How did Satoshi managed to stay anonymous?

[Bisha]

One of the things that fascinates me is the fact of how Satoshi managed to stay anonymous this whole time. In all honestly he might just be the last person in the world pulling this off - doing such a great work, having so much attention while no one knows who he is.

In todays world it's so easy to be traced, justa small digital fingerprint is enough. Not to mention that Satoshi maybe wasn't just a single person? He could be of course, but at the same time, to have someone knowing so much about mathematics, economics and the financial system just amazes me. So if this Satoshi entity isn't just one person, it's even more difficult to stay anonymous, having to trust other people. That's why I think he might just be one person.

The fact 1 person could, these days, do something so amazing and staying anonymous is just surprising. Do you think you could do it? If so, how? It probably took him a lot of planning before for sure

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[TheGr33k]

Well he was really distant, forum posts would not show his real personality I guess. I guess its easy to stay anonymous if you arevery careful what you do online

[twiifm]

Because hes a made up character used to create a mythology to scam gullible people into buying worthless funbux for real money

[twiifm]

Because hes a made up character used to create a mythology to scam gullible people into buying worthless funbux for real money

LOL okay, I think you forgot that Satoshi never sold any Bitcoin and when he made it, it was an experiment not meant to be a money maker, it wasn't even worth a penny a coin at the start!

For all you know.  Satoshi could be a group of opportunists that saw a bunch of gullible occupy types ready to buy into anything that played on their hatred of bankers

Easier to believe he was a make believe avatar if no traces of him anywhere on internet

[twiifm]

Because hes a made up character used to create a mythology to scam gullible people into buying worthless funbux for real money

LOL okay, I think you forgot that Satoshi never sold any Bitcoin and when he made it, it was an experiment not meant to be a money maker, it wasn't even worth a penny a coin at the start!

For all you know.  Satoshi could be a group of opportunists that saw a bunch of gullible occupy types ready to buy into anything that played on their hatred of bankers

Easier to believe he was a make believe avatar if no traces of him anywhere on internet

Okay but your theory falls apart at the Billion USD worth of coins at the ATH price that never moved.

Maybe the keys were lost because at this time they never thought anyone would actually pay real money

[R2D221]

I've never seen a scam backed by mathematics and cryptography, to be honest.

[Mobius]

A combination of a VPN and TOR? I think he left at the right time. If he stayed active for longer, it would have been risky (to his identity).

[Amph]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

[Searing]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

If I was part of a group....it would be hard for me to stay anon with that much coin THEY HAVE NOT MOVED .. this lends me to
think that it is NOT a group of people....(think about all the supposed folk you know...could any group from 3-12 folk you know
keep a secret ..with this kind of $$$ and bragging rights involved?)

so me I think it is one guy.....and knowing humans the poor schmuck probably lost his keys to those addresses.....(hey if it was
me that is exactly how it would work ..make an earth shattering way to move money and keep value and tossed the passwords
out by accident....pretty much in line with my day to day life)

good things my goals are much lower...something like that I would have to be a monk and take a vow of poverty and vow of
silence  just to continue to cope....

er...what ...re-read the above....someone needs to check out some IP's from some monastery's imho .....that would explain much
on how he has not been found

[Velkro]

I've never seen a scam backed by mathematics and cryptography, to be honest.

True, this is real thing
But anyways, satoshi can be NSA, or any other group of people. However it doesn't change a thing, bitcoin is real

[hilariousetc]

Most people on this forum are anonymous to some degree or like to hide their personal deets. I don't think it would be that hard if from the start you wish to remain 100% anon with the right connections (tor/VPNs etc), but I suppose it is easy to slip up somewhere (like DPR) but obviously he hasn't so far.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Because hes a made up character used to create a mythology to scam gullible people into buying worthless funbux for real money

LOL okay, I think you forgot that Satoshi never sold any Bitcoin and when he made it, it was an experiment not meant to be a money maker, it wasn't even worth a penny a coin at the start!

For all you know.  Satoshi could be a group of opportunists that saw a bunch of gullible occupy types ready to buy into anything that played on their hatred of bankers

Easier to believe he was a make believe avatar if no traces of him anywhere on internet

Okay but your theory falls apart at the Billion USD worth of coins at the ATH price that never moved.

Maybe the keys were lost because at this time they never thought anyone would actually pay real money

I feel like that's quite a stretch, you're telling me you believe satoshi was a group making a crypto for a scam and when the scam actually worked and they were worth a billion dollars they had lost the keys because they never thought it would work?

That was his big masterplan  

-------

but i think he is still here these days... 

[calme]

Hi Satoshi. How you doin'?

[cambda]

Because he left before Bitcoin got real attention. Obviously not posting personal info is important if you want stay in privacy.

[tokeweed]

Satoshi could be OP trolling us. 

[--Encrypted--]

Because he left before Bitcoin got real attention. Obviously not posting personal info is important if you want stay in privacy.

exactly. I don't know why people failed to understand this. I am sure that he left as soon as he saw that bitcoin's popularity was raising rapidly.
Satoshi is smart, I'm sure he knows that a decentralized currency can be used for both good and bad things too.

[Amph]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

If I was part of a group....it would be hard for me to stay anon with that much coin THEY HAVE NOT MOVED .. this lends me to
think that it is NOT a group of people....(think about all the supposed folk you know...could any group from 3-12 folk you know
keep a secret ..with this kind of $$$ and bragging rights involved?)

so me I think it is one guy.....and knowing humans the poor schmuck probably lost his keys to those addresses.....(hey if it was
me that is exactly how it would work ..make an earth shattering way to move money and keep value and tossed the passwords
out by accident....pretty much in line with my day to day life)

good things my goals are much lower...something like that I would have to be a monk and take a vow of poverty and vow of
silence  just to continue to cope....

er...what ...re-read the above....someone needs to check out some IP's from some monastery's imho .....that would explain much
on how he has not been found

i didn't say "part of a group" but a group, satoshi is just a code name, of a group of coders, this mean that it is more hard to track them, it's more easy to find 1 person than 3-4 or more

[ed_teech]

Staying anonymous was a very smart move Satoshi made. Hard decision probably.

[zetaray]

It is not difficult to remain anonymous on this forum if Theymos keeps our IP addresses secret. It is easy if Satoshi wanted to keep himself anonymous right from the beginning.

[amiryaqot]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

If I was part of a group....it would be hard for me to stay anon with that much coin THEY HAVE NOT MOVED .. this lends me to
think that it is NOT a group of people....(think about all the supposed folk you know...could any group from 3-12 folk you know
keep a secret ..with this kind of $$$ and bragging rights involved?)

so me I think it is one guy.....and knowing humans the poor schmuck probably lost his keys to those addresses.....(hey if it was
me that is exactly how it would work ..make an earth shattering way to move money and keep value and tossed the passwords
out by accident....pretty much in line with my day to day life)

good things my goals are much lower...something like that I would have to be a monk and take a vow of poverty and vow of
silence  just to continue to cope....

er...what ...re-read the above....someone needs to check out some IP's from some monastery's imho .....that would explain much
on how he has not been found

i didn't say "part of a group" but a group, satoshi is just a code name, of a group of coders, this mean that it is more hard to track them, it's more easy to find 1 person than 3-4 or more

i think so Satoshi is just code name of project and nobody in real is Satoshi, so there is so many chances to have a group of coders behind this Satoshi project and this always stay anonymous.

[shogdite]

Staying anonymous was a very smart move Satoshi made. Hard decision probably.

Must be even harder keeping quiet and not bragging to your friends or family, I'd have thought there must be at least a few people who know satoshi's real identity.

Kudos to him/her/them for staying in the shadows, a lot of people would love to take credit for btc's creation.

[DooMAD]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

If I was part of a group....it would be hard for me to stay anon with that much coin THEY HAVE NOT MOVED .. this lends me to
think that it is NOT a group of people....(think about all the supposed folk you know...could any group from 3-12 folk you know
keep a secret ..with this kind of $$$ and bragging rights involved?)

so me I think it is one guy.....and knowing humans the poor schmuck probably lost his keys to those addresses.....(hey if it was
me that is exactly how it would work ..make an earth shattering way to move money and keep value and tossed the passwords
out by accident....pretty much in line with my day to day life)

good things my goals are much lower...something like that I would have to be a monk and take a vow of poverty and vow of
silence  just to continue to cope....

er...what ...re-read the above....someone needs to check out some IP's from some monastery's imho .....that would explain much
on how he has not been found

i didn't say "part of a group" but a group, satoshi is just a code name, of a group of coders, this mean that it is more hard to track them, it's more easy to find 1 person than 3-4 or more

i think so Satoshi is just code name of project and nobody in real is Satoshi, so there is so many chances to have a group of coders behind this Satoshi project and this always stay anonymous.

I was starting to think that if it was a group, they've have one of those multisig "3etcetcetc..." wallets so that one person in the group couldn't run off with the funds.  But then I remembered that the multisig feature was added later, so Satoshi wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it in the early days.  If it is a group and that was a concern for them, they could have moved the funds to one of those newer addresses when they became available, but haven't done so.  I don't think that fact by itself rules out the possibility that it's a group, though.  Hard to say for certain, but I still get the general impression it's an individual.

[Searing]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

If I was part of a group....it would be hard for me to stay anon with that much coin THEY HAVE NOT MOVED .. this lends me to
think that it is NOT a group of people....(think about all the supposed folk you know...could any group from 3-12 folk you know
keep a secret ..with this kind of $$$ and bragging rights involved?)

so me I think it is one guy.....and knowing humans the poor schmuck probably lost his keys to those addresses.....(hey if it was
me that is exactly how it would work ..make an earth shattering way to move money and keep value and tossed the passwords
out by accident....pretty much in line with my day to day life)

good things my goals are much lower...something like that I would have to be a monk and take a vow of poverty and vow of
silence  just to continue to cope....

er...what ...re-read the above....someone needs to check out some IP's from some monastery's imho .....that would explain much
on how he has not been found

i didn't say "part of a group" but a group, satoshi is just a code name, of a group of coders, this mean that it is more hard to track them, it's more easy to find 1 person than 3-4 or more

i think so Satoshi is just code name of project and nobody in real is Satoshi, so there is so many chances to have a group of coders behind this Satoshi project and this always stay anonymous.

I was starting to think that if it was a group, they've have one of those multisig "3etcetcetc..." wallets so that one person in the group couldn't run off with the funds.  But then I remembered that the multisig feature was added later, so Satoshi wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it in the early days.  If it is a group and that was a concern for them, they could have moved the funds to one of those newer addresses when they became available, but haven't done so.  I don't think that fact by itself rules out the possibility that it's a group, though.  Hard to say for certain, but I still get the general impression it's an individual.

my trouble with the group idea is ANY GROUP of people keeping such a secret w/o any bitcoin movement would just be too tempting to either 1) some bitcoin would have moved about or 2) someone would have blab'd by now about the group

then again if you are a 'anarchist' group and say next tuesday you decide to flush all of satoshi's coin in a massive sale to drive price down and cause chaos (hey it is what such a group would do) well then my point is dead wrong....

brings up another point...how much harm could satoshi do if he just wanted to 'throw a wrench' in his project and make a bonfire out of the works? (sheesh ..just scared myself)

[nygaar]

Get a second hand laptop and install some type of linux with Tor bundles and full drive encryption. Then make sure to only use this computer with your nym, make sure to use very formal language in your writings and it's probbly enough to make it impossible for anyone to prove who is behind it.

Not *that* hard but obviously common drug dealers can often fail with stuff like this because they use burner phones and believe they are far brighter than they actually are. Statistics say that les than 0.05% of people with higher IQ ever get convicted of anything. About 6.5% of the general U.S. population has a felony conviction.

Satoshi appears to be thoughtful and well balanced even when compared to professors and PhDs that supposedly are around the 130 IQ range so it doesn't surprise me that he would pull it off.

Inventing Bitcoin is the U.S. *is* a crime, right?

[Bisha]

I also believe being a group of people doesn't make much sense. Sooner or later, someone would slip and talk.

However, the fact that he didn't even talk to anyone who knew him about this impresses me. And he probably had to work on this for years so he probably lived alone? Or someone else could have spotted what he was doing during that time interval. I don't know, he had the capacity of not ever talking about that to the people close to him. I mean, for someone to start such a project he probably had discussed it with people way before he even started, possibly giving some hints! That leads me to think satoshi was such a bright mind, but unfortunately a very lonely person.

Would like to know what he is up to right now. Just continuing with his daily routine like nothing happened? I mean, it's hard for me to believe after someone created a project like this, that person could just abandon his "baby". A person with such revolutionary thoughts, it's hard to believe they're quiet and will ever be. Maybe he is just doing some upgrades, planning new stuff~? ahah impossible to know but i'd love to know it. Satoshi must be one of the most, if the person with most self control and discipline i've ever heard of

[1Referee]

Staying anonymous was a very smart move Satoshi made. Hard decision probably.

Not hard at all. Especially when you see what Bitcoin currently look like compared to the early years. He can easily stay in the background and see his wealth grow through the roof.

Satoshi as being a group definitely would make it a lot harder to stay fully anonymous as there might be a person in the group getting jealous and extort the others in order to get a financial gain.

I think Satoshi is a 1 man show, but we will probably never know. For me it doesn't matter really if he's planning to reveal his identity at some point or not. He's a legend without a doubt.

[spacehopper]

Staying anonymous was a very smart move Satoshi made. Hard decision probably.

Not hard at all. Especially when you see what Bitcoin currently look like compared to the early years. He can easily stay in the background and see his wealth grow through the roof.

Satoshi as being a group definitely would make it a lot harder to stay fully anonymous as there might be a person in the group getting jealous and extort the others in order to get a financial gain.

I think Satoshi is a 1 man show, but we will probably never know. For me it doesn't matter really if he's planning to reveal his identity at some point or not. He's a legend without a doubt.

He could not have believed it would get this big early on and could have made slipups then. There is no full copy of the original sourceforge forum. He might have deleted it to remove any early slipups he made.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Well he was really distant, forum posts would not show his real personality I guess. I guess its easy to stay anonymous if you arevery careful what you do online

I wonder if he ever said that he was from japan or his IP revealed his location? did he use Tor or something??

[Beliathon]

For all you know.  Satoshi could be a group of opportunists that saw a bunch of gullible occupy types ready to buy into anything that played on their hatred of bankers

Everything one needs to know to evaluate Bitcoin's investment worthiness is in the public domain, it's an open-source protocol. 

Identity politics is of little concern in matters of science.

[fonenumba]

remember that "satoshi" is probably a group of people, so it's even harder to know who they are, and more easy to stay anon

This is not true. If satoshi was really a group of people then it would be more difficult to keep their collective identity secret (not to mention the fact that it would be a poor security practice for a group of people to share a PGP key) because it would only take one person to 'spill the beans' and the whole group's cover would be revealed. Also a group of people is likely to communicate with eachother regarding creating bitcoin which would leave open potential ways that such communication could be intercepted and their identity revealed.

It is not difficult to remain anonymous on this forum if Theymos keeps our IP addresses secret. It is easy if Satoshi wanted to keep himself anonymous right from the beginning.

This is not true. Theymos keeps IP addresses out of public view, however he does comply with legal requests for information (eg search warrants). Satoshi most likely used a combination of tor and other IP address masking services/tools so even if his IP address(es) were revealed, it would probably not allow anyone to come any closer to determining satoshi's identity

[UsernameBitcoin]

Satoshi is a group of people. Satoshi's coins are stored in multisign wallets. If one of the group starts talking or by accident revealing his identity, the others will move the coins to new multisign wallets, excluding the 'traitor'. Thus, there's a lot of interest and pressure among the members of Satoshi to remain the anonymity.

[neoneros]

Satoshi is a group of people. Satoshi's coins are stored in multisign wallets. If one of the group starts talking or by accident revealing his identity, the others will move the coins to new multisign wallets, excluding the 'traitor'. Thus, there's a lot of interest and pressure among the members of Satoshi to remain the anonymity.

That would have only worked if from the beginning the coins were worth what they are now or were at the ATH. Maintaining a secrecy by threatening they will lose their pennies is not enforcing anyone

And if they were early adopters, they would have mined and gained their own coins, just to see how it worked. Losing a funds in a stored multisig wallet which you probably never get to maintain the anomity is a too little incentive to keep your mouth shut.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Satoshi's coins are stored in multisign wallets.

The blockchain disagrees with you.

[Robert Paulson]

[dothebeats]

Numerous threads with the same idea had been created ages ago. People wanted to know who was the real "Satoshi Nakamoto" and some had even pursued deeper and came up with a man with the similar name. His/her identity is indeed really hard to know, but somewhere or somehow, he/she might be discovered. As for being silent through all this times, given that his/her work now costs billions of dollars, one thing that comes into my mind is that he/she sees that there is something beyond the ATH; he/she knows that something bigger would happen in the future that's why he/she doesn't sold those coins. Well idk, I'm not Satoshi, but if you look into it closely, if he/she knows that bitcoin will somehow fail, he/she should have sold off his/her coins back in November 2013. But he/she didn't, so that leaves me into a conclusion that he/she knows that there is something more. Lost privkeys? I don't think so. Why would a genius lose his/her obra maestra in the first place? That doesn't make any sense at all.

We can only conclude one thing about Satoshi Nakamoto or whoever there is behind that pseudonym: he/she is definitely a genius.

[ebliever]

Satoshi had extensive knowledge and well developed skills in cryptography. He obviously had a long-standing interest in it, and by extension in enablers of secrecy and anonymity. So it's not surprising that among the repertoire of skills be brought with him was a pre-developed capability to cover his tracks and behave in such a way as to avoid dropping any real clues to his identity.

Like others I doubt Satoshi is more than one person:

1. Multiple people increases the risk of someone slipping up and leaving clues to at least their own identity.
2. Multiple people would be more likely to reveal conflicting goals, motives, internal dissension and so forth in "Satoshi" posting, for which I see no evidence.
3. Increased odds that one of the Satoshi team would have broken ranks at some point and spoken up.
4. I believe the whole working concept of bitcoin had to be contained within one mind to thoroughly understand and initially conceptualize it and make sure there were no fatal errors in it. I tend to believe an effort to create something new on the scope of bitcoin would have gotten "hung up in committee" if multiple people had tried to work on different aspects of it. The end product would have been slow in coming, and would not have worked cleanly until after a lot of bug fixes, emergency changes and optimization. Not that bitcoin was perfect out of the gate, but on the whole there was a cohesiveness and refinement to it that makes me suspect a single diligent mind put a lot of mental effort into it, anticipating and resolving problems with it before they became a reality.

[chek2fire]

In my small research Satoshi was from Europe maybe a university professor because of his timeline post pattern

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=913318.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=802869.0

I have a feeling that he is still active in this forum. The most logical step from him is to have two accounts in this forum and i think his second account is still very active until today. I am sure that Satoshi has never left the community but he simple "kill" his first character

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

I think he wasn't discovered because by the time Bitcoin gained more attention and traction, he was already gone with most trails(if any) of him had already disappeared.

I mean think about it. In 2008 he posts a paper discussing decentralized electronic cash, but nobody believes him or interest is too low. At this point nobody is really trying to figure out who he is. By the end of 2010 Bitcoin does gain more attention than in the beginning, but...was it enough to have CIA,NSA,FBI after him? Doubt it. Today though, different story.

[samson]

I believe he used a reasonably well known anonymous email provider and domain registrar who are based in Japan. I can't remember where but there was a definite link.

This one : https://www.anonymousspeech.com/Default.aspx

I've used the above company myself in the past with good results.

They have always accepted cash by post payments for anonymous email accounts, domain registration and hosting and of course these days you can pay using Bitcoin.

Once you're registered with a service like the above accessing it via TOR keeps you hidden.

[manselr]

Probably the best tip to not be recognized is don't be an attention whore. This is basic and includes not bragging even tho if you could. Satoshi could as the mega millionaire genius he is, but he doesn't, that's the main secret.

[Bitmonedo]

Santoshi is not from earth, he/she used his advance knowledge of mathematics and stuff to replicate hi/her home world currency. Bitcoin is an idea from out of this world. 

[c789]

Satoshi had extensive knowledge and well developed skills in cryptography. He obviously had a long-standing interest in it, and by extension in enablers of secrecy and anonymity. So it's not surprising that among the repertoire of skills be brought with him was a pre-developed capability to cover his tracks and behave in such a way as to avoid dropping any real clues to his identity.

Like others I doubt Satoshi is more than one person:

1. Multiple people increases the risk of someone slipping up and leaving clues to at least their own identity.
2. Multiple people would be more likely to reveal conflicting goals, motives, internal dissension and so forth in "Satoshi" posting, for which I see no evidence.
3. Increased odds that one of the Satoshi team would have broken ranks at some point and spoken up.
4. I believe the whole working concept of bitcoin had to be contained within one mind to thoroughly understand and initially conceptualize it and make sure there were no fatal errors in it. I tend to believe an effort to create something new on the scope of bitcoin would have gotten "hung up in committee" if multiple people had tried to work on different aspects of it. The end product would have been slow in coming, and would not have worked cleanly until after a lot of bug fixes, emergency changes and optimization. Not that bitcoin was perfect out of the gate, but on the whole there was a cohesiveness and refinement to it that makes me suspect a single diligent mind put a lot of mental effort into it, anticipating and resolving problems with it before they became a reality.

All of those are excellent points. Obviously Satoshi is brilliant, knows what he's doing, and had the foresight to know that his creation -- in spite of all of the good it can do -- had the potential to ruffle some very powerful feathers who may not like the idea of decentralized currency.

I suppose one could have approached this from a project management perspective and planned backwards from the main milestone. Some of the dependencies in the plan of reaching the main milestone would have been "how to remain anonymous."