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Bitcoin Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto Could Actually Be Group From Europe

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-are-legion dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could be a group from Europe which has a strong footing in the financial sector. From the article: 'Josh Zerlan, the Chief Operating Officer of Butterfly Labs and a person familiar with the Bitcoin network, has said it is highly likely that Nakamoto could be a group of people working the financial sector. Speaking to IBTimes UK on the sidelines of a Global Bitcoin Conference in Bangalore, India, Zerlan said: "One of the prevailing theories, I think has credibility, is that it was some group of people from financial sector that created this. They released it and stepped back and let it go. So, Satoshi Nakamoto is a group of people, I think, is a reasonable possibility."'"

36 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I am ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Satoshi Nakamoto

    1. Re:I am ... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      No, I am Satoshi Nakamoto.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    2. Re:I am ... by billcarson · · Score: 2

      There is a bit of Satoshi Nakamoto in all of us.

    3. Re:I am ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      His name was Robert Paulson. Check the blockchain.

    4. Re:I am ... by pregister · · Score: 2

      Michael J Fox has absolutely no Satoshi Nakamoto in him.

  2. Or.. by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 5, Funny

    Then again, it could be not. Interesting. I think I have had my number of conspiracy theories for today.

    --
    Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  3. Hey, let's speculate! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Rather than engage in actual tech news, let's speculate wildly(second guess in as many weeks) on the identity of someone who explicitly wanted to remain anonymous, and who has committed no crimes. That sounds like a grand engagement in journalistic credibility.

    Anyone who really wanted to could find out my identity, but I wouldn't want them to start posting about their ideas as major headlines.

    1. Re:Hey, let's speculate! by dugancent · · Score: 2

      The fact that none has makes your speculation as bad the author of this article.

      --
      SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
    2. Re:Hey, let's speculate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Without some actual evidence other than just conjecture at a coffee klatsch, there are a lot of parties who could be the BitCoin creator.

      Lets check facts:

      1: It is someone clued in cryptography. This is very rare because most crypto implementations on virtually anything are very basic

      2: It is someone who is clued with regards to the financial sector, perhaps has a lot of coins mined and stashed aside when it took just a CPU to mine them as opposed to ASICs.

      3: It is someone who can code, code well, and distribute things out anonymously.

      After those three items, it could be anyone, and suspicions could be anywhere.

      In any case, the party who made BitCoin is filthy rich, and will only get more so by an exponential margin as time progresses, BitCoins get lost forever, and no new ones are mined.

    3. Re:Hey, let's speculate! by gutnor · · Score: 2

      Not saying it is not garbage journalism, but there is an unidentified guy with a fortune estimated to 1.8 trillion dollar. Much more if bitcoin takes over, up to 5% total Earth Wealth in the unlikely scenario of bitcoin becoming the world currency. I wonder why there is not much more article trying to track him down considering we live in a world that has a fetish for famous people.

    4. Re:Hey, let's speculate! by roman_mir · · Score: 2, Funny

      Let's speculate! I think Satoshi Nakamoto is actually a space alien, who introduced the Bitcoin on this planet in order to run his personal intergalactic ponzi scam. Bitcoins are just a tip of the GAWAY group (Galaxy Way), next thing you know, you are peddling your kidneys in the back alleys in exchange for Bitcoins, which you are promptly exchanging for the next dose of Jupiter III Moonshine dust so you can snort it off the back of a three legged blue-skinned tentacle'd hooker with tits for ears. Of-course you have to sell sell sell, that's the GAWAY, and so you have to try and pull your relatives into it, friends, friends of relatives, relatives of friends, relatives of relatives of friends' friends. Either they'll all become part of GAWAY or you will find yourself without any of those categories of people around you.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    5. Re:Hey, let's speculate! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      I have no love for bitcoin, but if you invent something that replaces the entire world money supply, then you've done something pretty useful.

    6. Re: Hey, let's speculate! by tompaulco · · Score: 2

      Wait, so if you have a million dollars worth of bitcoin you are not rich because yo have not converted it to another currency? If you have $1 million worth of gold that you have not sold are you similarly not rich? If you have $1 million worth of stocks that you have not sold are you similarly not rich?

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    7. Re:Hey, let's speculate! by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Funny

      My wild theory is that it's the NSA.

      See you take the name: satoshi nakamoto
      rearrange the letters and you get: ha! NSA is tomatos ok?
      and tomatoes are green like MONEY! most of the year.

    8. Re: Hey, let's speculate! by rsmith-mac · · Score: 3, Informative

      Leaves less of a paper trail and makes it somewhat easier to avoid paying capital gains tax on the proceeds.

      Of behalf of all of the people who legitimately pay taxes on their capital gains, fuck you.

  4. Ah yes, Josh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Josh Zerlan/Inaba, noted whiz-kid who runs one of the most fly-by-night ASIC companies, and who curses out his customers and insinuates things about their sexual proclivities rather than provide actual customer service. A highly-qualified individual to be speaking on the topic of Bitcoin, surely.

    1. Re:Ah yes, Josh by dirtaddshp · · Score: 2

      +1!!!

    2. Re:Ah yes, Josh by kaizendojo · · Score: 2

      Can you differentiate your accusations from what you accuse him of by included some citations. Not saying you're lying, but it would help your argument to provide some info to those of us unfamiliar with your claims. Otherwise it's no better than TFA.

  5. Three Men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

  6. As always by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The olde 'The idea is so clever, it must have been one of us'-Syndrome.

    1. Re:As always by Vintermann · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, they didn't say Satoshi Nakamoto was a group of scammers.

      (For those not following, Butterfly Labs have become infamous in the bitcoin community by selling ASIC mining machines, promising delivery in one week. If they arrive at all, it's more than six months later, and by that time the difficulty of bitcoin mining has inevitably increased enough to make them unprofitable.

      Yet they keep advertising one week's delivery time.

      They have a record of breaking down due to defects, too, if they arrive. People suspect that BFL let these miners run for themselves in the months between advertised delivery time and actual delivery time.)

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  7. Again and again and again by Threni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could be a group from Europe which has a strong footing in the financial sector....could be a group of people working the financial sector.... some group of people from financial sector that created this...Satoshi Nakamoto is a group of people, I think"

    Pointless random guesswork aside, why do journalists feel the need to say the exact same thing 3 to 5 times in the first few paragraphs? Once is enough, surely?

    1. Re:Again and again and again by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Informative

      Pointless random guesswork aside, why do journalists feel the need to say the exact same thing 3 to 5 times in the first few paragraphs? Once is enough, surely?

      According to my journalist friend, it's how they were taught. The headline, the first paragraph and then the first... I forgot how much, are each supposed to be readable to get the story in various depths of knowledge. Newspapers have been accounting for TL;DR since long before the Internet.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  8. Re:I am Satoshi Nakamoto. by dpilot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > I'm pretty sure this worked out for Spartacus...

    Not really - it seemed to backfire on everyone who said it.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  9. Unlikely by Rinisari · · Score: 3, Informative

    Zerlan hasn't often been accurate in his estimates of things.

    I'm not going to bother to link to these because a quick Google search can turn up the evidence.

    Nakamoto registered the bitcoin.org domain on a somewhat obscure Japanese site. His communication in English had all kinds of clues that his native language was Japanese (sentence structure, word choice, etc.). He was active during daylight and evening hours in Japan.

    I really wish people would stop speculating who he is. It only matters to those who can't read the code and understand that it ultimately doesn't matter, except the possibility that he may one day "come back" and have several hundred thousand Bitcoin to himself. As benevolent as he acted, it's unlikely that he'll pull a Biff Tannen and rule the world. However, miners have the power to stop him if he tries.

    --
    Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
    1. Re:Unlikely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nakamoto registered the bitcoin.org domain on a somewhat obscure Japanese site. His communication in English had all kinds of clues that his native language was Japanese (sentence structure, word choice, etc.). He was active during daylight and evening hours in Japan.

      I'm playing devil's advocate here, but that could be deliberate misdirection.

    2. Re:Unlikely by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just a few minor corrections (I had multiple private email conversations with Satoshi over a couple of years before he disappeared).

      The bitcoin site was registered via an anonymous DNS registrar that specialises in anonymous speech. For a short while he also used an email account from the same service, again, a service dedicated specifically to anonymous speech. I've seen no evidence it was selected due to any links to Japan.

      I don't know where you got the idea that his writing style was that of a native Japanese speaker. He never once wrote anything in Japanese or even referred to Japanese culture. His writing style was actually that of a British guy: full of British English spellings and mannerisms. Also, he timestamped the genesis block by including a headline about the British banking bailouts from The Times. That's a British newspaper that is most commonly referred to outside the UK as "The London Times" due to its rather generic name. It would be rare for an American or Japanese person to refer to it just as "The Times". Finally, his forum account was set to GMT and his posting activity was during evenings GMT.

      Having worked with his code and the man himself, at least for a short while, I think Satoshi was very likely to be a single person, who lives in the UK. But that said, I've never dug any deeper because he clearly wished to have his privacy and I think it would be a sad day if Satoshi's real identity were revealed without his permission.

    3. Re:Unlikely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I lived for several years in Japan. I speak Japanese fluently. I taught English in Japan. It is almost certain Satoshi is a native English speaker. Reading the archives of the bitcoin forum, he makes absolutely no common mistakes that Japanese people make when speaking English. Personally, I think he is either American or Canadian based on his spelling and choice of phrases, but British might be credible.

      If you read his code, he is also almost certainly a professional Windows programmer. His coding idioms are absolutely characteristic of someone who did a fair bit of MFC. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he is likely over 35 years old given that he probably learned to code in the 90's.

  10. More Likely by dale.furno · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is probably the NSA using your hashing power to break encryption.

    I make this statement knowing approximately nothing about crypto.

    1. Re:More Likely by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      Or maybe just making it cheaper/easier for themselves to do so. Because of bitcoin, we now have custom ASIC computers which can do calculations at amazing speeds. Sure the NSA could already ask someone to make machines if they needed to, but it would be much more convenient for them if the machines were commercially available.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:More Likely by Vintermann · · Score: 2

      This would be a good point, except that there's not really much NSA gets from having extreme hashing capacity. Breaking badly salted/hashed passwords, maybe, but if Snowden has taught us anything, it's that they don't need to rely on such crude tactics.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  11. Re:It's probably true? by mythosaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A group of people, no matter how small, keeping the fact that you're sitting on 1BN a secret? Someone's going to spill the beans to someone soon enough. Or it's one guy, and he's already rich enough that there's little temptation.

    That's my wild speculation. :)

  12. Re:Well, this can only help consumer confidence by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

    Elon Musk

  13. SPECTR, LLC. by goombah99 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Duh... It's a subdvision of the Keyser Söze Group in the W.A.S.T.E operations department of Illuminatus holdings conglomerate. A few years ago they had a hostile take over bid from KAOS but the man UNCLE subverted it.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  14. Re:I never got this part of Bitcoin.. by PRMan · · Score: 2

    Since the founders of MANY other alternative currencies have been arrested and jailed by various countries...

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  15. Re:I am Satoshi Nakamoto by snakeplissken · · Score: 2

    No i'm spartacus! and so's my wife!