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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck IT Technology

Craig Wright Claims He's Satoshi Nakamoto, the Creator Of Bitcoin 147

Posted by msmash from the curious-case-of-bitcoin,-and-whoever-created-it dept.
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.'"
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Craig Wright Claims He's Satoshi Nakamoto, the Creator Of Bitcoin More

Craig Wright Claims He's Satoshi Nakamoto, the Creator Of Bitcoin

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  • If he were, why isn't he using the money? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:05AM (#52027619) Homepage
    The real Satoshi Nakamoto is worth at minimum around a half a billion dollars.

    • Re:If he were, why isn't he using the money? (Score:5, Informative)

      by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @11:05AM (#52027997) Homepage Journal

      The real Satoshi Nakamoto is worth at minimum around a half a billion dollars.

      That would assume that selling that many bitcoins and adding them to the actively traded pool would not cause a significant inflationary depreciation.
      Even if done slowly, it would have a significant effect. There's no way to hide the infusion, no matter how slowly it is done, because the records are by design open.

    • Re:If he were, why isn't he using the money? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @01:44PM (#52029239) Journal

      Those BTC may be worth that much at today's prices; but you can't sell out without crashing the market. There are, however, probably some established exit strategies for this kind of thing. He could, at the very least, have small planned sales and provide himself with a steady income without putting too much price pressure on the currency, adjusting the sales from time-to-time if it were causing prices to move in an undesirable direction. Ironically, that would be a lot like what the Fed does.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cfalcon ( 779563 )

        > He could, at the very least, have small planned sales

        In a rational market, yea, maybe. But this is Bitcoin. The coins in question haven't moved EVER- many assume that they are probably stuck in place (essentially destroyed), and the market reflects whatever percent of bitcoin speculators believe that. So even moving a single bitcoin would probably cause some pretty serious effects.

        Certainly, this guy is not Satoshi, and now we know for sure. Previously there were hints that he may have set up. Now

      • If you're a hedge fund wanting to dump a million shares of company X, you don't just run down to the NYSE and say "SELL". You find some other hedge fund or mutual fund, and you make them an offer. Maybe you give them a few dollars off the current price or whatever. Same situation here, there would probably be folks willing to take 50 million dollars of bitcoin off you for the right price and they would hold it or slowly sell it or whatever. Don't bet that 500 million of bitcoin can't be liquidated.

    • Who says he hasn't ? The blockchain. Pfft, The smart strategy with an investment expected to gain over time, is not to reduce principle, but to borrow against it at a rate lower than the rate of return you get on the investment.

      This is why rich guys will often finance their sports cars, at like 0-1% interest, because their principle is making 7%.

      • You don't have to be "a rich guy" to do that. If you have a low enough mortgage, _counting_ the mortgage interest deduction(*), you can reasonably make more from investing that you would have made by paying off the mortgage earlier.

        (*) I know some deductions are reduced due to AMT, I'm not sure if the mortgage interest deduction is. If so, and one pays AMT, that has to be taken into account.

    • The article says it's owned by a foundation, not him.

  • -- digital signature follows jsdflkjjqweoieuwqeohglasjflksadjflqwjeer23492dlkfndvsjoiqeeut

  • Bitcoin creator (Score:5, Funny)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:09AM (#52027647)

    I know two people who worked with Wright, characterized him as crazy and schemer/charlatan

    How does this make him *not* a candidate for being the creator of BitCoin? To me that just seems to reinforce his claim.

    • because why would he not want to remain anonymous? He created is anonymously for a reason, why change now?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        I'm not saying his claim is accurate, just that someone trying to call him out as a fraud might want to highlight a belief that the dude is just not smart enough to do it or that it makes no sense to come out rather than saying the guy's a crazy and a schemer, neither of which would preclude making something like Bitcoin. *Particularly* since a lot of us consider it a gigantic nerd ponzi scheme, it'd probably be best not to give us just more fuel for our argument.

      • I guess because he's annoyed by the constant speculation that he might be Yakamoto. Whilst Bitcoin is still a thing that wouldn't have stopped. But removing the mystery means a flood of media interest for a while, but then it'll be yesterday's news, and he'll get a bit more peace and quiet.

  • But he IDENTIFIES as Satoshi (Score:3, Funny)

    by NotDrWho ( 3543773 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:12AM (#52027667)

    And we must respect that, or liberals will boycott us.

    • Re:But he IDENTIFIES as Satoshi (Score:4, Funny)

      by halivar ( 535827 ) <bfelger&gmail,com> on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:32AM (#52027813)

      Nope. It's cultural appropriation. Off to diversity training with you!

    • All three of us? That's about the full population of slashdot liberals remaining, myself included. I won't speak for the other two but I don't care enough about the identity of the Bitcoin founder to boycott this site over it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by aliquis ( 678370 )

      And we must respect that, or liberals will boycott us.

      I identify as morally superior to Muhammed.

      Now what? =P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dave420 ( 699308 )

      Your joke at the expense of others says more about your disdain for your fellow humans than the "liberals" you are so angry with. Real people are having real problems with their lives, and here you are mocking them on Slashdot for yuks. I'd implore you to grow up, but it seems too late.

  • Already debunked (Score:5, Informative)

    by Troed ( 102527 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:12AM (#52027671) Homepage Journal

    So the big news of the day is that Bitcoin's creator has stepped forward.

    Let's nip it in the bud. No, he has not. A con man who was already outed half a year ago has made an elaborate stunt to try to convince people he's Satoshi. The stunt was quickly debunked.

    For the technically minded: A cryptographic signature of text A will not be the same as the signature of text B, even if you use the same key. The signature Craig Wright claims is of text B has been found to be a known signature in the Bitcoin blockchain of text A.

    Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

    He's a con man: https://news.ycombinator.com/i... [ycombinator.com]
    Re-used signature: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitco... [reddit.com]

    • Re:Already debunked (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shawn Willden ( 2914343 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @11:04AM (#52027989)

      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.

      • Last time somebody claimed to know the identity of Satoshi he posted a denial here [ning.com] after a 5 year hiatus. If Satoshi really wanted to reveal his identity, it would be strange for him not to make that claim on the P2PFoundation website (in addition to creating a technical proof).

    • It's a generally effective stunt because few few people actually try to verify signatures.

      https://xkcd.com/1181/ [xkcd.com]

  • It rather cool to be anonymous. Wonder why he's coming out. And how do we know it's really him?
  • You liar!

  • prove it.. Make that genesis block move. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Prove it.. Make that genesis block move.

    https://blockchain.info/block-index/14849

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Please prepare to deliver Genesis to us upon our arrival. Reliant out.

    • For technical reasons, the coins in Block 0 (zero) can't be spent (moved).

  • That is not Satoshi (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've worked with Mr. Nakamoto before, and this fraud isn't it. Why people are so attracted to the spotlight they pull retarded stunts like this is something I will never understand.
  • I am Satoshi and so is my wife!
    We are also Charlie Hebdo and Sasha Fierce.

  • He certainly doesn't know much about SHA-256 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kill-1 ( 36256 ) on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:38AM (#52027839)

    In his blog post, he writes:

    "The SHA256 algorithm provides for a maximum message size of (2^128 - 1) bits of information whilst returning 32 bytes or 256 bits as an output value. The number of possible messages that can be input into the SHA256 hash function totals (2^128 - 1)! possible input values ranging in size from 0 bits through to the maximal acceptable range that we noted above."

    There are two obvious errors in this paragraph. The maximum message size of SHA-256 is (2^64 - 1) bits and the total number possible input messages is (2^(2^64) - 1). I doubt that the inventor of Bitcoin would make such fundamental mistakes.

    • Ah, but aren't those just the kind of blatant mistakes Satoshi would make if he wanted to convince the world that he isn't Craig Wright?
      What better way to protect your anonymity than jump in the spotlight and play the buffoon so everybody ignores you?
      This guy's subtle.
      • Ah, but aren't those just the kind of blatant mistakes Satoshi would make if he wanted to convince the world that he isn't Craig Wright?

        What better way to protect your anonymity than jump in the spotlight and play the buffoon so everybody ignores you?

        This guy's subtle.

        That EXACTLY the sort of thing that Satoshi would post to make us think that Craig is actually Satoshi, and further obfuscate his real identity.

        Well played, Mr Satoshi. Well played.
  • Shatoshi Nakamoto!

  • ...now we know who to blame

  • Two cases:
    Either Satoshi has his private keys from back then, or he doesn't.

    If he has his private key, have him sign a message that reads "John R. Smith is Satoshi Nakamoto" with his private key.

    If he doesn't, I say it doesn't matter who he is, his money isn't going anywhere.

  • Maybe he really *is* the founder of bitcoin, but claiming to be the founder in a way that everybody will debunk - thus the Australian tax authorities won't go after the half-billion dollars or so that he has in bitcoin?

    A.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Seriously, why is that of any importance? Even if you use BitCoin, what does knowing who came up with it accomplish?

    • > what does knowing who came up with it accomplish?

      If someone at M$, the FBI, or Never-A-Straight-Answer had invented it then it would be looked at as extremely suspicious and an alternatively would have extremely high motivation.

      But you're right -- it is probably over-reacting.

      Why is knowing who invented the wheel important? It isn't.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      This guy holds more Bitcoin that anyone else.

      If he's forced to sell it by a court, or decides to flog it off of his own will, that will bring the price of Bitcoin right down.

      And if he is "the creator", then he's a clever guy (or those that he hired were). Nobody's yet found a flaw in Bitcoin that allows anyone to steal protected money (stupid auto-generated accounts and crap passwords don't count), or falsify the blockchain.

  • It's time to reveal to the world that I invented Craig Wright from the left over hot air in making my Silver Nitrate for my alias.

  • Wouldn't it be really really funny if Satoshi Nakamoto *lost* his key to all of his bit coins?

    • It's not one key. It's 20,000 different keys, one for each block he generated in the early days, each with 50 BTC. Given how careful he was in creating bitcoin in the first place, it would be highly unlikely he kept all his keys in one place that could be lost, unless he "lost" them on purpose.

      • one for each block he generated... ... Given how careful he was... ... it would be highly unlikely he kept... ...all his keys... ...unless he "lost" them...

        For someone supposedly anonymous, you've made a rather large assumption there.

      • The keys shouldn't be stored on any device like a hard drive or thumb drive, since those can fail.

        I would print out all of the keys on paper. Now would you store copies of the keys in more than one place, balancing the probabilities of them being lost verses being stolen?

        And now he is lucky that he never intends to spend any of them. Managing those keys across multiple sites would be tedious.

        Or maybe I haven't thought about it enough.

  • Hmm (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I have it on pretty good authority that the real Satoshi Nakamoto is actually a half-Malaysian, half-Chinese guy born in the UK and has been living in Japan for about 20 years now.

    If it's true, he is a very smart guy and owns a business for fun in Japan currently. He's also worked for Microsoft and Amazon. His real initials are D.C.

    I'm sure Googling based on that can pinpoint it. But yeah, I hope one day before I die that the world figures out who the real genius behind BitCoin is.

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