"...then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project"

[AlexGR]

In August, a post appeared in the dev mailing list, signed as Satoshi Nakamoto, with an email of Satoshi Nakamoto (not spoofed), from an email that has not been known to have been hacked, which contained the following message and warning regarding the attempted XT coup:

I have been following the recent block size debates through the mailing list.  I had hoped the debate would resolve and that a fork proposal would achieve widespread consensus.  However with the formal release of Bitcoin XT 0.11A, this looks unlikely to happen, and so I am forced to share my concerns about this very dangerous fork.

The developers of this pretender-Bitcoin claim to be following my original vision, but nothing could be further from the truth.  When I designed Bitcoin, I designed it in such a way as to make future modifications to the consensus rules difficult without near unanimous agreement.  Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto.  Nearly everyone has to agree on a change, and they have to do it without being forced or pressured into it.  By doing a fork in this way, these developers are violating the "original vision" they claim to honour.

They use my old writings to make claims about what Bitcoin was supposed to be.  However I acknowledge that a lot has changed since that time, and new knowledge has been gained that contradicts some of my early opinions.  For example I didn't anticipate pooled mining and its effects on the security of the network.  Making Bitcoin a competitive monetary system while also preserving its security properties is not a trivial problem, and we should take more time to come up with a robust solution.  I suspect we need a better incentive for users to run nodes instead of relying solely on altruism.

If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.  Bitcoin was meant to be both technically and socially robust.  This present situation has been very disappointing to watch unfold.

Satoshi Nakamoto

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010238.html

Obviously, the context is still massively relevant to the new "classic" fork attempt as the ingredients are the same.

If the identity of the poster is legitimate, then there is a real risk that a fork might force Satoshi to declare Bitcoin a failed project due to the coup in governance. That will official #REKT bitcoin and crypto in general, no matter which part of the argument anyone supports.

Some say Satoshi needed to sign the mail but there is not a single instance where Satoshi signed anything. Plus if he did he would also be doing the same thing he condemns regarding authority influence. So his message being semi-official / semi-unofficial, can act as a warning, but also as a non-decisive influence.

I want to see the community's weighing of that particular risk, if a fork occurs: Do you expect Satoshi to come out and make an official obituary of BTC if BTC forks - which would make Hearn's (or the other 80something obituaries) pale in comparison?

[1714956490]

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[1714956490]

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[onemorexmr]

Unsigned Message: Thats not satoshi...

satoshi would know that a signed message is needed if he is interested that his opinion is recognized

[AlexGR]

Unsigned Message: Thats not satoshi...

satoshi would know that a signed message is needed if he is interested that his opinion is recognized

That would make that particular issue settle by his intervention BUT it would reinforce the point that if an authority can impose their opinion by their "status" then the system is broken.

It would create a precedent where in each dispute satoshi must say his opinion with a signed message which would in turn prove that BTC is centralized around his decisions.

[birr]

Did anybody do a language analysis to find out whether this matches Satoshi's writing style?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry

[Hazir]

It is fake message. Real Satoshi knew that only mail with signed message will be treated seriously - if he is really worried about state of bitcoin then his msg would be signed.
It is another Satoshi impersonation attempt nothing more, nothing less. Satoshi probably know that if he is needed for bitcoin survival then bitcoin already failed.  

[onemorexmr]

Unsigned Message: Thats not satoshi...

satoshi would know that a signed message is needed if he is interested that his opinion is recognized

That would make that particular issue settle by his intervention BUT it would reinforce the point that if an authority can impose their opinion by their "status" then the system is broken.

It would create a precedent where in each dispute satoshi must say his opinion with a signed message which would in turn prove that BTC is centralized around his decisions.

you are right.

but your poll suggests that this message is from satoshi. so i am not able to answer it...

i actually believe that:
1) satoshi is pro bigger blocks
2) satoshi wouldnt have a problem with forks (like xt or classic) to solve such issues (aka let the users decide)

i cant prove it though...

[franky1]

the vistomail address is no proof.. that theory has been debunked ages ago..

moving on

[AlexGR]

Unsigned Message: Thats not satoshi...

satoshi would know that a signed message is needed if he is interested that his opinion is recognized

That would make that particular issue settle by his intervention BUT it would reinforce the point that if an authority can impose their opinion by their "status" then the system is broken.

It would create a precedent where in each dispute satoshi must say his opinion with a signed message which would in turn prove that BTC is centralized around his decisions.

you are right.

but your poll suggests that this message is from satoshi. so i am not able to answer it...

The vote in "No" is a superset of "this post is faked". If one believes it's fake, then why would they take the warning seriously?

[xdrpx]

I believe Satoshi would have had some way to prove his identity considering he knew that his E-Mail's were hacked, so he'd have to initially gain peoples trust to be able to respond.

Another thing that I am not sure about is that was Satoshi's messages PGP signed whenever he used to message anyone long ago? If it was I'm sure he would have used the same thing again.

I feel this would be an impersonation by someone having access to that E-Mail. Bitcoin isn't a failed experiment yet, it's going strong.

[Amph]

mike should have referred to his own bitcoin-altcoin, xt, that was indeed a failed project

nothing is a fail about bitcoin, bitcoin do not even need satoshi nor anyone else, so in the remote case satoshi will say the same thing, nothing will happen as usual

the tech behind bitcoin is too valuable, to be corrupted by any single entity, it does not matter how powerful it is...

[AlexGR]

nothing is a fail about bitcoin, bitcoin do not even need satoshi nor anyone else, so in the remote case satoshi will say the same thing, nothing will happen as usual

Adam back disagrees / is very close in position with what Satoshi (or "Satoshi") wrote:

[Amph]

nothing is a fail about bitcoin, bitcoin do not even need satoshi nor anyone else, so in the remote case satoshi will say the same thing, nothing will happen as usual

Adam back disagrees / is very close in position with what Satoshi (or "Satoshi") wrote:

snip

you think that a high charismatic guy can kill bitcoin at this point, when the miners are practically contorlling it, via mining and via trading(i have reason to believe that they are manipulating the market to increase the value prior the halving, chinese especially)

i'm sure miners will not permit bitcoin to die at least for now... bitcoin is already too big to fail for political reasons

[BellaBitBit]

No, why would he do that?  What is with all the negativity?

[OROBTC]

...

Maybe I am missing something here, but if Bitcoin becomes a failed project, would that not be reflected in the price of BTC?  

Whether a "failure" is perceived early (BTC price plunge) or if the failure becomes seen gradually (a persistent loss of faith in BTC, and so price goes down for a long time), a FAILURE would lead to a permanent price decline (over and beyond the normal price volatility).

If BTC is a failure, we will likely know pretty soon by further falling prices.  I have no idea if this "Bitcoin Classic" imbroglio will lead to a failure or not.

If people are scared of a Bitcoin Failure, then get out.  Cash it in, or buy gold.

[ausbit]

I believe Satoshi would have had some way to prove his identity considering he knew that his E-Mail's were hacked, so he'd have to initially gain peoples trust to be able to respond.

Another thing that I am not sure about is that was Satoshi's messages PGP signed whenever he used to message anyone long ago? If it was I'm sure he would have used the same thing again.

I feel this would be an impersonation by someone having access to that E-Mail. Bitcoin isn't a failed experiment yet, it's going strong.

I don't know, that satoshi will do anything at this moment. And we can't say simply that Bitcoins project is failed and has no choice now to declare something because we dont know the exact future of our Bitcoins.

[tex99]

Emails from vistomail.com are really from anonymousspeech.com which only allows a free trial period to test its email service. After the trial period's over everyone has to pay them, and if you stop paying your account gets closed. Satoshi might have stopped paying them, and his account could have expired. IF they let people register using an email address from an expired account it could have been easy to register a new account using satoshi's old email address.

Does anonymousspeech.com let people register with secondhand email addresses?

[coins101]

It didn't happen.

Someone else faked his message in a shameful attempt to influence what should be a free vote.

There were parts of XT I didn't like, but if a client has the ability to become Bitcoin, it should be a free vote.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

It didn't happen.

Someone else faked his message in a shameful attempt to influence what should be a free vote.

There were parts of XT I didn't like, but if a client has the ability to become Bitcoin, it should be a free vote.

The network can't handle 4MB with SegWit. Are you crazy! Do you want to put security in danger? Grave danger?!?!

[coins101]

It didn't happen.

Someone else faked his message in a shameful attempt to influence what should be a free vote.

There were parts of XT I didn't like, but if a client has the ability to become Bitcoin, it should be a free vote.

The network can't handle 4MB with SegWit. Are you crazy! Do you want to put security in danger? Grave danger?!?!

No idea what you are referring to.

Personally, Bitcoin Classic seems fine.

Core with 2mb blocks and segwit (effectively 8-10mb capacity) would be ideal.

2mb blocks doesn't mean all the blocks would be at this capacity. If they were, we'd be talking about 4mb. This is just a headroom issue, so its a non-issue.

[helloeverybody]

There is absolutely no dnger whatsoever that satoshi is going to come out from whatever rock hes hiding to give any advice on bitcoin now, His reign is over a long time ago and small,medium or large blocks, hes hes not coming back. If ever there was a time for satoshi to come back then he would have done so already. Satoshi will only live on as legend.