Bitcoin Forum

David Chaum - He visualized a token currency which could be transferred between individuals. Chaum developed a so-called "blinding formula" to encrypt information passed between individuals and later, founded DigiCash.

Wei Dai - In 1998 Wei Dai proposed an "anonymous, distributed electronic cash system" - In the B-money system, digital pseudonyms would be used in order to transfer currency through a decentralized network. Satoshi referenced elements of B-money in his bitcoin whitepaper.

Nick Szabo - Bit Gold came with its own proof-of-work system that in some ways is mirrored by today's bitcoin mining process. Bit Gold aimed to avoid reliance on centralized currency distributors and authorities. Szabo's aim was for Bit Gold to reflect the properties of real gold, thereby enabling users to eliminate the middleman entirely.

Adam Back - He published a paper detailing his protocol in 2002, named: ‘Hashcash – A Denial of Service Counter-Measure.’ Hashcash used a proof-of-work algorithm to aid the generation and distribution of new coins, much like many contemporary cryptocurrencies.

I have had many silent thoughts on this matter and I contemplated the outcome of this experiment, if Satoshi decided to reveal his true identity. How many people would actually take him to court for intellectual copyright infringement? Companies like PayPal revolutionized person-to-person payments online and they might even find a reason to sue him.  ::)

                           Is this not one of the reason why Satoshi Nakamoto never revealed his true identity?

Sources :

https://www.investopedia.com/tech/were-there-cryptocurrencies-bitcoin/
https://btcmanager.com/the-history-of-bitcoin-part-1-what-is-hashcash/
https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/B-money
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Szabo

Satoshi referenced Wei Dai and Adam Back in his white paper, and he was certainly aware of Chaum, so I don't think you can call it "stealing" their idea -- he simply expanded upon them and ended up creating something greater than their combined parts. I'm quite certain none of the people mentioned above would attempt to take him to court for copyright infringement, not only on lack of grounds but also out of respect for him. Craig Wright, on the other hand, perhaps might.

Do you see anything published about Bitcoin by Craig Wright before 2009? - https://dblp.org/pers/hd/w/Wright:Craig_S=  The guy only started publishing something about the Blockchain in 2017.  ::)

These guys have valid claims on some of the technologies that were used in Bitcoin, so they might sue him/her if Satoshi turned out to be  some a$$hole like Craig Wright.

The circumstances might have changed, if this played out differently and Bitcoin might not even have seen the light of day, if Satoshi had to fight off people's claims to his invention.  ::)

That's besides the point.


So far none of the parties you mentioned above have mentioned a beef with Satoshi. I'm not sure their copyright claims would be enforceable anyway.

The answer to your question is, no, nobody would or is going to sue Satoshi, not now, not ever. I think he more likely didn't want to face the scrutiny of world governments after developing a competing form of currency.

I think Satoshi could have contacted some of those guys actually, which is something I always wondered why journalists didn't look for those guys like Wei Dai. But no I don't think any of them would sue him. Satoshi didn't patent anything for himself either remember?

There were other 3 guys that patented some similar blockchain tech though around the time Satoshi came out with BTC, maybe those guys? But how do you chase a ghost?:)

We don't know the real reason why he is hiding his identity. But I don't think it is because of this. Probably they are just his inspiration on creating bitcoin. Their ideas might have pushed Satoshi on making it into reality. But I don't see this as "stealing someone's idea". Of course, Satoshi also has his idea. Because if it was just totally their idea, why would he even create bitcoin. Why not just let them create it. He won't waste his time on bitcoin if the idea is not his own. It's just merely an "inspiration". There's always an inspiration why something is created.

This can be just another speculation as to the disappearance of a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto from the eyes of the public. One thing we should clarify is that Satoshi Nakamoto can be hard to sue because in the first place he was not, he is not and will never be the owner of Bitcoin. Well, this can be the beauty of the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. If ever there will be a case, then all of us in this industry has to be sued including the miners and maybe even cryptocurrency exchanges. That would really be unthinkable, in the first place. Now, having said that, proving that Satoshi Nakamoto plagiarized the works of many men mentioned by OP can even be more difficult to prove under a fair court run by law and common sense.

Making things sound this way has serious consequences in my opinion.
 I think Bitcoin is way unique and different from those projects. If one of the people listed decides to go to court to claim Bitcoin, it's going to be more problems in the future.
All these shouldn't be necessary If bitcoin is decentralized, trustless, permissionless,  censored resistance etc. I'd be pleased to see my ideas developed by communities for non-profit reasons.

I don't think stealing their ideas is the reason he chose to stay anonymous, besides someone said he reference some of them on the whitepaper. He has actually created something more envisaged by them all, I think a major opposition from the government could have been the reason for his disappearance.

You can't copyright an idea (at least, in the U.S.).

There is nothing new under the sun mate. People always develop new things based on a prior knowledge or exploration of someone else. I know Satoshi made reference to some individuals who also had the concept of blockchain technology in mind. Nothing just came out of no where you know. Satoshi would never hide because of this, i guess it's for his safety reason that he decided to stay out of the media.

" Intellectual property is protected by laws specific to the expression of an idea. Copyright is the law specific to the expression of ideas in visual or audio form. Unlike a trademark that indicates a specific item or design is protected, copyright covers a different expression of thought. Source : https://info.vethanlaw.com/blog/2015/10/what-is-the-difference-between-copyright-and-intellectual-property

Intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time. Source : https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel1_e.htm

In the U.S., there are several types of intellectual property, which include patents, trade marks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Patents allow their owner to determine who can make, use, or sell an invention. ... An intellectual property attorney can help you identify, protect, and enforce your IP rights in the U.S. Source : https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/UK-SME-IP-Toolkit_FINAL.pdf

Satoshi developed Bitcoin and Blockchain technology without reading any papers of those people what you have mentioned. After he developed the Bitcoin system he was wondering if any one thinking to create e-cash. so search on the Internet and found few articles but not was not very good. Nothing impressed him. He cited Wei Dai and Adam back in White Paper just to let the Cypherpunks know that it not not just a new thing. He even did not bother to say anything about the Bitgold of Nick because it has another story how nick got it from Satoshi. B Money of Wei Dai was not fully explained anything about E-Cash System. It was very poor. But He consider his paper because of Wei Dai was an educated Cryptographer. Craig Wright claimed now that Satoshi plagiarized  his paper which has another story. Every thing will be explained by Satoshi himself soon.

If satoshi stayed anonymous because he stole other people's idea. Then why those other people are hiding for. They should come up and declare themself to be the inventor. A man who needs no credit why steals others credit?? 

The key word here is "expression". You can copyright the expression of an idea, but you can't copyright the idea itself. Satoshi used the ideas of several other people to develop Bitcoin, but he did not copy the expressions of those ideas (the words that they wrote), so there is no basis for copyright infringement.

Here's an example of the difference: The Winklevoss twins did not sue Mark Zuckerberg because he turned their idea for a website into Facebook. They sued him because he worked with them on their idea and then used the results of that work (the intellectual property) to start Facebook.

Similarly, you can't patent an concept, but you can patent an implementation of the concept. Nobody can patent the concept of a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system, but Satoshi can certainly patent Bitcoin, which is an implementation of that concept.

Anyway, although I have researched this subject extensively, I'm not an expert, so my post may contain some inaccuracies.

In the early days, Satoshi communicated with all those people you mentioned, or cited their works. You can say that bitcoin has been several decades in the making until Satoshi finally put it all together into one system.

I am not sure it counts as stealing. Satoshi took inspiration from both technologies and ideologies. This person did not literally copy any code/academic works, right? And I don't remember any accusations from the people you've mentioned that Satoshi stole anything from them. There can be lots of reasons not to reveal the identity, and some of them can have to do with lawsuits, but I don't think that it's about intellectual property lawsuits. After all, Faketoshi easily got a patent from "his" creation of Bitcoin and blockchain, and he did not get sued by guys like Chaum. If they don't sue such an a**hole, why would they sue the real Satoshi?

1. Those works had to be patented before we can start talking about any intellectual property theft. And cypherpunks are known for being against copyright laws.

2. Satoshi didn't copy their works, he used their experience to create something entirely new and very different from those works.

3. No one creates something from scratch, everyone uses knowledge of predecessors and improves on their ideas, this is absolutely normal. Satoshi didn't steal anything neither legally or morally or in any other sense of this world.

Success has many fathers, as they say.
One by one and alone those guys were brilliant enough to give birth to the general idea. Together they could change the world...
Wait a minute...  ;) But steeping aside from conspiracy, satoshi simply combined their efforts and came up with the solution.
All of them cooperated with satoshi, shared their points, ideas and voila. Nobody stole from anybody, it was all voluntary. 

this is the point, I agree with you that Sathosi not steal their ideas but perfected the ideas and innovations they conceptualized

the innovation they conceptualized has created thousands of cryptocurrencies with various advantages.

when BMW builds a new car are they stealing the idea from the person who invented the "wheel"?

that's the same thing here. all these technologies and ideas existed. Satoshi came up with a "new idea" of using these ideas to build an innovative system that used them in a special way that nobody else were capable of putting together before that.

no one knows why Satoshi hid his identity, in my opinion not a matter of copyright theft he hid his identity, This person is really mysterious, No one knows who Satoshi is, whether he is a secret individual, group, or company.

No one can make any claims against Satoshi Nakamoto, because he did not steal his invention from anyone. Before him, no one had fully developed cryptocurrency in the same form. There were separate developments, Nakamoto synthesized them, developed and turned out the current cryptocurrency. Since Nakamoto has done a lot in this area, he should rightfully be considered the creator of the cryptocurrency. In addition, he did it completely disinterestedly, since he did not receive a patent for his invention and even hides his true identity. Many may have some guesses and half-hearted solutions, but the inventor is the one who produced the finished product.

Well if he took someone elses ideas for his own purpose he did it right.

First of if the other "someone else" gave up that idea to him, he can implement it in a better suitable way and becoming the first one (which he did).

Think of it as Sega and Nintendo fighting over Mario and Sonic.
Sega took Nintendo's Mario's idea (which was already implemented on the market) and made their own mascot - Sonic.

Meaning if Satoshi took an idea from other company that could also been the origin of Bitcoin.

Nope, I don't think so. Though his invention might be similar to what others had in mind, there is a difference.

If you do your research, Bitcoin is the only decentralized exchanges. David Chaum was the first to create something like this and others recreated his idea, so if Satoshi Nakamoto is to be found guilty of such, then others should as well be found guilty. And as for PayPal, I don't think they are the first to come up with such an idea, so they probably took it from somewhere, because I have heard of other companies that started before them, mostly in Australia. At first, it wasn't a person-to-person online payment system, but a company that develops security software for hand-held devices in 1998, and it goes by the name Confinity.

if possible any of those guys is probably satoshi himself. satoshi must have been part of the cryptography group who had been trying to solve the double spending for the longest time just like those people in the list. the idea had been around for decades and in his whitepaper he also mentioned those names. that itself means their study had helped satoshi's success that ain't a secret to anyone.

One way or another, any statements about Satoshi Nakamoto are nothing but idle chatter and manipulation by those cryptocurrency users for whom this name is of some value.  Any information today is used on the cryptocurrency market in order to create certain situations for a dump or cryptocurrency price pump.  If someone says that Satoshi Nakamoto, that he stole an idea from someone, then let him show the information From whom this idea was stolen.  At least for a start.

As far as it is about stealing other people's idea. The world wasn't evolved in a day. There is always inspiration from the ideas of others which leads to a successful invention. Thing is that he might not be the first but he was the one to actually do it rather than ones who only thought about it. This isn't stealing. Doers have always been able to overcome the thinkers. Satoshi pretty much did the same.

I see that we have another conspiracy theory that involves Satoshi. People are so eager to know everything about him or her that they are even making up all kind of stories.
We don't know true identity of Satoshi as well as we don't know all details and scenarios about Bitcoin development and guessing and making up.strange and funny stories will not help to.reveal the truth.

seriously your just fooling yourself

the real satoshi was part of the cypherpunks group before inventing bitcoin. he referenced wei dai and others because he used their ideas and patchworked them together into an impressive thing.

he contacted them and attributed their efforts. he did not steal he did not pre invent and then research others that came close
he simply used different idea's in a new combined way

satoshi disapeared because he became aware that he was becoming a central figure which was going against the whole decentralised idea bitcoin was meant to be. he didnt want the power or the control.

many people mis-took his messages about not wanting to review every persons individual codebases as a stupid wording to mean there should only be one codebase everyone follows. instead he was trying to not be the main go-to guy(central point)
yet here we are with one codebase and flocks of blind followers just trusting one brand. and treating any other de team as an enemy.. when infact having just one decision making brand should be treated as the enemy to decentralisation

This reminds of the fact that Volvo, (or an engineer working with Volvo) invented the 3 point seat belt, but gave it away to the rest of the world for free so all car manufacturers can include it.

I do not think so. Maybe he took some ideas, but nothing more. In the end, all new projects are based on something.

Not other people's ideas (that's not so important) but the monetary supply. It is good that the market capitalization of Bitcoin is low. It would change the legal status of Bitcoin and also Satoshi's circumstances.

That's not stealing, he referenced some of them. What he did was put more thought and came up with something that's a lot better.

It will never end discussing the history of Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin because the existence and identity of the truth has not been solved accurately, all the news can be made or manipulated that Satoshi Nakamoto himself or is part of a cryptographic group.
and if Satoshi Nakamoto stole ideas from others for bitcoin, and logically the accurate truth must have been revealed long ago and did not drag on from the stolen person or his family's part about the origin of bitcoin in detail.
and this is just my opinion.

OP, What's the famous saying by Picasso? 8)

But if Satoshi had to develop something new, that has become something ground-breaking, then it should always be considered brilliant.

This sounds silly to be honest, Satoshi Nakamoto most likely did borrow a few inspired ideas of others in order to construct this idea of Bitcoin & Blockhchain, but he didn't do it to claim ownership or to make a profit off it, instead the whole project made up of a clump of mixed ideas that is Bitcoin and blockchain were made open source, so that others could do the same, abiding by the law of equivalent exchange.
   The really cherry on top is this, Satoshi's never touched the coins in his wallet. Now if that doesn't drive a man batshit insane thinking upon why, I don't know what will. I don't think the real Satoshi will ever reveal itself, because it takes away from the mysterium, Satoshi is seen as being a modern day digital messiah.

Stealing is kind of a vague and careless word when it comes to Satoshi's work. Synthesizing all ideas into one doesn't mean you stole the idea, especially if you have included all the names properly and extensively in all of your documentation. Needless to say, Satoshi is just smart enough to devise and synthesize a fully-working mechanism from different ideas with the same goal. There's no stealing in that, nor that even poses a clever thought as to why he chose to disappear after 2 years.

I also know this that Satoshi Nakamoto continued their ideas and developed them in 2009. Perhaps the only anonymous reason is that Satoshi Nakamoto knew it personally, so I think if he steals the idea then I think not but he continues to develop with an idea that already existed before