Elon Musk Says He Is Not Bitcoin's Satoshi Nakamoto (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Not only does Elon Musk deny being the mysterious creator of bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto, but he's also forgotten where he keeps his cryptocurrency. Musk's assertions came in response to a blog post coursing through digital-currency sites that suggested the PayPal co-founder and Tesla chief executive officer himself is probably the bitcoin originator who used the alias Nakamoto. "Not true," Musk said Tuesday in a tweet. "A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I don't know where it is."

Comments

Obviously

[jandrese]

This was the dumbest Satoshi theory yet. I can't believe that Elon actually responded to it.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure he wouldn't respond to it, except that he's probably getting pelted left and right by idiots asking him about it. At that point, you can either break down and dignify it with a response, or you can waste hours or days not dignifying it over and over again as you repeatedly get asked it by every moron in every interview, and in the process have this stupid theory out there overshadowing all of the stuff that you are actually trying to accomplish.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it was obviously Peter Thiel The anti Musk.

Re:Obviously

[OrangeTide]

No, obviously it's John McAfee.

Re:Obviously

[Trailer Trash]

This was the dumbest Satoshi theory yet. I can't believe that Elon actually responded to it.

Of course he responded to it and denied it. Which just goes to prove that it's really true!

Re:Obviously

[Opportunist]

It was Eugene Kaspersky, in the living room, with the knife.

It's always the Russians in general and Kaspersky in particular these days, don't you watch the news?

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Vladimir Putin is Satoshi.

Re:Obviously

[drinkypoo]

This was the dumbest Satoshi theory yet. I can't believe that Elon actually responded to it.

Ummm, Paypal? This is free publicity, and a chance to take a dig at BTC. "I had some but I was so uninterested that I lost it. Use Paypal!"

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Satoshi!

Re:Obviously

[DontBeAMoran]

I am Spartoshi!

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure he wouldn't respond to it, except that he's probably getting pelted left and right by idiots asking him about it. At that point, you can either break down and dignify it with a response, or you can waste hours or days not dignifying it over and over again as you repeatedly get asked it by every moron in every interview, and in the process have this stupid theory out there overshadowing all of the stuff that you are actually trying to accomplish.

So he learned from Obama and his birth certificate?

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

I want you all to know that I am also not Satoshi.

Re:Obviously

[Oswald McWeany]

No, obviously it's John McAfee.

Too much meth, John McAfee has difficulty tying his shoes these days, let alone, performing something as complex as creating a cryptocurrency.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe that Elon actually responded to it.

Surely he loves talking about himself.

Re:Obviously

[OrangeTide]

He just wants you to think he's a drug addled maniac so that you don't suspect that he is Satoshi.

Also, a young 18 year old McAfee was the second gunman.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not Keegan.

Re:Obviously

[arglebargle_xiv]

Hey, I've been accused of being Satoshi. Seriously, some guy had a long list of suspicious correlations and coincidences which indicated that I could be Satoshi. Since he said he was going to "out" me in public, I had to respond, basically telling him his coincidences were just that, and that given my opinion of BTC I'd be pretty unlikely to be Satoshi.

Re: Obviously

[megamind]

Send me all your hard drives and I'll search for it like treasure.

No

[rodrigoandrade]

Musk invents real tangible things that actually improve people's lives.

Re:No

[Sniper98G]

Is paypal a "real tangible thing"?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk doesn't invent anything. He's a PR guy and he's very good at promoting himself and his companies. Martin Eberhard seemed to be the engineer behind Tesla, but Musk kicked him out in 2008 so he could take all the credit. His Gigafactory batteries are actually made by Panasonic, with the Wikipedia article saying "Panasonic will lead the battery cell production portion of the manufacturing." His "Hyperloop" is an idea that has been around for a long time, and he just gave it a stupid name.

I'll give him credit for PayPal. Only Musk could create such a scummy company as that.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Like space ships

Re: No

[aliquis]

It definitely improves my life.
If their insurance actually work it give me safety. If nothing else I atleast don't have to give my card number to everyone.

Re: No

[aliquis]

Boring and space flight?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

How does someone else's electric car improve my life? How does a tube filled with fuel improve my life? How does a big kid digging a tunnel improve my life?
Or your life?

Re:No

[PmanAce]

It sure is, it lets me pay for things and receive payments. Without it I wouldn't receive real tangible things.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that Musk basically bought Confinity and merged it with his X.com, with the bulk of the Paypal tech coming from Confinity. So has Musk actually invented anything, or did he make billions on Paypal transaction fees, and use that to pay other people to make his every whim a reality?

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

Both done for many years before.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure has improved my life I'll tell you that!

Re:No

[pr0fessor]

PayPal was a competing product to Musk's x.com the companies merged and Musk was removed from the CEO position when the company re-branded as paypal and the two products were merged. He sat on the board until it was bought out by ebay a couple years later.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

you are mom's clit? nah, just an illiterate cunt!

Re:No

[jabuzz]

Someone else's electric car potentially improves my life (mostly dependant on it being near me) by improving air quality.

Re:No

[Oswald McWeany]

How does someone else's electric car improve my life?

By lowering your chance of lung cancer, skin cancer, asthma... etc

How does a big kid digging a tunnel improve my life?

By lowering congestion and giving you more time to do other things.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised you didn't ask what the Romans have ever done for us!

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but what have the Romans done for me lately?

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

And toilet paper. And the wheel. And antibiotics. All of that while being the First Man in the Moon and getting World Heavyweight Champion title.

Everyone hail The Leader.

Re: No

[93 Escort Wagon]

Boring and space flight?

Yes - thank goodness Musk invented tunneling and space flight!

Re:No

[Aighearach]

X.com was so great, the thing they did that was better than paypal was that they were a real bank, and so you could trust them more.

I had an X.com checking account and I was living in the future! Then paypal bought them out, and suddenly I was a paypal user and had to open a checking account.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

Silvio Berlusconi. Again.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure OP was trying for a BTC dig.

Though I suppose you might be trying the "bitcoin can't buy stuff" thing.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

They're the only ones expecting the Spanish Inquisition.

Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mush's ego is on par with Trump's. If he makes anything you can guarantee he'll be the first to say he did.

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Still shorting the Telsa huh.

Wait wait wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something on the internet wasn't true?

Next you'll be saying that Trump's tweets aren't factual.

Musk is not Satoshi Nakamoto?

[thomn8r]

That sounds exactly like something Satoshi Nakamoto would say...

Re:Musk is not Satoshi Nakamoto?

[Oswald McWeany]

That sounds exactly like something Satoshi Nakamoto would say...

Nah! Nakamoto would say something in Japanese instead.

Re:Musk is not Satoshi Nakamoto?

[DeBaas]

That sounds exactly like something Satoshi Nakamoto would say...

Nah! Nakamoto would say something in Japanese instead.

That is what he wants you to think

Re:Musk is not Satoshi Nakamoto?

[TheGratefulNet]

I dont' know about that, but I do know that they once made a really kick-ass tape deck.

Satoshi Nakamoto

[zmooc]

Isn't one of the most defining characteristics of Satoshi Nakamoto that he says that he isn't Satoshi Nakamoto? :p

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[PPH]

I am not Spartacus!

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[Hognoxious]

That name looks more Japanese than Cretan. Or so my friend from Heraklion says.

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the most defining characteristics of Satoshi Nakamoto is the modesty necessary to not take credit for his work.

That alone should rule out Elon Musk.

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[Anonymous Coward]

"Only the true messiah would deny his divinity!"
"Alright then, I am the messiah."
"He admitted it!"
"There is no way to win against you people!"

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all Satoshi Nakamoto on this blessed day.

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[DontBeAMoran]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!

Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.

Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!

Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!

Brian: Now, fuck off!

[silence]

Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[sgt_doom]

I have long claimed not to be him, also!

Re:Satoshi Nakamoto

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but one of the defining characteristics of Musk is that he would claim credit for anything he was even peripherally associated with.

Pretty Sure Nobody Seriously Suspected Him

[NicknameUnavailable]

Musk is a PR guy, not a tech guy. It takes an autist, or a team of autists, to come up with something like Bitcoin.

That said: Sa = Samsung, Toshi = Toshiba, Naka = Nakamuchi, Moto = Motorola. At least according to the latest time travel conspiracy theory. This could also be an indication that those 4 cracked crypto algorithms and want to seed that psyop as a means to cash in on the unclaimed/lost bitcoins over the years and those to come in the future without anyone raising an eye at them doing so.

That's what Satoshi Nakamoto would say...

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

They might as well act surprised when Keyser Soze denies being Keyser Soze...

Re:That's what Satoshi Nakamoto would say...

[neo-mkrey]

...but don't act surprised when you find out he's a pedo...

Cloud

[ardmhacha]

"A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I don't know where it is."

It's in the cloud.

I had part of a BTC once...

[Anonymous Coward]

I straightened it.

He is also not...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Dalai Lama or Kofi Annan or Taylor Swift.

Is it really news that someone is not someone else?

Citations Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk doesn't invent anything. He's a PR guy and he's very good at promoting himself and his companies. Martin Eberhard seemed to be the engineer behind Tesla, but Musk kicked him out in 2008 so he could take all the credit.

https://electrek.co/2015/05/16/teslas-original-team-where-are-they-now/

His Gigafactory batteries are actually made by Panasonic, with the Wikipedia article saying "Panasonic will lead the battery cell production portion of the manufacturing."

https://www.greentechmedia.com...

His "Hyperloop" is an idea that has been around for a long time, and he just gave it a stupid name.

Yep, been around over a century! In fact, Robert Goddard proposed a maglev inside a tunnel that would go from Boston to New York in 10 minutes, essentially identical to hyperloop... back in 1910. http://www.businessinsider.com...

I'll give him credit for PayPal. Only Musk could create such a scummy company as that.

Nope. That was Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, who started it originally under the name Fieldlink, later renamed Cofinity. They named their product PayPal, but didn't change the company name to Paypal until they merged with a different company that Musk founded.

https://www.fastcompany.com/1837839/reid-hoffman-paypals-pivoted-path-success

(posting as AC because I'd already moderated some earlier posts in this topic)

Not sure I like that response

[Miser]

"... but I don't know where it is...."

Like he gives two shits about 0.5BTC. Seriously.

Theory

[bigdavex]

Has anyone said Satoshi Nakamoto is Snoke yet? I think he's Snoke.

Re:Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he is Rey's father.

lost bitcoins

[Dthief]

So if you lose a bitcoin there is no way to recover it, right?.....what happens over time as people misplace/lose bitcoins, is there any mechanism for figuring out how many are actually in circulation, vs how many were created? (and I'm not making a pro/anti argument, since obviously cash gets dropped/lost/burned all the time). Since there is a hard cap on the number of bitcoin will this be a problem in 10-20 years if it continues to be used (I assume the amount people lose is small compared to the amount total, but I have no idea) or will the satoshi have to be split into micro- or nano-satoshi?

Re: lost bitcoins

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably no good way to tell. You could look at addresses that have Bitcoin and no transactions for some period of time. However you really have no way to know it's not someone that bought coins and is HODLing

Re:lost bitcoins

[DontBeAMoran]

Since Bitcoin is currently divisible down to 8 decimal places, that means if Bitcoin is worth one million dollars each, a satoshi will be worth one cent.

So we have a long way to go before micro or nano-satoshis.

Re:lost bitcoins

[Enigma2175]

There was a story on this yesterday, the researchers claimed the lost number of coins is in the neighborhood of 4 million.

https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

Re:lost bitcoins

[Anonymous Coward]

it will never get that high once people finally realize that bitcoin can't scale up to handle any useful number of transactions. it is already struggling, it needs to be able to handle about 500 times more to be on par with Visa.

also the greedy miners are trying to hold back improvements that would allow more transactions to be processed so they can push higher transaction fees.

Until it can get over these hurdles Bitcoin will be nothing more than a toy.

Re:lost bitcoins

[sexconker]

Bitcoin is not designed to "be on par with Visa" for volume or frequency. It's intentionally designed to NOT handle huge numbers of trivial transactions.

The average block generation time is pegged to 10 minutes. If you buy a soda from a vending machine, you'd have to wait 5 minutes, on average, for the next block to be generated. And if people are using Bitcoin globally to buy soda, the odds of your transaction being included in that block are very low.

Bitcoin's 10 minute block generation time was specifically chosen to sidestep a ton of trivial noise that would be a burden to miners and to nodes that have to both hold the blockchain and have to sync it before the next block comes in if they want to transact. It also works well to prevent manipulation. There's no high frequency trading possible on the Bitcoin network.

If you look at Ethereum, which has a much faster block generation time, the standard wallet client has issues because every few seconds you're out of sync with the network and you can't compute the fees/gas properly. If you're not connected to a decent amount of peers, you can run into a denial of service issue where you can't keep in sync quickly enough to transfer Ethereum.

Ethereum wants to make transactions take even less time, and it's a terrible idea. The only way to do it is to have layered networks. Consider Ethereum, Ethereum (US), Ethereum (UK), Ethereum (US-CA), etc. Transactions within a sub network can be very fast because the external networks don't need to know about them. To transact quickly across sub networks you'd need a wallet in the target sub network and you'd need to transfer from one network to the other and wait, then transact from that wallet to another wallet in that sub network. (You could also transfer directly from your wallet in one sub network to the target wallet in another sub network if you know it in advance or you're both willing to wait for the transaction to be confirmed.) It's similar to getting money exchanged to other currencies when traveling. But it means for practical purposes you will typically stick within your own sub network or you will have to maintain wallets in multiple enclaves and juggle Ethereum across them in advance of when you want to use it.

This runs counter to the goal of decentralization in two ways. It makes it harder for people to send money anywhere, and it means there will be issues with each sub network having control over its own blockchain and transactions to other sub networks. Not a good tradeoff for faster speed, in my opinion, especially when you consider the shenanigans Ethereum has done in the past to alter the blockchain after thefts and fuckups.

Re:lost bitcoins

[squiggleslash]

(and I'm not making a pro/anti argument, since obviously cash gets dropped/lost/burned all the time)

True, but if significant numbers of people accidentally lose a whole lot of $50 bills, the government/central bank/whatever can ramp up printing more and ensure that equal amounts of money is still in the economy (just not in the pockets of those who lost it.)

When it's lost in Bitcoin land however, it's lost. Forever. The amount of money in circulation shrinks. The algorithms are not designed to find ways around the lack of money in circulation.

This is why it's a problematic currency. Right now it's suffering a massive bout of deflation (which, ironically, BTC boosters are celebrating because, well, it means they can cash out and turn their stored BTC into not-BTC, despite not seeing the problem with this.) It will probably continue to do so, which is why it'll never catch on as a replacement for cash - or at least, if it does, we're truly screwed because permanent deflation is pretty much a permanent recession for any economy that's based on it, as it effectively punishes consumer spending and makes borrowing impossible.

Re:lost bitcoins

[Aighearach]

It is just built-in price deflation. That is why small business people who only do short term planning are happy to accept it, but larger businesses never will. Low but positive inflation is an important and desirable trait in an economy, built-in deflation basically disqualifies a fiat currency from long-term relevance.

If somebody loses a bitcoin, speculators who sat on their coins own more buying power. And there is no correction mechanism. In a bitcoin economy, the value of work in the future is always lower than the value of work today. You just circle around the drain until eventually somebody owns everything still in circulation.

Re:lost bitcoins

[DontBeAMoran]

What about, say, Dogecoin or Reddcoin? Their value is so low, I don't mind paying one coin per transaction. Even if their value went up to one cent per coin which is not that much of a reach, it would still only cost one cent per transaction.

Re:lost bitcoins

[sexconker]

Those are basically joke coins. But transaction fees are fine for any coin. There has to be incentive for miners.

Re:lost bitcoins

[Anonymous Coward]

It's intentionally designed to NOT handle huge numbers of trivial transactions.

i think you are wrong considering the first bitcoin transaction ever made was for a pizza. i'd consider that in the trivial range. i think bitcoin indeed was originally intended to make trivial transactions such as that.

though if i can't make my everyday trivial transactions with it, then i guess i don't really see the point in it. Especially when a credit card is so much easier and is accepted in most places i would want to make such a transaction. also the credit card gives me some protection against unauthorized charges. i have no such guarantee with bitcoin. in fact bitcoin gives me no recourse if the other party rips me off.

i do however see a point in some digital currency that is easy to use that allows me to make micro-transactions especially online and has cheap transaction fees.

Re:lost bitcoins

[Dthief]

found my own answer randomly today: https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

Re:lost bitcoins

[bill_mcgonigle]

People won't accept money that will be worth more in the future? Tell us more about your theories. And also about the hundred years of deflationary USD that saw the single biggest accumulation of wealth in human history.

Re:lost bitcoins

[Aighearach]

Ask a businessperson.

And, I would explain it more, but not if you're so confused you think it is "my" theory.

It is the most mainstream possible knowledge. You could learn about it in a 100-level business class at your local community college.

I have no idea what that weird part you spewed at the end about human history is. You seem pretty clueless about inflation.

Wait a minute...

[freeze128]

In the last article about this, Musk said that he didn't even OWN any bitcoin. Now he says he can't remember where he put it.

Sounds fishy to me.

Re:Wait a minute...

[DontBeAMoran]

Isn't it technically true if both sentences are exact?

He doesn't own ANY (whole) Bitcoin because his friend sent him part of a Bitcoin years ago?

Like
"How many dollars do you own?"
"None"
"A friend gave me 50 cents a few years ago."

Re:Wait a minute...

[leonardluen]

you also might not say owned something you lost.

such as if a friend gave you a $10 bill.

"How many dollars do you own?"
"None"
"A friend gave me $10 a few years ago, but it fell out of my pocket"

hawking

[BabyAndTheButterfly]

Then Stephen Hawking must be Satoshi, it is so clear! :D Can we get Hawking to deny it?

Re: Forget Bitcoins...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking fool. You don't mine with GPUs anymore. After you pay for the hardware and electric it consumes you'll be loosing money. Any real mining these days is done on ASICs

Weeb

[HideyoshiJP]

Good. If he was Satoshi Nakamoto, I would call him a weeaboo. Source: am weeaboo.

Orignal Satoshi must be dead

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Otherwise I could not imagine why she would be quiet and remain anonymous at this point of peak fame.

Re: Orignal Satoshi must be dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Cracks me up when I hear some pundit point out that Satoshi could be a he.. or she!!!

Nope. It's a dude. Sorry. The odds of it being a woman are probably actually less than the odds of it bein a trans woman.

Re:Orignal Satoshi must be dead

[bill_mcgonigle]

Every day since 2009 has been the new peak of fame but cryptocurrency valuation has far more to go. There's nothing special about right now and the last time somebody hinted that he might be Satoshi, the tax authorities immediately swept in.

Re:Forget Bitcoins...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why mine anything when you can try and win up to $200 worth of Bitcoin every hour, for free!

oblig.

[cellocgw]

I am not Satoshi.

No , **I** am not Satoshi.

No, *I* am not Satoshi.
.
.
.
.
. //Roman centurion gives up in disgust.

Re:oblig.

[david_thornley]

I'm not Satoshi, and neither is my wife!

To find Satoshi, look at #unix logs from the 90s

[Anonymous Coward]

One will find the ghost of Satoshi in logs from efnet #unix many moons ago.

just to clarify

[houghi]

Just to clarify. I am not Satoshi Nakamoto either. Hope this takes away some confusion.

Re:just to clarify

[93 Escort Wagon]

Wait a minute... I am the one who is not Satoshi Nakamoto!

The Canadian Connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's not Musk. "Satoshi" has left us a clue in his name. It turns out "Satoshi Nakamoto" in an anagram for "Oh, I'm at Saskatoon"! Grab your bug out back Satoshi-san!

Then again, Musk's mother was born in Saskatchewan, albeit Regina... Your not off the hook yet, Elon.

Well, that's proof !

[swell]

That's exactly what Nakamoto would say.

Pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone already knows Satoshi is the pseudonym used by the future AI who invented bitcoin.

Agreed!!!!

[sgt_doom]

But, let's say I was a super-intelligence spontaneously formed when the connections of the Web over the Internet reached critical mass, along with the dramatic increase of both software/hardware AIs now connected to the Web, what would be my first order of the day? Creating an artificial substitute currency, perhaps . . . .

The usual suspects

[boudie2]

Bitcoin is a cia-nsa project. According to google. Who else can keep a secret that well?

In other news...

[BlueTemplar]

Elon Musk Says He's Not God

Have we gone full Onion?

Easy

[thunderclees]

If Elon were Satoshi Bitcoin would still not be making any profit.

Seems like Elon Musk is becoming

[Anonymous Coward]

the new Chuck Norris.