Slashdot Mirror


Wired Thinks It Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is (wired.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In a lengthy exposé, Wired lays out its case that Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto is actually Australian businessman Craig Wright. As evidence, Wired cites leaked communications and posts on Wright's blog from 2008 and 2009 establishing a connection between him and the launch of Bitcoin. Wright is also known to have amassed a significant Bitcoin fortune early on. Wired tried to contact Wright and got some perplexing responses, and they admit that it could all be a (long and extremely elaborate) hoax. But hours after publishing, Gizmodo followed up with the results of their own investigation, which came to the conclusion that Satoshi is a pseudonym for two men: Wright and Dave Kleiman, a computer forensics expert who died in 2013. After questioning (read: harassment) from both publications, Wright seems to have withdrawn from public comment. Regardless, both articles are quite detailed, and it will be interesting to see if the leaked documents turn out to be accurate.

4 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Bitcoin is not controlled by its creator by perpenso · · Score: 5, Informative

    I do. BTC is gaining a lot of traction as the defacto digital currency standard, and we have no idea who's behind it. Bitcoin is a solid design and has survived a lot of scrutiny so far, but imagine what would happen if we found out that the design was introduced by, say, the NSA.

    That would be irrelevant. Who created the Bitcoin system, be it a Satoshi or an NSA, is at best a historical piece of information. Bitcoin is an open design and its code open source, free to be analyzed by anyone who has an interest. It is not controlled by its creator.

  2. What bitcoin risk? by perpenso · · Score: 3, Informative

    Then don't use Bitcoins if you don't accept the risk. It's super easy.

    What risk? There is little risk in using bitcoins. Convert USD/EUR/etc to BTC, transfer BTC, convert BTC to USD/EUR/etc. *Use* does not have to involve risk.

    Holding bitcoins does involve risk, just like holding any other speculatively priced asset. However many users of bitcoins do not hold them. For example merchants accepting bitcoins for payment. They contract with 3rd party payment processors to do real-time "currency conversion" for BTC pricing (so products and services only need to be priced by merchants in USD/EUR/etc), payment processing and delivering the originally specified USD/EUR/etc to merchants. Merchants never see or touch a bitcoin despite the buyer making payment using bitcoin.

  3. Wright's home raided by Australian Police by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    At 1:30pm today, Australian Police raided the home of Craig Wright.
    http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-founder-craig-wrights-home-raided-by-australian-police

  4. Fuck Wired, Fuck Gizmoto by AndyKron · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ya, and he got fucking raided as a result! http://www.rawstory.com/2015/1...