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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 After questioning (read: harassment) from both publications, Wright seems to have withdrawn from public comment.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.
really... what does it matter who "invented" bitcoin?
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.
I would like it much better if we put this whole failed experiment of "Anonymous Coward" to rest. It's pretty clear that people aren't using it to post "juicy" stuff they couldn't post otherwise. It's just a forum for people who are too lazy or stupid to create an account to spew bullshit that nobody would ever say if they knew people could identify the source of said idiocy.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
We already do, it's called a debit card. But the fact is, there will always be a significant contingent of people who want to live off the grid, those that want something to hold and pass around more than plastic, and homeless. "Paper" money will never go away. As irrational as it is considering how governments manipulate their paper money, many people feel safer with it than some nebulous concept of concurrency that perhaps you and I understand, but guess what? We will always be in the minority.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Not meaning to be a dick, but on modern economics all prices are based on speculation. Nothing has intrinsic value.
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.
It's actually pretty much the exact opposite of fiat. Fiat means the authority declared it to be so. The government says their dollar is valid to satisfy any and all debts, and that dollars MUST be used to pay taxes, which a majority of people have to pay. In other words, you need dollars because the government ordered that you do, and they will put you in prison unless you get some dollars to pay them with. That's what a fiat is - an order, a declaration by the ruling authority.
Bitcoin is pretty much the opposite- noone requires that you use it. It's price is purely based on the hope that tomorrow someone else might buy it from you, who in turn wants it for the same reason- they hope that later someone else might be willing to pay them for it, that the ponzi will continue and someone else will treat it as valuable.
As you mentioned, neither is backed by gold. The dollar is backed by two things. As I mentioned, it's backed by guaranteed demand due to taxes - people WILL want your dollars, because they have to have dollars in order to pay their taxes. Secondly, it is backed by the US government bomd rating (credit score) which the government must maintain because they survive on debt. If the govt devalued the currency beyond expected inflation rate, that would be constructive default on their debt, which is denominated in dollars. If they did that, no-one would lend them money anymore and they'd be unable to function.
So those are the two major things backing the dollar - the fact that people will need dollars to pay taxes, and government's need to protect their ability to continue borrowing.
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
FWIW, if you're sitting on a big pile of bitcoins, the best thing to do would be to sell them slowly. If I were the inventor, I would:
- Remain steadfastly anonymous (unlike anyone else who creates a major new technology.) Using a pseudonym doesn't hurt. (Hey, it works for me here.)
- Mint myself a big pile at first
- Sell them slowly so as not to devalue them or draw too much attention to myself.
IIRC, Spain once had a problem where they had acquired a big pile of gold from the New World and they thought they were rich. Then, they learned that they weren't as rich as they thought because a sudden increase in the supply of any currency inevitably devalues it.
The primary selling point of gold as a currency is that it can't be created, it can only be mined at ever-increasing cost - much like Bitcoin. The sudden increase of supply from the New World was an anomalous exception to that rule. I'm sure the Bitcoin folks won't make the same mistake.
Just an hour ago police raided his place, more than 10 officers... But rest assured people, this is only related to an ATO investigation and has nothing to do with him being suggested to be the Bitcoin master mind. The ATO always have such a strong task force in Australia, regardless of the recent massive lay offs and the fight over the rich dodging tax for years (we just passed a bill that allowed the richest Australian's to hide their tax information due to threat of kidnapping, of which our law enforcement agency never got consulted on and there has never been a kidnapping attempt made).
There is a war going on in Australia over the need to overhaul our tax codes as more and more details of rich companies and people paying NO tax on billions of profit each year. The ministers swore at the G20 to go after them and then the next week quietly sacked a large minority of ATO works and cut their budget to pathetic levels. Then passed laws to protect the rich from being revealed.. But NOW we have a 10+ raid performed on a barely billionaire who was only just outed as the creator of Bitcoin and we have an international attach on encryption with Australia being a part of the five eyes group... Yeah no connection at all there, they will trump this as going after the rich and the bulk of citizens will cheer.
Ya, and he got fucking raided as a result! http://www.rawstory.com/2015/1...
-Most- of the time, the IRS will only take your stuff because sending someone to prison costs them money. However, Lauryn Hill went to prison for failure to pay taxes and Willie Nelson nearly did. Unlike private creditors, the IRS can seize your bank account and other assets without a court hearing, and you -can- go to prison for failure to pay them.
Is being outer as Satoshi Nakamoto is the new swatting thing, but with more long-lasting negative consequences?
So those are the two major things backing the dollar - the fact that people will need dollars to pay taxes, and government's need to protect their ability to continue borrowing.
You're overlooking something...
The US economy, that is really what backs the US dollar. Well, that, and the US military, our allies, and various agreements we have around the world...
We have printed over 4 trillion dollars since 2008, but the world seems to have absorbed it, which I'm actually surprised about, but given issues in other economies, it may have simply balanced out.
The Fed's books are likely very ugly, but as long as the US economy continues to function, it probably doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the US has huge natural resources, we still actually make a ton of stuff, and we have the most powerful military in the world.
China is rising, and we're wise not to speak to them the same way we speak to the Russians, who are last century's news (even if Putin doesn't want to hear it).
In the 21st Century, it is going to be China and the US, and then everyone else.
Reuters is reporting Australian police have executed search warrants (or the Aussie version of such a thing) on several different locations owned or occupied by Wrights. This proves Wired and Gizmodo got it right.
It takes evidence and time to get these warrants in the US and more time to stage people an officers and make plans for this kind of raid. Again assuming Aussies work the same way, this means the cops were already onto him before the media suddenly got on the trail and tipped him off that his cover was shattered. With the media sniffing around, he probably had time to run, hide, or do something else to escape. The cops slammed the door shut the moment they saw the media coverage. Their plans to keep watching him blown. It didn't sound like he was in custody yet.
Wired's evidence seems good and solid and the dots connect nicely. This man is an idiot tripped up by the same thing that catches many people trying to hide: their own damn mouths.
Sig for hire.