Bitcoin Forum

Curious what you think it takes to prove Satoshi's identity. I hear Craig Write proved it to some people, but with what? What evidence would you want to see publicly to be convinced?

signature of the genesis block

Till now I don't understand what he provided as evidence , He only showed to the reporter from BBC (wondering if he knows anything about Cryptography) but BBC didn't post anything like signed message or something on the article .
I'm not sure if this Craig guy is dumb or something because he should know that no one is going to believe him unless he provide a signed message from one of his addresses .
So I personally want to see him signing a message + connect to his Bitcointalk forum account .

Well, if he signed a message.... or if he moved some of the million coins stash, I would seriously take him as being a contender for the real Satoshi. He could also answer some technical questions on

the Bitcoin protocol and the changes that were made, since he disappeared from the scene. Craig has shown some prove, but it's being scrutinized as we speak... It turns out, that he did not sign his

message with his private key. We will see.... signs are not looking good, that he is genuine.  ::)

It looks like I'm not the only one who wants to see a simple signed message. One would think that Satoshi would understand this. It is suspicious that the inventor of a trust-less cash system would prove himself by secretly showing some reporters or Gavin then asking the world to trust their observations.

@Craig Wright -
You could convince us all by simply sending $0.01337 to this address:
1K3zm5ykoStQcWkxpqjg59dcUnFzeyqQc7

It is one of mine and obviously you need to send it from a wallet known to belong to Satoshi. I don't want your money and I'll send it back and cover the fees for doing this. As the creator of bitcoin you surely understand why this is required to be believed. It is not credible to think Satoshi can't accomplish such a simple task.

what if he stole the wallet from satoshi? how would you be 100% sure that even after signing he is satoshi in that case?

This, at least as the first and primary hurdle. With this proof in hand we could then proceed to the question "How do we know X didn't steal Satoshi's wallet?" Addressing that would involve X providing evidence of access to other Satoshi accounts and blocks, demonstrating strong knowledge of  the bitcoin protocol and cryptography, etc. But let's start with the Genesis block.

IMO it would be best if we refuse to accept anyone is Satoshi.  TO much power in the hands of one.   Which is IMO why Satoshi never gave up who they were.


For me you have to sign to prove or you are 100% not it and even if you do as my previous statement I pretty much now refuse to believe anyone is Satoshi for the sake of not giving so much power to one.

I dont know how to convince, but what i do want to know is: what difference does it make? i dont give a **** to who is satoshi, what i want know is about new features that could solve bitcoin problems.

And its a serious question, does it make any difference who is satoshi??

Signature of the genesis block and a move of a few of the first coins.
If that happens I will believe someone is Satoshi.

Ok you have a point here.
This wouldn't prove if he really is Satoshi. But man he would be a lucky bastard and own a **itload of coins. :D
In the end it doesn't matter if he is Satoshi or not. The develeopment, progress had been done without him all the years.
And I doubt the community would give him much of attention if he would try to come up as some kind of dictator with ideas which could harm Bitcoin.He wouldn't have any power!

I would like to see coins moved from Satoshi Nakamoto's stash than signing a message of the genesis block. By the way Craig said that people have helped him with the development of Bitcoin. What if there are really multiple people involved with the creation of Bitcoin and these coins are not controlled by 1 person? Do you guys fancy the idea that Satoshi may be the alias of an international group?

Well, Mr Wright is going to be real busy if he needs to make a transaction to everyone of us to prove he's Satoshi. He's done one to Gavin and he probably expects it's enough. I certainly can't tell if he is or not Satoshi, but I see he's been able to convince people who know more about BTC than I do.

At this late stage I'm not sure there's a bean that anyone could do to prove it. Signing the genesis block proves that they can sign the genesis block but who's to say the original Satoshi didn't select a random toilet attendant and hand over the keys in a moment of doubt or desperately needing a shit?

I would require the things detailed in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IwUiLlARSzf0L-nNI7gR-hHVHW_y6YM0OsiEweHBa6M/preview

In particular, I would require a signed message from his PGP key and the genesis block address. The message would have to include the date and preferably some other random information that could only be known at the date of signing, like a recent block hash. I would also require that these proofs be posted publicly and be verifiable with current Bitcoin and PGP clients. Additionally, I think that Theymos, Sirius, Garzik, and gmaxwell would have to vouch for him in order to convince me that a person was satoshi.

Only signed message can convince me. If he can signed a message to this address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

for like 2 BTC i will believe anything you want me to believe.
if he really is satoshi.
then he can afford to give me 2BTC and buy my beliefs

1G5fF7eYA5QaUFMgCNE4fLnTsVxALdx8jd

This.  But I don't know,  it doesn't really matter to me who created bitcoin.  If it was the CIA then I mightbe curious but it's not all that important to me.   And there are way too many topics on this.

For *1* BTC, would  believe *two* things *anyone* wants me to believe. They could even be mutually contradictory, can do it; have powerful mind.
PM for quantity pricing.

But it does matter. The real satoshi, wright or not, has access to over 1mil of bitcoins, as ppl assume. If he just decides to dump 1mil coins, it would crash the entire Bitcoin market. I bet you would care then. 

It is not only suspicious it is completely against the very nature of the person we know as Satoshi. Someone who only corresponded electronically with people and used digital signatures and PGP to prove his identity in the past, now years later is the exact opposite and only talks to people in-person to prove he is ho he says and refuses to sign anything with a valid key. I think the 180 degree reversal is much more telling than any of the non-proofs we have so far seen.

it is really simple , a signed message from his known addresses which is released to the public. i don't really understand the secrecy for not showing the message, i mean what the hell is this.

maybe he thinks if he releases the signed message the bitcoin address can be hacked ROFL


the only thing missing here is a blanket so they could both hide under it with a flashlight so nobody can see them while wearing a tinfoil hat :D

Could it be because he doesn't have access to the known btc address anymore. thus the reason why he can't withdraw the millions from that wallet?  if this is the case, he should forget claiming instead even if he's the real satoshi for there is no way he can convince anyone without he sign message.

1 million bitcoins

Signing the genesis block would do it for me, along with moving bitcoins from a satoshi wallet.

At this point, for me personally, it doesn't really matter to me who Satoshi really is. As long as it isn't actually the CIA, NSA, FBI, Homeland Security, any other government entity or Amway, etc, I'm good.

I would not necessarily need information to be publicly published in order for me to believe that someone is satoshi. If someone were to ask me to keep evidence private and were to personally see sufficient evidence (whatever that may be) then I would be convinced.

If someone who I trust were to publicly vouch for someone being satoshi and I do not see any problems/issues with what details they provide then I would believe they are satoshi. The problem that I see with the details that Gavin provided is that it appears that he used a computer that was provided by Wright which implies that it may have been compromised.

What information I would want to see personally would really depend on my observed interactions with the person claiming to be satoshi. If someone claiming to be satoshi were to offer one very specific piece of evidence to support that they are satoshi then I would probably be skeptical and want to see additional verifications/evidence. On the other hand, if I were to personally (or if someone who I trust -- eg theymos -- were to personally) ask for a single specific verification then I would be more believing.

I would want to acknowledge that there is the possibility that satoshi might have destroyed, and/or otherwise lost access to one or more of his private keys, so his inability to sign a message from any one of his private keys would not automatically veto his claim of being satoshi.

I would say that someone signing a message from the private key for an address strongly associated with an address associated with satoshi would probably make me believe that said person is in fact satoshi.

It seems like we all have about the same standard. And it is no surprise to experienced bitcoin peers that we want a signed message or better a spend from Satoshi's wallet. Enough of this private meetings or producing an associated address. If Craig is Satoshi then do a spend.

We require and trust in mathematics for verifying bitcoin, are we now going to trust hearsay to verify Satoshi?

If he gave me 100 bitcoin haha just kiddin if he have a proof that he is SATOSHI.
If he can prove that he is satoshi then je will convince me that he is satoshi.
And if he can teach me how to create bitcoin.

The decentralized nature of Bitcoin means that no one person and/or entity should not be able to say with authority what to do (eg just because satoshi says something does not necessarily mean he is right just because "he is satoshi"). Satoshi should have sufficient amounts of money to reasonably not be interested in trading with people here, along with the fact that he is likely to be the target for a lot of scams so I think it is unlikely he will engaging in any kind of trading.

Playing a bit of devils advocate, I might ask why you think so much trust should be placed into satoshis identity.

 prove Satoshi's identity >:(

A Badge saying "I am Satoshi"  Ok then  :P :D lol

Three things, actually 5 things but the last two are optional:

1. Signed message or spend coins from Genesis Block or Genesis Address.
2. Signed message or spend coins from any 100 blocks within the first 300 or 400 blocks of bitcoin's life.
3. Signed PGP / GPG message using the public key everyone has seen, that was on bitcoin.org and MIT server.
4. Gavin A, Mike Hearn, Jeff Garzik, theymos and many old timers, coders, irc chatters, mailing list people, all independently confirm and verify the above 3.
5. A donation of 50 BTC to each and every Legendary member of this forum. So we all could trace the blockchain and see where the coins are coming from, if they indeed come from early blocks.

There is no proof that a person is or is NOT Satoshi. There is high probability that someone who can do all the first 3 (with the last two being optional) is Satoshi.

You bring up something interesting I think. Should we trust Satoshi? None of us really know him or his character. We love his idea, but as far as I know he is an awful person who eats children and kicks dogs. I suppose he is just a stranger to me and I can't trust that.

 What would it take to convince YOU that someone is Satoshi?

for me it doesn't matter if he  is Satoshi,
for what important is if ever he is the true one put some
bitcoins in my wallet address first. that's fair enough for me to believe
he is Satoshi. ;D

I think if satoshi there, then he will have the bitcoin in large numbers. Therefore it is necessary to prove is the balance in his wallet hehe. Thank you