Is Satoshi Dead?

[Raoul Duke]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Sign this statement with any of Satoshi's private keys and we can lock this topic.

I can't. Locked that wallet in a time capsule and only my attorney can open it after I'm dead.

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[Come-from-Beyond]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Sign this statement with any of Satoshi's private keys and we can lock this topic.

If I were Satoshi I would say that I'm Satoshi Nakamoto. Noone would believe me and I would be safe.
Hence Psy == Satoshi.

No need to sign the statement, just lock the topic.

[MysteryMiner]

I can't. Locked that wallet in a time capsule and only my attorney can open it after I'm dead.

This was Your mistake. If I'm Your attorney I will arrange Your death, extract private keys from the time capsule device and enjoy my 50 millions.

If I were Satoshi I would say that I'm Satoshi Nakamoto. Noone would believe me and I would be safe.
Hence Psy == Satoshi.

If Gavin would say that it will be different.

[phelix]

Satoshi is just an Artificial Intelligence. I won't be surprised if it was created by an accident in a Google lab.

Come on...   it is clear that he is an alien lifeform stranded on earth and needing money to be able to go home. Satoshi is ET.

Unfortunately Satoshi/ET was kidnapped by the CIA.

[Astro]

Let's get real here.  It's clear that Satoshi is a time traveler who came back to give us this technology in order to save the future world from some economic calamity. 

[johnyj]

A woman ? 

[johnyj]

While economics isn't a particularly difficult subject when taken from the right tack, there is much more going on here.  Unless it's just a huge matter of luck, Satoshi wasn't just some armchair economist who has read Hayak.  He was a true Praxeologist, and that also implies some degree of understanding regarding common psychology.  Which is something that neither the common economist, nor the common cryptologist (with or without a talent for self-taught computer programming) is likely to be able to grasp.  The social & psychological aspects of Praxeology tend to require a completely different learning style/personality type/Myers-Briggs type than those of the analytical reasoning that computer programming & mathmatics demand.  There is exactly one Myers-Briggs type that can manage both perspectives in the same mind without significant cognative dissonance; and that type is both the least common (by far) of any type and the least likely to be a self-motivated individual.  Said another way, a polymath (as rare as they are) is unlikely to also be an innovator.  I concede in advance that it's possible that Satoshi was, in fact, a self-motivated polymath.  I'm just stating that Occum's Razor implies that such a possibility is not the most likely reality.  The need to have 1) the feeler (a psycologist), 2) the analyst (cryptographicly trained coder) and the 3) visionary (the innovator) still implies at least two people and still probably three; thus a triumvirate.

I think economics is the most difficult topic on the planet because it is such a complex society that combines all the existing knowledge of human. So far no one has mastered it, that's the reason human are running into all sorts of economic problem from time to time

Austrian economics is not mainstream because they can not do anything to help when a recession strikes, and people always want to do something to improve during unlucky period, just this simple fact is enough to say that economics have very close relation to politics

[oakpacific]

There only like 5 million bucks on MtGox.

7.5 million visible.

http://www.bitcoinx.com/charts1/depth_mtgox.png

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120831.html In the seven months between Jan 31 and Aug 31, Gox transferred 50 millions worth of dollars, after this unprecedented rally, I would expect hundreds of millions of dollars must have poured in.

[areebmajeed]

Satoshi will BitAttack you all!   

[MoonShadow]

Austrian economics is not mainstream because they can not do anything to help when a recession strikes, and people always want to do something to improve during unlucky period, just this simple fact is enough to say that economics have very close relation to politics

This statement alone tells me that you have a poor understanding of Austrian economic theory.  It's also a false statement.

[caveden]

It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.

Unless Satoshi lives in a country whose government truly respects its subjects' financial privacy (I'm not aware of any), spending any substantial amount of his coins without declaring them might get him in trouble with the tax man.
Declaring and paying taxes on them might ruin his anonymity.

It's possible he's simply trapped by this, holding onto his coins, waiting for an eventual future solution to pop up.

[zebedee]

I'm surprised no-one has tried to figure out who the programmer might have been (assuming the group hypothesis for now) from the coding style.

Coding style (CamelCase vs underscores, bracing style, indenting style, variable style, naming conventions, it goes on forever) is hard to fake consistently and a very good fingerprint.

And C++ is a cesspit of ugly patterns and styles, all unique from what I've seen.  Recent codebase isn't good to look at owing to contamination, but original code would be a good starting point IMO.

[oakpacific]

It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.

Unless Satoshi lives in a country whose government truly respects its subjects' financial privacy (I'm not aware of any), spending any substantial amount of his coins without declaring them might get him in trouble with the tax man.
Declaring and paying taxes on them might ruin his anonymity.

It's possible he's simply trapped by this, holding onto his coins, waiting for an eventual future solution to pop up.

There is also this possibility that he is already financially comfortable that he could go on this one man's endeavour for two years to build everything from scratch, it's already an incredible amount of work to do full-time, I could hardly imagine someone can get it done part-time.

[rpietila]

There is also this possibility that he is already financially comfortable that he could go on this one man's endeavour for two years to build everything from scratch, it's already an incredible amount of work to do full-time, I could hardly imagine someone can get it done part-time.

This. Satoshi must have been in possession of financial resources in the order of ~$300,000 at least. That is a figure which allows you to do whatever you want (as long as you dont have vices, wife or kids In order to have such money, he must have been at least 25 years old, probably closer to 30.

It is just our preoccupation with cashing out.. As a highly competent person, Satoshi has had time to make a fortune since his disappearing, in something totally unrelated. If he has no need for big money to further his goals, he can just make the "small" money by using his talent.

I am not Satoshi (even though I am a Finn and know several people accused of being Satoshi.. When I first bought into bitcoin, I was thinking to sell a bit every now and then. But I have been mesmerized by the concept to such an extent that I haven't sold a single coin, quite the contrary. Even now I am buying.

The fact that Martti is receiving a part of his salary in bitcoin actually supports the theory that he is Satoshi... It is such an obvious unobvious move from a person who controls up to half a million bitcoins, to want some more 

[xavier]

Im sure Satoshi does not care much about bitcoin. He just wants to cash out his holdings. I'm guessing for him it's a full time occupation, working out how he's going to do it. I cant imagine anyone with so much money would be bothered to work. Plus he would need to keep a close eye on the exchanges and news to watch for anything that could affect his net worth.

IMO, (many ppl may not agree - fair enough) Satoshi is not one person. It is 3 people as identified by a magazine article recently published , with undeniable evidence that has been presented about Satoshi. If one goes through this article and does some research on the people mentioned, looks at their previous postings (one in particular has a style very similar to satoshi), you will also be able to see that they have posted on these forums under different usernames since Satoshi disappeared. Whilst using the search function I noticed 1 suspicious example. http://bit.ly/WkjEHg

RE: uncirculating bitcoins

http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf

It is interested that apparently an 'unknown entity' has commanded 3 million BTCs distributed across 78,000 addresses. Im not sure if the entity still owns this many BTCs however. It would be interested to identity this person.  

Similar anonymous entities (ex Mt Gox & identified mining pools) have processed:  (just copying from the paper here)

940,000 BTC
870,000 BTC
690,000 BTC
...

with a further 11 entities processed amounts of over 400,000 BTC.

Now ok I understand that this list is probably mainly mining pools & miners but also could more than 1 of them be Satoshi. The number of ppl who could accumulate so many BTCs in such a short time is very small (this was in May 2012).

(up until May 13th 2012) we discovered that most of the minted bitcoins remain dormant in addresses which had never
participated in any outgoing transactions. We found out that there is a huge number of tiny transactions which move only a small fraction of a single bit- coin, but there are also hundreds of transactions which move more than 50,000
bitcoins.

The design of bitcoin, the complexity around it, required more than 1 very smart person. In addition, the way in which someone has distributed their holdings amoungst so many addresses - it's very smart. I dont think any of these coins are 'lost'. IMO these coins will emerge at some point, maybe alongside 'Satoshi' himself.

Thanks also to Citigroup for this research as it seems they funded the paper.

[johnyj]

Satoshi mentioned cypherpunk, I did some reading there, seems lot's of old history

[RodeoX]

Satoshi mentioned cypherpunk, I did some reading there, seems lot's of old history

Yes. Satoshi was clearly influenced by the cypherpunks and may well consider himself one.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

That's exactly what we would expect you state if you wanted to throw us off the scent, couple with claiming to be Portuguese, a country known for...thinking...thinking...I'll get back to you on that.

[justusranvier]

That's exactly what we would expect you state if you wanted to throw us off the scent, couple with claiming to be Portuguese, a country known for...thinking...thinking...I'll get back to you on that.

Jellyfish?

[Raoul Duke]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

That's exactly what we would expect you state if you wanted to throw us off the scent, couple with claiming to be Portuguese, a country known for...thinking...thinking...I'll get back to you on that.

Known for having divided the planet in half with the Spanish more than 5 centuries ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas
I know Americans are trying to follow our footsteps, but we did it without sending soldiers and killing everyone that stands in the way. Beat that, USA!