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Craig Wright Claims He's Satoshi Nakamoto, the Creator Of Bitcoin
Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has put an end to the years-long speculation about the creator of Bitcoin. In an interview with the BBC, The Economist (may have a paywall), and GQ, Wright claimed that he is indeed the person who developed the concepts on which Bitcoin cryptocurrency is built. According to the BBC, Mr. Wright provided "technical proof to back up his claim using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin's creator." Wright writes in a blog post: [A]fter many years, and having experienced the ebb and flow of life those years have brought, I think I am finally at peace with what he meant. If I sign Craig Wright, it is not the same as if I sign Craig Wright, Satoshi[...] Since those early days, after distancing myself from the public persona that was Satoshi, I have poured every measure of myself into research. I have been silent, but I have not been absent. I have been engaged with an exceptional group and look forward to sharing our remarkable work when they are ready. Satoshi is dead. But this is only the beginning. According to Wright's website, he is a "computer scientist, businessman and inventor" born in Brisbane, Australia, in October 1970. Some have questioned the authenticity and relevance of the "technical proof" Wright has provided. Nik Cubrilovic, an Australian former hacker and leading internet security blogger, wrote, "I don't believe for a second Wright is Satoshi. I know two people who worked with Wright, characterized him as crazy and schemer/charlatan." Michele Spagnuolo, Information Security Engineer at Google added, "He's not Satoshi. He just reused a signed message (of a Sartre text) by Satoshi with block 9 key as 'proof.'"
The real Satoshi Nakamoto is worth at minimum around a half a billion dollars.
The real Satoshi could trivially and indisputably prove his identity: Sign some message generated today with the key used to sign the genesis block.
You know what would be awesome? To have an anonymous message show up on some online forum that says "Craight Wright is not Satoshi, and the May 2, 2016 opening prices of AAPL, INTC, GOOG and MSFT were $93.96, $30.45, $697.63 and $50.00, respectively", signed with the Bitcoin block 0 key.
Just how much energy has been wasted mining bitcoins over the years. This guy, and anyone that uses Bitcoin, is a drain on society and resources.
You could say exactly the same thing about gold. And more: the countless lives that have been lost digging gold out of the ground, only to have most of it sit in vaults. At least we don't have mine collapses and typhoid epidemics in the bit-coin mining camps.