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 After questioning (read: harassment) from both publications, Wright seems to have withdrawn from public comment.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.

Comments

Re:who gives a shit?

[Lisandro]

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.

Re:who gives a shit?

[angel'o'sphere]

The current versions may vanish.

However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.

Re:who gives a shit?

[Dan East]

really... what does it matter who "invented" bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a bit like a pyramid scheme, in that blocks become progressively more computationally expensive to calculate over time. Thus the first blocks were very low-hanging fruit that were quick and easy to calculate. Of course those easy blocks were calculated by the creator of Bitcoin, and it is estimated Satoshi has at least 1 million bitcoins (the current value of which is over $400 million dollars). So I think many people are curious as to who holds this wealth, which is an unduly massive reward for having created a crpytocurrency. It also raises the question of whether bitcoin was created merely to enrich the creator, or if it really was for some larger purpose. The only person who knows the answer to that is Satoshi.