He had promised to do the impossible -- cryptographically prove he had access to early coins which he did not in fact have. He had carefully developed two scam-proofs of this.
One scam proof was deployed on his blog where he claimed to sign a Sartre text with a key from bitcoin block 9. He carefully did not give the exact input text, only a supposed hash of the text. The hope was anyone trying to replicate would assume their problem was an incorrect source text. And there was proof that the given hash value was signed by the key. But that did not survive internet scrutiny; it was noticed that the signature came from an old bitcoin transaction. Instead of signing the hashed Sartre text as claimed, it signed the old transaction.
The other scam proof was presented in private to reporters and bitcoin developers Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. Here Wright supposedly demonstrated the ability to sign arbitrary messages using keys from bitcoin blocks 1 and 9. This scam succeeded: both Andresen and Matonis were convinced. But they were not allowed to keep copies of the evidence, to prevent the trick from being exposed. One speculation is that Wright was able to substitute a doctored version of the Electrum software used for the verification. But without evidence to examine outside of Wright's control, the exact details of the scam are still hidden.
But now Wright is out of ideas. His public-consumption scam failed, and his private controlled-scenario scam can't be more widely replicated.
So this message is his way of backing out, trying as much as possible to save face and keep open the possibility of claiming the Satoshi Nakamoto identity again later.
As someone mostly in the dark about bitcoin and the community around it, why does this matter at all? Why do people care who created it at this stage, and if that person should come forth, what would the impact be? What could such a person realistically do?
Don't underestimate curiosity. Whoever satoshi really is, he / they managed to release some truly ground breaking software, anonymously, and that software has never been broken, and millions if not billions of dollars rests upon that work. It all came from nowhere.
I for one have a lot of respect for this satoshi, and if they ever reveal themselves I would like to find out more about them, purely because they sound quite interesting.
Earlier this week Craig wright came out with a wild claim with "proof" that actually worked against his favour if anything. Most people see this as a selfish act to try to claim fame and respect, while having the audacity to claim that he doesn't want that. This naturally puts him in a very dislikeable position, and I imagine many people wanted to see how he would attempt to worm his way out of this mess he has got himself in, knowing full well he couldn't produce the goods.
You're right that it "doesn't matter" but then at some level perhaps nothing does... It all comes down to subjective interest at the end of the day.
That part I do understand, but this is already the case isn't it? Whether Satoshi comes forward or remains hidden. I wondered if it were more of a worry in the community that Satoshi would, perhaps, attempt to exert some form of central control, which I'm relatively certain is considered a bad thing in that community.
I had not cared that much about this, but his actions are exactly what I would have expected from bitcoin's creator. There are some guys who simply do not want to be found. The guy who created Bitcoin is one of them. Making things develop like this simultaneously repairs much of the damage to his anonymity while minimizing the damage to the two guys who put their reputations on the line for him. By acting the way that you are acting, you are acting exactly like he intended for you to act. There is simply insufficient public evidence to say whether he is or is not. He is in that pesky excluded middle that gives rise to pseudo-Boolean logic.
That being said, people should realize that the creator of Bitcoin does not want to be found and honor that.
So you expected the real Satoshi to keep his anonymity by announcing his identity to the world and then backing up the announcement with "proof" that is clearly false?
People who "simply do not want to be found" don't make any sorts of claims whatsoever. People who make fraudulent claims are scammers, plain and simple.
The fraudulent evidence that Wright has presented doesn't make it more likely that he's Satoshi, they make it much, much less likely. At this point, it's more reasonable to assume Donald Trump invented BitCoin than Wright.
If we want to follow the conspiracy theory path, then this is sort of a last resort trick that may work when you're building up suspicion and need a way out, instead he started the whole charade without actually being ever closed to be linked to Satoshi
You are being downvoted because your statements simultaneously conflict and support themselves.
As for honor, if the creator of Bitcoin exists as a single entity then it's about time for them to stand up and take some responsibility in the disaster that is the Bitcoin community. Creating something so important and then leaving town is immature, illogical and down right annoying.
> As for honor, if the creator of Bitcoin exists as a single entity then it's about time for them to stand up and take some responsibility in the disaster that is the Bitcoin community. Creating something so important and then leaving town is immature, illogical and down right annoying.
Satoshi is not responsible for the Bitcoin community any more than he is responsible for the quality of this Hacker News comment you've just written. I understand the annoyance of not knowing who Satoshi is, but he/she/they doesn't owe us anything.
Apparently, he was able to prove, but did not allow others to keep copies of the evidence. At best, you can suspect. But how can you conclude so strongly that this was a "scam"?
Because there is no plausible narrative that can account for the known facts and account for the private proof as anything more than smoke and mirrors.
In particular, the person best placed and best motivated to produce such a narrative -- Wright himself -- offers no explanation.
The argument is that there is no legitimate reason for Wright to not allow them to keep copies of the proof, aside from the reason that the hardware/software he provided was a tampered version and the proof would not actually work on any machine not provided by him.
I can think of a reason. If Gavin, for example, had both a new text and a signature that was demonstrably from Satoshi, then he could publish this and screw Craig's big reveal. I mean, if anyone is a reasonably credible Satoshi, it's Gavin.
That, at least, would be a good reason to not give the signature to Gavin or Jon.
However, the moment Craig failed to sign an unambiguously new text on his blog with a known Satoshi key everything that went before was suspect. Would it have proved he was Satoshi? No. Would almost everyone except a few tinfoils give him the benefit of the doubt. Assuredly.
The fact that that didn't happen is very strong evidence that Craig does not have the keys from early blocks. Does that prove he is not Satoshi? No. But he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have. And I'm pretty sure it's not me.
> That, at least, would be a good reason to not give the signature to Gavin or Jon.
Yes, but the message that was (supposedly) signed contained words to the effect of "Craig Wright is Satoshi", or else his initials? How would Gavin be able to use that message to show that Gavin was Satoshi?
Sure, but then you consider the undeniably faked proof published on his blog, and now this inability to meet his recent promise to provide real proof today. For someone who actually had Satoshi's keys, all of this is probably more work than just publishing real proof in the first place.
If he was actually the creator of Bitcoin, this is the worst possible way he could convince people of it. That's were the extreme doubt comes from.
I think you greatly underestimate the real harm done to people who are victimized by online (and offline) mobs; people become objects of the sport of public vitriol. Just look at the remarks in this discussion; it's not a rational discussion, it's people acting out in anger - because it's become acceptable to hurt this person.
I can completely understand someone not wanting to deal with it any longer. Also, it doesn't matter what he does or says at this point; nobody will look at the evidence (even now, likley few in this discussion know more than what others in the mob have told them) and he will be lynched. Anything he does only will fuel the fire.
Wright has permanently damaged other people's reputations, and put substantial effort into impersonating another person. I don't know if "victim" is appropriate.
At any rate, this conversation is about whether or not he is Satoshi. This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not. And as @lucozade put it, "he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have".
Says who? Who tried and convicted him? The accusations of an angry mob are not at all reliable. And guilty or not, who are we to hurt him? If what you say is true then there is no reason for people to act this way; they simply could forget him and move on.
> This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not
In theory, but unfortunately not always in the real world.
This is not a court of law. People have a right to (and do!) form their own opinions without going through the courts. Calling something a scam does not require a legal judgment, AFAIK... unless you want to argue that it would be slander/libelous to do so. However, this would probably be a tough sell since saying "X is a scam" in everyday life would probably be interpreted (for legal purposes) as saying "It is my opinion that X is a scam" and opinions cannot be slander/libelous AFAIK.
This is not an apology or admission of guilt for conning people with his ridiculous stories. This is an enigmatic exit, complete with him still tacitly claiming to be Satoshi. Quite pathetic.
They make promises about what will happen in the future.
When it (doesn't) happen in the future, they don't say that they let you down or that they were in error or even admit that they agreed to something ahead of time.
In drawn-out cases there will be many deadlines, the narcissist never owning up to missing prior deadlines.
When challenged, the narcissist will create an emotionally hostile situation to cause an immediate distraction, again promising something soon, and never return to the original claim.
"This is an enigmatic exit, complete with him still tacitly claiming to be Satoshi. Quite pathetic."
Agreed. "I won't prove that I'm Satoshi anymore, but I am". It's getting more and more like religion -- we don't get to know for sure, we have to believe now.. And I'm sure a herd of idiots will do just that.
We are supposed to care about privacy, yet people can't stop trying to find out who is the creator of bitcoins, even though this person clearly doesn't want that to be known. I think we are all naturally hypocritical beings or something.
Are people actively trying to find the creator of bitcoin? Personally I don't care enough to actively find out. If someone presented themselves, then I'll have a passing interest - a few articles, HN comments, etc., but I'm not going to change my day-to-day at all.
I believe that, what he wants us to take away from this, is that once he "proves" himself to be who he says he is, his life will change in ways similar, but worse, to the ways that it has since he claimed to be Satoshi. It is this change, he seems to be saying, that he is not courageous enough to face.
As I said on the other related thread[1]:
Given his history as a prolific liar, I find his post to be utter bullshit. Note how he's still lying about things he was caught at: "When the rumours began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false". NO - it was established (with confirmation from the schools in question) that he lied about having a PhD from Charles Stuart U. and he definitely does not possess 8 masters degrees. Not to mention other lies about having super computers and partnership with SGI to build more with fake reference letter (all clarified by company as false), etc.
Now, because he knows he can't successfully claim Satoshi's identity and in light of possible charges based on ongoing police investigation (fraudulent use of tax credits), he wants to dramatically disappear. I hope the authorities have his passport(s). His thirst for fame is unreal.
Serious question, but why are we all so serious? Maybe he's a pathological liar; maybe he wants fame; maybe he's just a conman. Does the bitcoin or tech community gain something from hoping for his arrest?
What exactly is unacceptable about hoping that an established liar and conman is made to account for his actions? At the very least, getting millions of dollars from fraudulently claimed tax credits is certainly not a trivial issue.
Also don't understand why it would be acceptable to anyone that he should get away with falsely claiming an identity despite contradictory evidence and potentially smearing the image of bitcoin/community via his actions.
The home page of http://www.drcraigwright.net/ currently just displays this image. Linked straight to it so that it wouldn't get flagged as a duplicate submission.
I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.
When the rumors began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this.
I know that this weakness will cause great damage to those that have supported me, and particularly to Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. I can only hope that their honour and credibility is not irreparably tainted by my actions. They were not deceived, but I know that the world will never believe that now. I can only say I'm sorry.
Just to save anybody else the effort of pulling times from the jpg:
20160503T16:00:03Z First Internet Archive snapshot of extraordinary proof post [0]
20160505T10:57:08Z homepage.jpg created [1]
20160505T11:13:52Z homepage.jpg saved
20160505T11:35:21Z homepage.jpg saved
20160505T12:11:46Z First Internet Archive snapshot reflecting change [2]
20160505T13:30:26Z Image replaced with text [3]
20160505T13:52:40Z homepage.jpg is now an html file
I wouldn't be very concerned about this being a suicide note, I don't think it is common for suicide cases to make bandwidth saving changes to the note hours after the the initial release...
Sounds like a suicide note from a distraught individual to me, leaving aside the lack of Satoshi's grammar. I do not know enough about his background to contact the police for a well-being check; does anyone here?
At face value, I would agree. But given that he's clearly lying about being Satoshi, and therefore also lying in this note, I figure it's likely that the "suicidal" tone was deliberately chosen. It's just another attempt to stir up controversy.
If he is not Satoshi and just wanted the attention:
Narcissists have an incredible high rate of suicide, because when they fall from their high horse, the floor is quite some way down and the landing is too hard for them. Rather than being found out as fake, go with a bang... I fear the bang coming...
This note kind of worries me a little bit... no matter what he did wrong, I hope he will be okay.
(still speculating on the basis that he is not Satoshi and did it for reasons of getting attention)
Also a possibility of course... his method to safe at least some of his self-image, depends on how good he is at self-manipulation, people are often very good at it.
At this point, this is bordering on performance art.
(For what it's worth, I'm torn on this note: on the one hand, it's deeply upsetting that someone is writing that they're feeling such torment; on the other hand, should it turn out to have been written insincerely, he's just made it a tonne more difficult for anyone else who does legitimately express feelings like this. No winners.)
Honestly, I'm shocked anyone is taking it seriously. Every shred of evidence (from the past few days, and from last year) suggests he's a con artist.
I certainly believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it's laughable to think this guy is actually Satoshi, and therefore impossible to see this note as sincere.
Forgive me as I'm a newbie to bitcoin and only ever seen it from the outside and watched a few things. I only know who Satoshi is because of the mass amounts of people wanting to know who this mysterious man really is. But my question is, why does it matter if Craig Wright is or isn't? I mean I can understand being upset that he lied about it if he really isn't for attention, but what if he is? The dude is literally being ripped apart left and right by everyone and anyone.
Whether Satoshi is finally identified or not, what difference will it make? I honestly don't understand the deafening attacks at Wright at first for being "outted" as a potential to be Satoshi and now when he says he is.
> what if he is? The dude is literally being ripped apart left and right by everyone and anyone.
Because he's the guy who, when asked for ID to prove he's 21 when entering a bar, shows a piece of paper with "Date of birth: 21 years old" sharpied on it, and when the bouncer says "yeah this isn't actual ID" the guy goes "WOE IS ME! IF I GET THIS TREATMENT AT THE DOOR, IMAGINE WHAT THE ACTUAL BAR WOULD BE LIKE! I DO NOT HAVE THE COURAGE TO WALK PAST A DOOR SUCH AS THIS, ALAS, HORATIO" and feigns fainting.
His behavior has no affect on me. Why should I care? Even if your analogy is accurate, that guy at the bar doesn't affect me either.
What is dangerous and does affect me, indirectly in this case, is the online mob behavior and bullying. That does real harm to people and to our society. For example, whoever the real Satoshi is, would they ever want to be subjected to this?
Bullying probable conmen is a reasonable way to try and discourage future conmen. Come 'round our town selling snake oil, and you get run out on a rail. It's disproportionate; that's the point. It's a sort of social control.
I never said it was a good idea, but that's why people care about people like Wright walking in and appearing to try to take them for a ride. The response can be completely maladaptive, and cause more harm than good, but that doesn't mean it's completely unreasonable. It's the same reason people get steamed at companies like Theranos.
In this case, it's nuts because everyone agrees on what the standard of evidence is, including him, and he's refused to provide it and acting hurt that people are sceptical. Many people gave him the benefit of the doubt when Gavin et al vouched for him; it's entirely his behavior afterwards that has turned people against him.
Well, I think it should be noted that this makes it clear that there's simply no way he is Satoshi. He claims to not "have the courage" to show proof that he has the keys, even when he claims to have shown Gavin and Jon proof of having those exact keys. The reality is that showing this proof is trivial, and if he wasn't willing to post it he wouldn't have claimed to be Satoshi at all - and if he actually was Satoshi, he would have posted this proof with his first post.
That said, if someone came out and proved themselves to be Satoshi, it would be a fairly big deal to the Bitcoin world. Satoshi himself has a lot of Bitcoins sitting under his control that he hasn't done anything with. Coupled with the fact that he was the original creator, his opinions would probably have a lot of weight behind them - and this is important when recognizing that Bitcoin right now is at a bit of a cross-roads, with people uncertain on how to proceed.
That said, I'm not heavily involved with Bitcoin, and while it was obvious to me (and most other people) that Wright isn't Satoshi, I wasn't yelling or calling for his head, and I don't really think there were that many other people doing that either - they were just a few loud mouths. All that said, you do have to keep in mind that, because of the power that Satoshi could wield, and the fact that some people have a lot invested in Bitcoin, I can understand the backlash over someone pretending to be Satoshi and potentially messing things up for everybody else.
I would guess that the majority of the angst can be summed up with the simple fact that some people get real pissy when you treat them like they are stupid. I think it wasted energy for strangers on the internet, but I can sympathize with the in person insult.
First, Satoshi solved a very significant intellectual problem: how to allow a group of people, who may have antagonistic members, to collude successfully. It is known as "The Byzantine Generals' Problem." What else does this person understand or have insight into?
Second, people are innately curious. Who is this person and what motivates him or her? Was this done out of curiosity or financial gain or just plain "because I could?"
Third, Satoshi is sitting on a huge cache of coins when he or she started the process. Is there any intent to use them? If someone could steal the keys to these blocks, it would a major "bank heist."
It doesn't matter so much whether he's Satoshi or not - but it matters that he's tried to make the claim with evidence that's been dispelled.
It'd be a significant claim if Mark Zuckerberg claimed to be a lost son of the late Steve Jobs and people would expect him to prove it. It'd be scandalous if the DNA test came back negative and would clearly peak people's interest in Mark Zuckerberg's character.
And I get that, but why the attacks? What if in your scenario everyone who didn't believe went ripping through Zuckerberg's life, attacking him and being all around a rude person (in harsher words) and then Zuckerberg was ACTUALLY the lost son of the late Steve Jobs?
The worst part about this is he is playing so loose with words that it gives no closure at all. For years there will be people, especially newbies, that will believe Craig and will treat circumstances surrounding the whole affair, like the "leaked" and "hacked" documents alleging his involvement, as at least potentially true. In my view, anyone or anything that lends any legitimacy to Craig as far as bitcoin goes should not be trusted at this point.
For that matter, I believe most public people involved with bitcoin should not be trusted at all either, but that is incidental.
Bitcoin definitely attracts fraud, but it's also teaching many people an important lesson in trust. Trust code and math as these things are ultimately verifiable.
It's a hard lesson for many, and it'll likely need to be learned many times over. Any number of individuals are willing to take advantage of the trustworthy nature the technology to imply that the things they do are also trustworthy.
And too often, it works - because the technology is secure, not enough people question those who are using it and proclaiming "secure" in a loud enough voice (mt gox, cryptsy, mintpal, and countless others).
It's also a first-class lesson to a lot of young technologists as to how financial regulations and the modern banking system came to exist in the first place. Thankfully bitcoin was so well designed that we can ultimately trust the math behind it, but the code is still malleable by people who may not have the network's best intentions in mind.
It's amazing to me how everyone is drinking the koolaid here on him being a fraud. I really don't think Gavin got duped. And I'm pretty sure they had enough private email discussions over the years that there were things they discussed/shared privately over those years that could be used as a reference point for Gavin to be sure he was talking to the same person. People are more willing to believe that Gavin was hacked or suddenly forgot how bitcoin worked.
I understand the technical proofs put forth have been spurious. I wouldn't be surprised if Craig had an under-qualified underlying who didn't really understand what they were doing who was responsible for some of that. People are forgetting the human part of this equation though. His interviews with the BBC don't strike me at all as someone looking to cash in. I think he is a bit of narcissist and wants to claim some credit for inventing bitcoin, but I also see a very deep fear of being in the public eye that comes through as well. Perhaps because he has done quite a few things he's not proud of and doesn't want to have people publicizing those. But the idea that he's a scammer looking to cash in here just play doesn't out at all. What's the end game? Where's the pile of money he's after? People aren't thinking through the motivations here thoroughly enough. He's risking quite a lot by doing this with the absolute certainty that he would be found out if he was a fraud. You could say maybe he's an idiot and doesn't understand that. No one could watch that interview though and believe the man isn't intelligent though. Why talk about the negotiations with Australian tax authorities when those authorities could very easily come and say that he was lying. None of this makes any sense from the scam angle. There has to be something else going on here.
> What's the end game? Where's the pile of money he's after?
He made multiple tax refund claims to the Australian authorities - including one for $54 million as part of a program where 45% of each dollar invested into R&D are refunded. Another was a $3.5 million refund on sales tax.
The funding source in these transactions were Bitcoin. It adds up to over $150 million invested. The tax authorities asked Wright where this money came from, he told them in an interview that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.
His explanation didn't work, they rejected the claim and penalized him for another and were investigating him further. He fled to London.
Why he continued to press on with the Nakamoto identity nobody knows - but based on character assessments from multiple people I know who have worked with him and know him well he is a person who strives for recognition and has a history of deception (see his LinkedIn profile).
It was 2 years ago that he started showing up at Bitcoin conferences and left strong hints that he was Satoshi - he wanted people to come to this conclusion on their own (and some did). Watch these videos from a conference in Australia:
He is after the hundreds of millions of dollars of bitcoins that the real Satoshi Nakamoto controlled.
When Craig Wright first came to public attention last December, there was a stash of "leaked" documents relating him to Dave Kleiman. Many items associated to the leak were shown to be backdated. One leaked item claimed to describe a 1.1 million BTC loan from Wright to Kleiman.
Wright apparantly believes that Kleiman, who died in 2013, had a large stash of bitcoins and he wants to establish a claim on these. If he could be accepted as Satoshi Nakamoto, it would lend credibility to his claims on the supposed fortune.
If the real Satoshi is still around, he musst be cringing at all this. The man can't even accurately describe how SHA256 works, yet claims to be the mastermind behind all this.
Geee Craig, stop playing silly games. Sign the message or simply stfu.
> The man can't even accurately describe how SHA256 works, yet claims to be the mastermind behind all this.
On the other hand: It is clear from Bitcoin's source code that Satoshi Nakamoto did not understand Merkle trees that well: Just read the detailed comment at
The only scenario wherein Craig Wright could actually be Satoshi is if Satoshi had burned his bridges -- in the process of abandoning the Satoshi identity, he had deleted all cryptographic evidence of the identity; all private keys and credentials for online accounts.
In that case, if he later (now) decided to assert the identity, then he might be tempted to cobble together fake proof to get his foot in the door far enough that he could begin to assert various forms of social proof with people that he had interacted with while using the Satoshi identity.
It's worth noting that the "scorched earth" elimination of the Satoshi identity is another possible theory as to why nobody has credibly claimed the identity -- because even the individual (or group) that assumed the identity no longer has the ability to cryptographically assert that identity.
People have suggested it's possible that the real Satoshi could have destroyed or not kept the original private key, or it belongs with one of the other, now deceased team members. Is there anything to gain by not admitting to it if this were the case?
Even if a message were to be signed with the original key, people suggest that it would still not be proof as it could have been stolen or extorted. It seems there is no way to prove anything at this point.
CSW's backing by "experts" suggests he is not an ordinary conman. Surprisingly, none of the experts have so far backed down on their support of CSW. Even GA's statement does not withdraw support, only expresses regret for posting support too soon. Also CSW's boldness to assume that the real Satoshi would not out him at this point makes it likely that he was involved with the Satoshi team and has some knowledge about his identity (deceased or otherwise). Or, he is gambling.
CSW's writing style in his blogs and elsewhere suggest it cannot be the same person as the author of the white paper, and yet I've heard another say that his academic papers contain a writing style close to the white paper (I have not verified myself).
All of this is obviously bizarre - the backdating of evidence, fraudulent cryptographic proof, etc. Either he severely underestimates his audience, or he wants to be be discredited.
There has been a suggestion that CSW wants to discredit himself to throw off extortionists (reported 6 months ago).
> Is there anything to gain by not admitting to it if this were the case?
Well, if CSW is Satoshi (I think it's pretty clear that he is not; this is more of a theoretical exercise) then his attempts to gain enough credibility to at least communicate with the people that can verify (through social proof) that he is Satoshi would not be helped by making a claim like that, since it is impossible to prove.
My problem is that I don't have a good idea of why CSW is going to this trouble to claim to be Satoshi; the idea that he's a regretful post-scorched-earth Satoshi at least would be a credible motive, even if extraordinarily unlikely. The only other options are that he hopes to gain something -- maybe obtain employment or loans on the back of the reputation of Satoshi.
The Satoshi coins can be publicly destroyed so they will never be spent. Transfer them all to an address like 1BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB. This is much more trustworthy than leaving it in doubt whether the coins can ever be recovered or not.
Well, in the "scorched earth" scenario, it would be more accurate to say that they "could have been" publicly destroyed. It's not clear to me why public destruction is necessarily a part of abandoning the identity. I don't understand what you mean by "trustworthy", though; if the identity is abandoned, then what's to trust?
How is this not the first thought people had? Poor guy, with a lot of signs of mental instability. The amount of animosity people have had towards him on HN (and elsewhere) isn't tempered by how obviously imbalanced he is. I think it's because of the disproportionate amount of media attention he's received for something he didn't earn.
He is also on the run from some major legal issues here is Australia so it wouldn't surprise me at all. I just hope that the people that know his whereabouts can help him, however poor his actions he needs all the mental help he can get.
One possible explanation to the whole thing not being considered so much is that he has the delusion of being Satoshi and might be trying to prove it and failing to understand why he can't.
To be fair to people here, we're discussing a new message by a person who is widely perceived to be running some type of scam. I hadn't considered the more serious subtext of this message but given the history here you have to consider that that might have been intentional to try to engender sympathy.
Yeah, but it still sounds like a legitimate suicide note and some semblance of worry makes sense.. I understand the desire fore fairness, but this was just posted without much followup context. Have a bit of heart for a second.
If this whole story is the a result of a mental health issue, well - mental health is a serious mother fucker.
The internet loves to shoot first and ask questions later, but there's some things we need to be a little more compassionate about. I understand it's in his MO to pull a trick like this, but let's at least see that he's ok before treating it as such.
Given his character and previous form I would be more inclined to see it as another false trail, perhaps a prelude to faking his own death to avoid his tax problems.
It does make me feel like Ian Murdock tweets a little. I find the whole Satoshi comedy a bit sad but not to the point where he would quit earth. Even in the case he made himself suffer. Hope it's just words so far.
Given that the entire source of his main website is
<img src="homepage.jpg">
my first guess would be that he wanted to delete basically everything and leave a static message but didn't want to figure out how to do that minimally in HTML/etc. so he just did an image.
"They were not deceived" -- yeah, that's the ticket! [1]
Nice use of passive voice to obscure the subject of the sentence. He just couldn't bring himself to say "I did not deceive them." It's technically true that there's somebody in the universe who didn't deceive both of those people.
I thought he was quite convincing in that performance. In fact, what tipped me off was just how convincing he was, the way a conman would be. What about his body language tipped you off?
The thing is if he uses actual proof like the community wanted him to there would no longer be any skepticism. So the only reason to not do it is because you can't do it.
Cryptography, a transaction system that tracks the flow of money around the world, coming out a few years after money laundering measures were on the security agenda, working under a pseudonym to keep their identity secret, not looking to convert much of the hundreds of millions to cash when the price went up, total silence on whether or not somebody else is Satoshi...
... something makes me wonder if Satoshi has the initials GCHQ.
Of course, on the other hand, it'd be ironic if it turns out the real Satoshi just didn't expect it to turn into such a big thing, lost the keys on a USB down the back of a sofa, and is hiding out of the sheer embarrassment of it all.
I'm pretty sure Craig Wright is not the real Satoshi, but if he was the real Satoshi and didn't want anyone to know, he would be going about it in exactly the right way :)
There are only challenges if he doesn't have the key. If he has the key he should trivially be able to sign anything with it or decrypt anything encrypted to it.
The key could be in a vault inside his secret volcano base. If someone just wires him $ to charter a flight, he can retrieve his millions and share it.
I wonder if the scam he has been running is "front me money to build a supercomputer to bruteforce my passworded wallet containing Satoshi's millions." This would be more convincing if he were actually Satoshi and 'lost' the password....
what's the reason for him showing us a screenshot though?
1) so search engines don't index and remember the text? I suppose search engines only read meta data from images and not OCR them when crawling?
2) if one grants him deeper technical knowledge of information security (I don't) then you could argue he has done the image/screenshot after creating the text in his WYSIWYG editor then after publishing the article, ... so that he could switch off any backend cgi or rdbms capability to reduce his attack surface (from lot of people who are currently digging for ways to poke around his internet facing system for ways of getting in)
Some wild guesswork: his website used to disallow right-clicking with a message that said he didn't want to share his images. Obviously people can get around that but whatever, this shows what type of person we're dealing with on a technical level. He might have thought that posting an image would prevent people from...copying the text or something? Searching for it? Who knows.
Of course, now it's HTML again, probably because he realized his website was getting hammered on bandwidth. Which makes me feel a little better about his health and well-being, since being concerned about bandwidth implies long-term thought processes.
Here is one hypothetical explanation for this behavior: maybe Craig is not Satoshi, but he wants to know who the real Satoshi is. So he fabricates some evidence, and goes public claiming to be Satoshi, hoping that the real Satoshi will contact him. Once that contact is made, if he figures out Satoshi's true identity he can then blackmail that person, or if not he can extort money from them in exchange for dropping his claim. Probably farfetched..
Worth pointing out that the BBC has followed up with another post. Wright asked them to send a small Bitcoin amount to the address used in the first Bitcoin transaction, and he would send it back to the BBC to prove he is Satoshi. The BBC sent their Bitcoin, and then Wright deleted his website.
If I were Satoshi, and I thought people were sufficiently close to discovering that, a ridiculous media circus showing me claiming and failing to prove that I am Satoshi might well be a good way to throw people off my trail for a few more years...
All this ruckus because people dislike others being wrongly credited. Well, so what if he gets a cult following? So what if a portion of people want to believe something without empirical evidence?
Not like it hasn't ever happened before. And it will continue to happen no matter how many call bullshit.
That's right, Craig. It's time to end your troll of the most gullible people in tech and HN. It's time to end it with one more scam: a fake confession of the broken man... who really is honest... who society just couldn't come to grips with. A cliff-hanger that should ensure any book or business deals will still be profitable if merely dependent on a few believing in his con.
Red flags and bullshit from start, especially presentation style in conference interview, to finish. Craig, if you see this comment, please aim for a Darwin Award next as you'd be doing humanity a favor.
Some people were deceived by a con artist named Wright. When he was called on it, he made a bunch of people think he was going to die soon, and made a bunch of other people feel marginally guilty for questioning his authenticity. Now, despite overwhelming evidence of trickery, despite perfect proof of his claims being trivially easy to create, there are still people in this very thread who think he's genuine. And probably will be for years to come, since those who believe him and defended him are emotionally invested in it, and those who disbelieve him will have ceased thinking about this embarrassing debacle a year from now.
Did anyone notice his pronunciation of "moniker" on the BBC piece? Needed a second or two to parse "monkier". Before seeing the weight of evidence both sides of the argument, this awkward language was my first whiff of BS. Just me?
People were expecting the next Jesus Christ and now everyone's so disappointed that "Satoshi" is just an average geek with human weaknesses - not the messiah everyone expected.
Had he started a Unicorn startup, nobody would have even thought to question it, but now that the myth of Satoshi has been blown to astronomic proportions, people refuse to believe that their guru is just a "simple" guy who makes mistakes and is clumsy at PR.
Look at the source code of bitcoin-0.1 and you'll notice that Satoshi was an average C++ programmer who wrote sloppy code - yes it was a prototype - but it wouldn't have stood a chance if other people hadn't gotten involved to develop it into what Bitcoin is today.
Besides, if you look at the code, he wasn't even sure he was creating a currency - it looked like he was trying to create a marketplace, complete with products and chat.
Interestingly, a lot of people treat him like a fake prophet - and are proverbially crucifying him for not being able to perform the "miracle" of making a transaction from block 9.
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He's not Jesus and he's not Buddha, he's just a programmer who had a brilliant idea and now tries to claim his invention.
But then again, maybe I'm wrong and Craig Wright is just an idiot compromising his reputation and career for a "moonshot" and a minute of glory. That would be totally stupid for a guy who has a family and a company and who's a cryptographer - to make a fool out of himself like this. Unless, what he claims is true..
Who knows, in the end it doesn't really matter that much.
No one is discrediting him because he isn't good at coding or "just an average geek"
People are skeptical because this isn't the first time he claimed to be Satoshi [1], and that time he did it by back-dating posts. This time he did it with a demonstrably fake signing of Sartre text.
Why would the real Satoshi go to great lengths to create fake evidence?
I wasn't clear; if you were trying to throw people off the scent of who made Bitcoin by making everyone think it wasn't you this is a pretty successful attempt- I think he's a troll but don't discount the possibility that it's really him :-D
Too much noise - all of them opinions and speculation...too many emotions.
The fact that Gavin Andersen (and others?) met him and talked to him and then said that he is "the father of Bitcoin"... means that either Wright is a very good con artist, good enough to convince the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, or he is the real deal.
I've also watched the interview... if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too.. to me Wright looked like a person in deep emotional turmoil.
Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin, while the public were pushing him to use it.
Andersen and Wright have explained the methodology used to 'prove' Wright is Satoshi and it has already been torn apart, here and other places on the net. I recommend you do further reading.
> if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too..
these two things very typically go hand-in-hand.
>Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin,
the only thing he would need to do is sign a message using the private key from an early block. This is extremely straightforward, widely known and expected, and he instead provided an bizarre and discredited method of proof. This also comes months after he tried to use easily discredited methods to take credit, like backdated blog entries. He's a scam artist.
now everyone's so disappointed that "Satoshi" is just an average geek with
He doesn't seem "an average geek." He is very smooth-talking and glad-handing. He also looks much more like the sales people than the technical people at all my places of employment.
... Who also happens to be a cryptographer and a programmer (at least according to the subject matter on his blog )..
He also managed to "sweet talk" and convince Gavin Andersen and others that he's for real...
I don't know. I cannot base my conclusion on opinions on what the Internet is saying. The noise level and the emotions are too high to make sense of it.
I've watched his interview, I've listened to what he said.
The man looks like he's serious and angry about everything... he also said that he will refuse any kind of award for it.
Being the inventor of Bitcoin is also a huge burden and risk so it's not easy what this man is going through..
At least in theory, that man can be Satoshi and my intuition tells me that he probably is, there's nothing more to it.
One scam proof was deployed on his blog where he claimed to sign a Sartre text with a key from bitcoin block 9. He carefully did not give the exact input text, only a supposed hash of the text. The hope was anyone trying to replicate would assume their problem was an incorrect source text. And there was proof that the given hash value was signed by the key. But that did not survive internet scrutiny; it was noticed that the signature came from an old bitcoin transaction. Instead of signing the hashed Sartre text as claimed, it signed the old transaction.
The other scam proof was presented in private to reporters and bitcoin developers Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. Here Wright supposedly demonstrated the ability to sign arbitrary messages using keys from bitcoin blocks 1 and 9. This scam succeeded: both Andresen and Matonis were convinced. But they were not allowed to keep copies of the evidence, to prevent the trick from being exposed. One speculation is that Wright was able to substitute a doctored version of the Electrum software used for the verification. But without evidence to examine outside of Wright's control, the exact details of the scam are still hidden.
But now Wright is out of ideas. His public-consumption scam failed, and his private controlled-scenario scam can't be more widely replicated.
So this message is his way of backing out, trying as much as possible to save face and keep open the possibility of claiming the Satoshi Nakamoto identity again later.