Bitcoin Forum

While at work today, I've been thinking about who Satoshi Nakamoto could be and why would he keep his identity a secret?

I've thought of three possibilities for keeping his name secret.

1) He is someone who doesn't want to be in the spotlight, because he enjoys his anonymity.
2) His actual identity could ruin the reputation of Bitcoin.
3) Satoshi is a showman and did this to build up suspense for his grand entrance.

I can really understand number 1. Some of the greatest geniuses among us lurk in the shadows. Maybe he doesn't want to be harassed by the press. All the praise could put him on an uneasy pedestal if Bitcoin succeeds. If it fails people may accuse him of running a Ponzi scheme. Yada yada. So much crap could happen. Say goodbye to the private peaceful life.

Number 2 makes sense as well If Satoshi Nakamoto were a criminal it may be harder to get people on board. Who would ever put their trust in a currency created by a criminal. Keeping your name secret here would be much more prudent for business.

Satoshi is clearly innovative enough to come up with this new currency. He surely has the imagination and vision of the future to make a grand revelation at a later date. Number 3 is pretty epic. Everybody loves an epic introduction.


Number 2 makes the most likely to me. Number 1 seems possible too, but even for an introvert who may not want attention, how could you not want people to know what you've contributed to the world? This leads me to believe that Satoshi is most likely a criminal or has a bad reputation somehow. Of course that is just speculation though.


I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Satoshi Nakamoto isn't even Asian. If I were Asian, I would choose an alias that didn't sound Asian. As a non-Asian I may end up picking an Asian alias because it sounds cool.

Another interesting thought. What if Satoshi Nakamoto is an anagram for his real name? I mean, it does make sense right? Cryptography would be right down his alley. Or her alley. Whoa, maybe Satoshi isn't even a guy.


I've been rearranging the letters in "Satoshi Nakamoto" to spell out a name. No luck thus far. Another thing that cryptographers do is they code the letters to stand for other letters. For example: A is really C, because it is two down. K is really M, because it is two down. I've considered writing a program in C++ to maybe solve it through brute force with a list of first names and last names. Given how many computer nerds are out there it wouldn't surprise me if this has been done already however.

Thoughts?

I think this is more likely to be the case. I think it's interesting that he's never moved any of his coins because which leads you to believe he doesn't really care about money, fame or recognition which is rare in people these days. If he was a showman then he likely would have not used a pseudonym or would have revealed himself by now. In retrospect I think it was probably a smart idea to separate or distance himself from bitcoin because there's no central figurehead to attack. I can only imagine the level of hate and threats he would get when people lost money or demand he make changes to the protocol to suit their own financial interests etc. Part of me would like to know who he his and his story, but a bigger part of me think he's best left anon, but if he did reveal himself I think it would almost certainly be a disappointment.

Have you seen the vitriolic trolling that Vitalik Buterin receives?

There's your answer.

Because he have a lot of money but he is not part of big strong family.

I do not know who is he,but i heard some where he is the founder of the bitcoin.i did not see his pic also.i think bitcoin is not handling by the government and price also not stable according to this issues may be he hide in shadows.

I don't think it matters and we don't know if he hides in the shadows or he/she/they/it are spending their time sipping Martinis on a beach.

What matters is Bitcoin itself and the new opportunities that have arisen since its inception.  

Satoshi is an oldschool cypherpunk, and he did a good job to preserve his anonymity, so there are very low chances that someone will find out who he is. This means that any theories about Satoshi are just pure speculation, you can't prove anything so it's pointless to discuss them. There's no evidence to who he is, why he left us, is he alive, what's he going to do with his coins. The only thing we can do, is to request proof from people who claim to be Satoshi (looking at you, Craig Wright) and see what they got.

why don't YOU reveal your identity? post your real name here, your home address and with your picture while holding up your drivers license.

you won't do it, and we don't even know if you own bitcoin or not. you may have $10 worth of it.

now how do you expect someone who is speculated to be holding 2.7 billion dollar worth of bitcoin come forward.

---

all the privacy aside, i always find the fact that Satoshi is anonymous a nice thing. you see it is the living proof that you can be in bitcoin and you can be anonymous.

besides without Satoshi being anonymous at least 10,000 topics would have never existed in this board ;D

Why do you care who he is?

Don't you have better things to do at work, like work instead of thinking stuff whose answer you won't get

Do you actually get paid to think this kind of work, then most of the newbies who ask this question on a daily basis can join you there, and you all can continue your discussion.

Why don't you and other newbies get it, he sacrificed his identity and life for Bitcoins, he knew Bitcoins were bigger than him.

Stop thinking about him and focus on work and gaining Bitcoins. It will help you in the long term. Ps no one knows who he is so move on in life.

I think that such a person does not exist. Such a large-scale project of crypto currency could not run by one person. I'm sure it's a whole team of people and likely creating a crypto currency was the work of a whole team which aims to destroy the foundations of the global financial system. So we'll never know who is hiding behind a pseudonym Nakamoto.

This is one of the last posts made by Satoshi Nakamoto on this forum, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2216.msg29280#msg29280

From the very beginning itself Satoshi tried to remain as anonymous as possible. Now around 2010, Bitcoin wasn't as popular as today, but still being the creator Satoshi knew it had a huge potential and when WikiLeaks started accepting Bitcoin Satoshi might have realized that:

1. Bitcoin getting attention from WikiLeaks might possibly endanger his anonymity.

2. Bitcoin could also be used for illegal purposes thus not only jeopardizing his privacy/anonymity for being the creator of such a currency, but might also get him into legal trouble.

If he wasn't anonymous the Feds would have charged and locked him up for creating a currency which could be used for illegal purposes.

We don't know exactly how many bitcoins does Satoshi owns, but it definitely would be a substantial amount. If he wasn't anonymous then this amount does possess a threat to not only his life, but also his family's.

Satoshi, be it He/She/Or a group are enjoying their anonymous freedom, let them enjoy it.

I don't think we will ever know for sure unless Satoshi decides to reveal themselves, wouldn't it be something if it was an AI released secretly to setup a new global currency under the radar :)

There is a big possibility that Satoshi Nakamoto is just a code representing a group of people who had been working to make blockchain technology come into fruition and then they decided to make it as a gift to humanity. There has been a continuing speculations about the person of Satoshi but for me it does not really matter at all if he remains to be anonymous.

Now, of course, some people are saying that had he been around just like what the founder of Ethereum is currently doing then Bitcoin can have the many benefits of an existing leadership. Well, that can be possible but then again maybe there were some important reasons why he (or a group of people) decided to bow out of the limelight.

Satoshi obviously doesn't want to be associated with this experiment anymore....I find that a more intriguing thought!  What scared Satoshi Nakamoto away?....was it the meeting Gavin had with the CIA?....was it the Wikileaks donations?....was it a Dr. Frankenstein variety regret?.... was it merely a sense of accomplished achievement and an overwhelming urge to work on something more challenging?....was it all of the above?

I think you are hitting the question with your first guess. And he really enjoys it I assume. When he goes out and jam with people who are into bitcoin, listening to their ideas about it, I wonder how he would just smile and simply agree.

It is also perfect to be anonymous since his invention is also promoting anonymity. Perfect combination.

Why do you care who he is?
Does that mean something to you，Interest, curiosity?

Believe it or not, bitcoin wasn't the first cryptocurrency. Not even a second. If you did some research about previous echash systems creators you would notice a correlation between a real person and a lawsuit against him. That would be a one more reason.

Knowing who (s)he is would cause more problems than it would solve.

Never knew that there were other cryptocurrencies before bitcoin. I will have to take a closer look into that. Bitcoin was the first successful one it seems.

Satoshi being AI seems doubtful, but it is an interesting idea and fun to think about.

I didn't know he had posted on the forum either. I'll have to check it out.


For those wondering why I care, it is simply curiosity. I don't consider wonder a bad thing. Also, I am very good at my job. It is very mundane at times and thought is great for my entertainment. Is it really a waste of time to question things we will never know the answer to? With that logic we'd never wonder about religion, the meaning of life, if aliens exist, how far the universe goes, or why I view life from my perspective and not somebody else's. I feel it is in my human nature to dwell on such things. Some of you may not be curious, but I think a lot of people, like me, do.

By revealing his identity he puts himself at a great risk, the US government may bring money laundering charges and even finance of terrorism to his backdoor,i think its a very wise move by him hiding under the shadow and not revealing his identity.

Lets say Im satoshi  then i would definitely do the same thing too which i would really not let myself to go on public or reveal my true identity knowing that you are really on a great danger there are lots of people,institutions would really come after you because of your invention. I would hide for some time and watching my creation to be more succesful that can able to help humankind regarding on payment innovation and earning opportunities.

No body know about who is Satoshi Nakamoto, there are information that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto but many people don't believe in him, too many speculation about who is Satoshi Nakamoto, he hide in the shadows in my opinions is for protect his life and of course his whealty in bitcoins, if he show his identity will be dangerous for his bitcoins and the whealty in bitcoins.

In my own opinion I think Satoshi Nakamoto is

1. Doesn't really exist at all and developers of Bitcoin just make up 'Satoshi Nakamoto' as the mastermind of it.
2. If he really does exist maybe he just really patronizing the essence of anonymity same for his invention and his presence.

That is the best only idea that I can think of.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of bitcoin and he really enjoys his anonymity. I have read one article stating that he sometimes appears on the contributors name in some website. Like this
Contributors:
SATOSHI NAKAMOTO

I can't sure Satoshi Nakamoto have exist or not, but in history when Bitcointalk Forum still new and begin to become a biggest forum cryptocurrency as now, Satoshi had support and developing Bitcoin in a period of time on Bitcointalk

You can check his post from here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3

He hides because he have a great amount of bitcoin and he do not want to give some to you. ;D  Well to be serious he is really kind of mysterious and just like any one here we want to see how he looks like.  Well based on his name he is a Japanese, but the question is, is he really a japanese or it is his pseudonym.  But one thing is for sure, he is such brilliant and very intellect.  He must be the master of the programmers as he was able to come out with a great invention of all time.  I want to know also how much bitcoin does he have.

...

4) He's dead

sure, Satoshi Nakamoto is a completely anonymous person, no one knows how many Bitcoins he is and where he lives. What people in the world will not have the answer as this is just the name of the impostor and the familiar name when entering the Bitcoin market.

It's of less important to know who invented cell phone rather than appreciating the benefits we receive from such invention and that's true for bitcoin and satoshi nakamoto too. Even if he's alive and if he could come up with the solution to the crisis or problems bitcoin is undergoing right now that would be much desirable and appreciated than just knowing who he is, where he is, whether he's alive or not etc so better enjoy the benefits of bitcoin and not waste your time in trying to find out who satoshi nakamoto is.

https://youtu.be/Ni5J_yXuWLk

 ;D

I think he does not want everyone to know him and protect himself from possible attacks from ill-wishers. This is an anonymous currency and the creator also wants to remain anonymous.

To be fair, that would apply to developers in the "limelight" too.

Number 3 is the least of all possibilities. I don't think he'll ever come out of the closet. Number 1 is very possible. Too much attention would be catastrophic for him. 90% of his posts when he was active here seem to have been in the Development & Technical Discussion section. I think he's still an active Bitcointalk member, but of course under a different username.

Exactly it's embêter for him/her to remain anonymous because as bien coin gains more and more influence he/she would become more and more of a target by autorithies.

He/She is actually a smart guy, the best he did was disappear in the shadows, there will be a lot of criticism on his figure and a lot of pressure, also remain bitcoin decentralized requieres that its founder remain silent, he did great.
sure he is enjoying a great life, maybe his relatives and friends doesnt even known how much he is involved in bitcoin. Maybe he doesnt even owns a Lambo. Maybe he talks in this forum, hidding, smiling.

I think its reads like a single male doing something, maybe and english guy? given the Bank of England inclusion, but then this could just be to throw us of.


If it is a person, and they were ever identified, they would never see the light of day again, some black bag organization, or other interests would scoop him up.


Among other things he likely with have access to 1T in the not to distant future.


Satoshi's only option is to stay anon.

Also he seems well smart enough to know this.

I am almost sure he is still on this board though.


For quite some time I thought it was Sunnyking

maybe the inventor has no control of the coins but a bunch of devs do.

thus he may be interested in coming out but has no proof.

   From that side he did a right thing, now he really can enjoy in life, rich life, without being in the center of other people attention. My opinion is that Satoshi can not be one man, this is to big to be one man
operation. We will never find out who is Satoshi and why does he hiding in the shadows, that questions will stay unanswered for a long time.
   Except that Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin what we know more about him? To me that looks like someone did a lot to stay hidden, and if governments and or their agencies, news investigators could not find him until now we can just guess who was him and why he is hiding.


   This is from some movie, right?

I think Satoshi is a cypherpunk who loves privacy ....

Well that brings us an important topic .... "Privacy"

I would like to quote B. Schneier's book "Data and Goliath".



ps0->Thanks Bruce and IBM for the book... It was an honor to meet you and receive your book from your own hands ;-)
ps1-> every time I cut and paste from pdf I got a mysterious *char; change  :-X


https://i.imgur.com/rDUYCke.jpg





 

If there is a real "Satoshi Nakamoto" he should have been found by now. For sure a lot of people who are interested have been tracking him for a long time. But they didn't find anything. Many have claimed that they are Satoshi but cannot proved it by themselves. I personally believed that he wants anonymity same as his bitcoin. And he is not after the money because he even touched his bitcoin. He already created a technology that we all now love so we should leave like that. He maybe dead for all we know.

I believe that the possible reason rests on the number 1. Satoshi hides so he can enjoy his anonymity especially that he has a huge stash of bitcoin and this means that he is a multimillionaire up to this point of time. If ever he will be known its either his life will be in danger since many will be interested to do unwanted things to be able to get his bitcoins. And also making his identity known somehow will affect the decentralized nature of bitcoin. His move to leave bitcoin on the hands of the new developers is for the sake of bitcoin and the sake of decentralization. Many have tried to claim that they are satoshi but failed to do so, but I do think that he has showed up during times of crisis presenting new ideas.

I think last time I heard about Satoshi was to defending Dorian from news media paparazzo's .. see how is a good thing to keep your privacy under your control ?

http://www.bitcoinx.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mIOdcu1.jpg

This  is just it. Why don't he reveal his identity? . This is the biggest problem with us - Hypocrisy.  
Me too don't like the idea Cryptocurrency developers revealing their identity. It simply not good for decentralized and unhackable Crypto

The development history of bitcoin is very long, however, without any information about satoshi nakamoto, he is the founder of bitcoin, however, all the information about him is hidden.

You should not judge, if you have not walked in someone's shoes. Put yourself in his shoes back in 2009.

~ Bitcoin was basically unknown
~ Bitcoin was very disruptive {might make enemies}
~ Bitcoin was released in a cypherpunk community that were very secretive at the time
~ Satoshi knew his technology could be seen as a threat by governments
~ Previously people were arrested, when they created their own currencies

When Gavin reached out to the US secret agencies, Satoshi left the scene. What would you have done, if you were in his

shoes?

bitcoin might be a currency made for criminals to use in the dark net, while only the fbi could trace the users, it is a trap for that purpose i guess

He currently owns 10% of the total bitcoin supply which can be roughly 2 million bitcoin , he would have surely sold some bitcoin for now and may have 1.5 million left which is worth $4.5 billion which is surely not a less amount and if he discloses himself government agencies may go behind him for unnecessary reasons or he would have revealed himself for now if he didn't do why do you care it's not that he revealing himself would increase price if bitcoin or he will give you some bitcoin so let him live peacefully.

I think it is not really important who Satoshi is. The good thing is that his invention benefit us all today; and I really believe that he will not move a bit of what bitcoin he has to favor his vision to free the people from thhe grasp of the current banking and money supply system.

I think Satoshi Nakamoto is worth 100X more as a myth or legend

Business prima donas are a dime a dozen these days, but there is only ONE Satoshi  ;D

I also suspected Sunny King for several reasons....I am actually surprised that Peercoin hasn't picked up more support because it actually foresaw and tackled many of the issues that are plaguing the bitcoin network today.  Like Satoshi Nakamoto --> Sunny King maintains a low profile....I don't suspect Sunny King any longer-->I think the perplexcity coincidences are more compelling.

There's a free draft version of book from princeton university. In introduction it includes a brief history of attempts to create cryptocurrency and its results.
You can grab one at http://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/ good read. Not too technical, written in enjoyable style.

what makes you think this currency is anon ? blockchain reveals every transaction,not hard with a bit of tech savvy to reveal more
deffo not anon currency
and satoshi holds 1.5 million bitcoins,lets hope he/she dont get too pissed one night and decide enoughs enough and dump the lot on the market,,then you will see some fun

How does revealing the identity of a lead developer leads bitcoin or any crypto currency to be centralized and how do you think ,it will be hacked .  :P
if someone is not interested to reveal his identity so be it ,it is his personal choice and respect that and move on.

If I were Satoshi I'd hide to protect myself. There's a chance some government agencies would like to track me and arrest under some false charges, just to get to my coins. I'd end up in a gitmo type CIA facility and be waterboarded every day until I give them my keys. That's what those bastards do and they need money to run their operations. Government finances aren't cutting it.

There could be many reasons for that but I think most people misunderstand the meaning behind it, bitcoin is an open source project anyone can see the code, so the identity of satoshi while it is a great mystery is completely irrelevant, not only he created a trustless coin, he was a leader we did not needed to trust either.

He should stay in hiding. It's much better for bitcoin and the community, because if he appeared and showed that he has control over his addresses people would panic and think he's going to use it all to manipulate the price. It would cause a massive crash.
It wouldn't be wise to reveal your identity as a founder, because you'd be putting yourself and your family at risk. People are kidnaping for very little money, so it's better if nobody knows. I also doubt he's not holding/selling coins as we speak. We all know his first addresses from the genesis block, but we don't know if he didn't make new ones and continue to mine in 2010, after disappearing from the scene.

I think one day he will use his BTC to do something GREAT!

Greets, Hank

what if you are thinking too much on the subject instead of reading content. what if it is originally a name of the creator. what if more possibilities like he know's something about Bitcoin which we do not know and he knows that we can not solve it. it is possible that he knows about a problem which can occur due to Bitcoin and he has no solution on that. or else he wants to be hidden from the government so they can not affect Bitcoin any how.

I still consider satoshi nakamoto is a code project created by a robust programmer community, they dare to implement a decentralized system which, of course, must eliminate their original identity as it is clear against the central world financial system. Bitcoin will get massive attacks from all circles both hackers and bureaucracies if its creators are visible and so far they have managed to bring changes to the world economy.

Mystery is great for hyping something. Look at those Djs who don't show their face or those magicians with masks.

The best djs of the world shows their faces, don't worry. But satoshi is just a fictional character, it's not a person. It should be a group of developers called themselves as satoshi.

Threads like this on forums like this are exactly the reason that he is not more publicly visible. The fact is he wrote some code and made something as a proof-of-concept. He does not want to be bothered with questions from people like you from forums like this and he doesn't want to be bothered with all of the crap that comes along with it. He has done a great invention and thats enough for all of us  :)

i think he do not want to be popular,some problem also here about so he is hide.

For those saying Satoshi is not any one person, I think you are wrong. If you read his posts they have a certain language pattern. I noticed he wrote "I'll gladly eat crow". He also used another metaphor about kicking the hornet's nest. That seems like something someone would say from an older generation. I've never heard of people talking about eating crow. I did some google searching and discovered that the crow expression dates back to the civil war where an American captive was forced to eat crow. I'm guessing that Satoshi Nakamoto is an American Male over 40 years of age.

If I ever do, by some off-chance miracle, discover the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, I believe I will keep it a secret. Since that is his wish, I will respect it.

Satoshi Nakamoto is kind of like Santa Clause. We all know that we are suppose to be snug in our beds fast asleep, but we all want to know who Santa is and what he is doing.  :D (Well, maybe not all of us).

He made an innovation and the same time if he hasn't hidden his identity surely the entire bitcoin network might be functioning as a centralized system. Maybe to avoid such scenario he might have chosen to stay as hidden identity. Also if he has come to the light, the pressure as well the media impact over the personality might create a negative feedback towards virtual currency.

He wants to stay anonymous and he's supporting bitcoin's characteristic on how he wants to remain unknown.


I don't think that reputation of bitcoin could be ruined when he starts to show who he is really is or who really "they" are.


I'm not even thinking that he's going to show himself in future.

The popularity of this capital. I don't know people who voluntarily give up the money. All this has me concerned. I think that Nakamoto does not exist or is such a person that his participation in this project may serve as an anti-advertising.

 Satoshi Nakamoto up to now still unknown to anyone. All bitcoin enthusiast knew this things as a founder and creator of bitcoin and more than that no one knows where He is? is He still alive? or what? and none of the bitcoin experts don't know the reason why He hide himself as a founder of bitcoin, all topic and discussion about Him was still a speculations.

When a person wants to hide from the world he is rather smart or he is afraid of some one who is considered to be a powerful person that would ruin the future of his invention of his Bitcoin and maybe even his family as well. Bitcoin founder/founders  have  been hiding even when bitcoin crossed 2500$ last month,the founder/s are may be hiding for a reason that no one knows and they know that it would cost something that they don't wanna lose. Also people state that illegal transactions take place with the help of Bitcoin, so the identity reveal would lead to legal consequences.

I think the reason satoshi hid his identity is a lot more profound than he just wanted to be cool, it is possible he could foresee what it is happening right now, and maybe he thought that governments will try to look for him and try to charge him and prosecute him.

Yes there is only one Satoshi he is might doing great business than other as you said. But your words were hard to understand hardly got some of them that's interesting to reply you so yes he is a business man if he came to the world without privacy then the world we will start annoying him to stop bitcoins around the world so that's the reason. But yes he is the one only great person.

Satoshi Nakamoto is a term used by an unknown person and is a bitcoin designer and the result of its original application refers to Bitcoin Core.

Satoshi Nakamoto made Bitcoins. So he was hiding because he could be killed or imprisoned. Because he made as much money as he could. And that's the interest of the government or any other person. That is behind investigate the true noble of the so-called Bitcoins Creator. (Satoshi Nakamoto)

Craig Steven Wright once said that if he proves that he is the real Satoshi, then what happened to Ross Ulbricht may happen to him as well. He may be arrested by the FBI and thrown behind bars for the rest of his life. I am not saying that Wright is the Satoshi, but this could be one of the reasons.

I do not understand why he was punished, but he has provided many benefits by creating digital money. I've heard that satoshi is Japanese, so far there's no proof of that.
If at this time he is still there maybe he is the richest man and can beat bill gates as the richest man on earth.