I do forget stuff, although maybe I remembered something interesting...
Is it possible that bitcoin was in fact originally conceived as an incentive model for Tor relay operators ? Perhaps a decision was taken to 'fork' such an incentive model outside of the Tor project, so not to further congest an already 'slow' Tor network with additional P2P traffic ?
In this forum thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.msg1847300#msg1847300 a fellow early adopter asks if 'Satoshi' was using Tor. The answer is yes, I had several discussions in the forum and via PM with 'Satoshi' on the subject of Tor. There were a lot of Tor users!
This thread post
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.msg1843408#msg1843408 perhaps correctly identifies the likely usage of a single machine, running individual threads on multiple cores.
If you wanted to bootstrap or test a new anonymous crypto-currency, where better to launch it, than from a single computer connected to (inside) an anonymity network, whilst running each thread on an individual core, with each instance connected via its own Tor circuit. It is possible when using Tor to select your Entry and Exit node (ensuring that each circuit was never the same), in fact in 2009 you could even choose the Tor Middle node!
This would make 'Satoshi' untraceable, whilst ensuring almost complete protection over most know 'attacks'. It also ensured that any 'external internet' users who downloaded the client at random had multiple nodes to connect to. It would also of been possible to test the network by automatically connecting each individual instance to the other (or not) and to the wider internet, whilst all running from the same machine through Tor. In fact, this is the perfect chaos engine, there was no better way to do this really, it is almost as genius as Bitcoin itself.
This probably explains why the block generation looks the way it does:
https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/So was 'Satoshi' running the 0.1 client ? Probably not, they would require the same protocol with advanced 'command and control', sensible right. Think bitcoin style Mixminion ?
To support the above I will share a 'rare' youtube video from HAR 2009 (Hacking at Random -
https://har2009.org/) where Roger D (ex. main Tor dev.) gives a talk on 'why Tor is Slow' (at the time of posting this video has just 79 views)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJD1hDKDqlo Pay attention from 4.57 "Incentive Mechanisms"... micro payment approaches... "bittorrent users into the network" (when Tor was still P2P 'friendly')... "micro payments,
digital cash"... "the idea is all the people who run a relay are given
coins, e-cash"... "if you run a relay, then they
pay you a coin to run a fast circuit"... "and that means its just like an
economy, it will work great"... "collect
money" ... "pay
money"...
This is the most accurate description of bitcoin I know of in 2009. Did Roger just read the 'Satoshi' white paper in 2008 / 2009 and like the idea for the Tor Project. Do great minds just think alike ? Was he only referring to expanding Torbank or was it something new and already in 'testing' / beta ? Was 'Satoshi' in the audience - lol ?
To be honest I don't really care and neither should anyone reading this, 'Satoshi' remains 'anonymous'. If those wallets still exist, maybe it is a planned 'safety' reverse 'demurrage', against a central authority!
This is also a great post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37333.msg459194#msg459194http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.htmlThank you for that. In short - "We are all 'Satoshi'..." and I still do love (to hate) bitcoin !