.
Besides, Satoshi would never have stood for not funding mining with txn fees. The BTC chain is in danger of being unmineable very soon.
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Not a real person.... (Score:3)
I keep saying this, but Satoshi is a government product. Created to generate wealth. The person was a team of people. Probably US funded.
Re: Not a real person.... (Score:1)
The annoying thing about the "it was a group of people" theory is that it ignores the crypto/cyberpunk community that was bouncing ideas and implementations around for years in public mailing lists. The "group" and their work is in plain sight... no shadowy government black ops required.
Some gold coins buri in a lot of weak circumstance (Score:2)
The arguments are pretty broad, and it does seem the author worked back from a conclusion toward proof which in statistics doesn't work.
Being interested in decentralized currency and being a libertarian are essentially a Venn diagram that's a perfect circle. There were numerous other examples where the author would have concluded the average late 90s Slashdotter created Bitcoin because that was just your average neckbeard from the era, nothing unique to Satoshi. I was ready to just write off the whole art
The NYT is not a serious news outlet (Score:1)
It's been a bought rag for some time.
It might be more than one person (Score:2)
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IMHO, given the number of coins Satashi is supposed to hold, "he" would have spent at least a few. So either "he" is dead, or actually it was a group of people who had shared ownership, but one or more have died so they no longer have all the key parts.
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The coins he might have spent are not marked "previously owned by Satoshi".
They are marked by a 26â"62 alphanumeric characters string.
While you can trace every transaction, you can not simply conclude from an address to an owner.
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But all with a single coding style?
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Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead..
I don't think it is a team. That would be even more people with 130 some odd billion reasons to show their cards.
I don't even think one of there letters could sit on something like this effectively. Hell even the airman rescue mission leaked, and there was little or no financial incentive to leak that.
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it isnt a trope it is a witticism.
Mark Twain was joking when he wrote it, but like all observational humor it is funny because there is a grain of truth to it. It isn't like a law of physics or something where a single counter example falsifies it, as long as it true often enough to broadly reflect the reality we experience it is good enough.
No it isn't real "evidence" that the author of BitCoin is a single persons but it is a valid counter point to, we can't find a single BitCoin author so maybe it was re
Re: It might be more than one person (Score:2)
Give me a one word responce. (Score:2)
ClippyAI: No
They're always wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Looking at the foundation of bitcoin, it's clear the person that created it was trolling techno-libertarians. They disappeared as soon as they realized their creation was taken seriously rather than as the obvious joke it really is.
Andy Warhol (Score:3)
"One day everyone will have invented bitcoin" - apologies to Andy Warhol
Is he alive? (Score:2)
Is this "Adam Back" alive? Yes? Well, he is not satoshi then.
The CIA already knows (Score:2)