Who is Satoshi Nakamoto and why does he hide in the shadows?

[Mandoy]

While at work today, I've been thinking about who Satoshi Nakamoto could be and why would he keep his identity a secret?

I've thought of three possibilities for keeping his name secret.

1) He is someone who doesn't want to be in the spotlight, because he enjoys his anonymity.

I believe that the possible reason rests on the number 1. Satoshi hides so he can enjoy his anonymity especially that he has a huge stash of bitcoin and this means that he is a multimillionaire up to this point of time. If ever he will be known its either his life will be in danger since many will be interested to do unwanted things to be able to get his bitcoins. And also making his identity known somehow will affect the decentralized nature of bitcoin. His move to leave bitcoin on the hands of the new developers is for the sake of bitcoin and the sake of decentralization. Many have tried to claim that they are satoshi but failed to do so, but I do think that he has showed up during times of crisis presenting new ideas.

[Andre_Goldman]

I think last time I heard about Satoshi was to defending Dorian from news media paparazzo's .. see how is a good thing to keep your privacy under your control ?

[Ucy]

why don't YOU reveal your identity? post your real name here, your home address and with your picture while holding up your drivers license.

you won't do it, and we don't even know if you own bitcoin or not. you may have $10 worth of it.

now how do you expect someone who is speculated to be holding 2.7 billion dollar worth of bitcoin come forward.

all the privacy aside, i always find the fact that Satoshi is anonymous a nice thing. you see it is the living proof that you can be in bitcoin and you can be anonymous.

besides without Satoshi being anonymous at least 10,000 topics would have never existed in this board

This  is just it. Why don't he reveal his identity? . This is the biggest problem with us - Hypocrisy.  
Me too don't like the idea Cryptocurrency developers revealing their identity. It simply not good for decentralized and unhackable Crypto

[markjamrobin]

While at work today, I've been thinking about who Satoshi Nakamoto could be and why would he keep his identity a secret?

I've thought of three possibilities for keeping his name secret.

1) He is someone who doesn't want to be in the spotlight, because he enjoys his anonymity.
2) His actual identity could ruin the reputation of Bitcoin.
3) Satoshi is a showman and did this to build up suspense for his grand entrance.

I can really understand number 1. Some of the greatest geniuses among us lurk in the shadows. Maybe he doesn't want to be harassed by the press. All the praise could put him on an uneasy pedestal if Bitcoin succeeds. If it fails people may accuse him of running a Ponzi scheme. Yada yada. So much crap could happen. Say goodbye to the private peaceful life.

Number 2 makes sense as well If Satoshi Nakamoto were a criminal it may be harder to get people on board. Who would ever put their trust in a currency created by a criminal. Keeping your name secret here would be much more prudent for business.

Satoshi is clearly innovative enough to come up with this new currency. He surely has the imagination and vision of the future to make a grand revelation at a later date. Number 3 is pretty epic. Everybody loves an epic introduction.


Number 2 makes the most likely to me. Number 1 seems possible too, but even for an introvert who may not want attention, how could you not want people to know what you've contributed to the world? This leads me to believe that Satoshi is most likely a criminal or has a bad reputation somehow. Of course that is just speculation though.


I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Satoshi Nakamoto isn't even Asian. If I were Asian, I would choose an alias that didn't sound Asian. As a non-Asian I may end up picking an Asian alias because it sounds cool.

Another interesting thought. What if Satoshi Nakamoto is an anagram for his real name? I mean, it does make sense right? Cryptography would be right down his alley. Or her alley. Whoa, maybe Satoshi isn't even a guy.


I've been rearranging the letters in "Satoshi Nakamoto" to spell out a name. No luck thus far. Another thing that cryptographers do is they code the letters to stand for other letters. For example: A is really C, because it is two down. K is really M, because it is two down. I've considered writing a program in C++ to maybe solve it through brute force with a list of first names and last names. Given how many computer nerds are out there it wouldn't surprise me if this has been done already however.

Thoughts?

The development history of bitcoin is very long, however, without any information about satoshi nakamoto, he is the founder of bitcoin, however, all the information about him is hidden.

[Kprawn]

why don't YOU reveal your identity? post your real name here, your home address and with your picture while holding up your drivers license.

you won't do it, and we don't even know if you own bitcoin or not. you may have $10 worth of it.

now how do you expect someone who is speculated to be holding 2.7 billion dollar worth of bitcoin come forward.

all the privacy aside, i always find the fact that Satoshi is anonymous a nice thing. you see it is the living proof that you can be in bitcoin and you can be anonymous.

besides without Satoshi being anonymous at least 10,000 topics would have never existed in this board

This  is just it. Why don't he reveal his identity . This is the biggest problem with us humans - Hypocricy. 
Me too don't like the idea Cryptocurrency developers revealing their identity. It simply not good for decentralized and unhackable Crypto

You should not judge, if you have not walked in someone's shoes. Put yourself in his shoes back in 2009.

~ Bitcoin was basically unknown
~ Bitcoin was very disruptive {might make enemies}
~ Bitcoin was released in a cypherpunk community that were very secretive at the time
~ Satoshi knew his technology could be seen as a threat by governments
~ Previously people were arrested, when they created their own currencies

When Gavin reached out to the US secret agencies, Satoshi left the scene. What would you have done, if you were in his

shoes?

[cnmgfb]

bitcoin might be a currency made for criminals to use in the dark net, while only the fbi could trace the users, it is a trap for that purpose i guess

[giveen]

He currently owns 10% of the total bitcoin supply which can be roughly 2 million bitcoin , he would have surely sold some bitcoin for now and may have 1.5 million left which is worth $4.5 billion which is surely not a less amount and if he discloses himself government agencies may go behind him for unnecessary reasons or he would have revealed himself for now if he didn't do why do you care it's not that he revealing himself would increase price if bitcoin or he will give you some bitcoin so let him live peacefully.

[Jarkss]

He currently owns 10% of the total bitcoin supply which can be roughly 2 million bitcoin , he would have surely sold some bitcoin for now and may have 1.5 million left which is worth $4.5 billion which is surely not a less amount and if he discloses himself government agencies may go behind him for unnecessary reasons or he would have revealed himself for now if he didn't do why do you care it's not that he revealing himself would increase price if bitcoin or he will give you some bitcoin so let him live peacefully.

I think it is not really important who Satoshi is. The good thing is that his invention benefit us all today; and I really believe that he will not move a bit of what bitcoin he has to favor his vision to free the people from thhe grasp of the current banking and money supply system.

[williamuk]

I think Satoshi Nakamoto is worth 100X more as a myth or legend

Business prima donas are a dime a dozen these days, but there is only ONE Satoshi 

[cjmoles]

I think its reads like a single male doing something, maybe and english guy? given the Bank of England inclusion, but then this could just be to throw us of.


If it is a person, and they were ever identified, they would never see the light of day again, some black bag organization, or other interests would scoop him up.


Among other things he likely with have access to 1T in the not to distant future.


Satoshi's only option is to stay anon.

Also he seems well smart enough to know this.

I am almost sure he is still on this board though.


For quite some time I thought it was Sunnyking

I also suspected Sunny King for several reasons....I am actually surprised that Peercoin hasn't picked up more support because it actually foresaw and tackled many of the issues that are plaguing the bitcoin network today.  Like Satoshi Nakamoto --> Sunny King maintains a low profile....I don't suspect Sunny King any longer-->I think the perplexcity coincidences are more compelling.

[chiller]

Never knew that there were other cryptocurrencies before bitcoin. I will have to take a closer look into that. Bitcoin was the first successful one it seems.

Satoshi being AI seems doubtful, but it is an interesting idea and fun to think about.

I didn't know he had posted on the forum either. I'll have to check it out.


For those wondering why I care, it is simply curiosity. I don't consider wonder a bad thing. Also, I am very good at my job. It is very mundane at times and thought is great for my entertainment. Is it really a waste of time to question things we will never know the answer to? With that logic we'd never wonder about religion, the meaning of life, if aliens exist, how far the universe goes, or why I view life from my perspective and not somebody else's. I feel it is in my human nature to dwell on such things. Some of you may not be curious, but I think a lot of people, like me, do.

There's a free draft version of book from princeton university. In introduction it includes a brief history of attempts to create cryptocurrency and its results.
You can grab one at http://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/ good read. Not too technical, written in enjoyable style.

[tylermine]

. This is an anonymous currency and the creator also wants to remain anonymous.

what makes you think this currency is anon ? blockchain reveals every transaction,not hard with a bit of tech savvy to reveal more
deffo not anon currency
and satoshi holds 1.5 million bitcoins,lets hope he/she dont get too pissed one night and decide enoughs enough and dump the lot on the market,,then you will see some fun

[DRaGoN RaNTaRo]

This  is just it. Why don't he reveal his identity? . This is the biggest problem with us - Hypocrisy.  
Me too don't like the idea Cryptocurrency developers revealing their identity. It simply not good for decentralized and unhackable Crypto

How does revealing the identity of a lead developer leads bitcoin or any crypto currency to be centralized and how do you think ,it will be hacked .  
if someone is not interested to reveal his identity so be it ,it is his personal choice and respect that and move on.

[pixie85]

If I were Satoshi I'd hide to protect myself. There's a chance some government agencies would like to track me and arrest under some false charges, just to get to my coins. I'd end up in a gitmo type CIA facility and be waterboarded every day until I give them my keys. That's what those bastards do and they need money to run their operations. Government finances aren't cutting it.

[andrei56]

There could be many reasons for that but I think most people misunderstand the meaning behind it, bitcoin is an open source project anyone can see the code, so the identity of satoshi while it is a great mystery is completely irrelevant, not only he created a trustless coin, he was a leader we did not needed to trust either.

[darkangel11]

He should stay in hiding. It's much better for bitcoin and the community, because if he appeared and showed that he has control over his addresses people would panic and think he's going to use it all to manipulate the price. It would cause a massive crash.
It wouldn't be wise to reveal your identity as a founder, because you'd be putting yourself and your family at risk. People are kidnaping for very little money, so it's better if nobody knows. I also doubt he's not holding/selling coins as we speak. We all know his first addresses from the genesis block, but we don't know if he didn't make new ones and continue to mine in 2010, after disappearing from the scene.

[henkcryptotank]

I think one day he will use his BTC to do something GREAT!

Greets, Hank

[jak3]

what if you are thinking too much on the subject instead of reading content. what if it is originally a name of the creator. what if more possibilities like he know's something about Bitcoin which we do not know and he knows that we can not solve it. it is possible that he knows about a problem which can occur due to Bitcoin and he has no solution on that. or else he wants to be hidden from the government so they can not affect Bitcoin any how.

[the rise]

what if you are thinking too much on the subject instead of reading content. what if it is originally a name of the creator. what if more possibilities like he know's something about Bitcoin which we do not know and he knows that we can not solve it. it is possible that he knows about a problem which can occur due to Bitcoin and he has no solution on that. or else he wants to be hidden from the government so they can not affect Bitcoin any how.

I still consider satoshi nakamoto is a code project created by a robust programmer community, they dare to implement a decentralized system which, of course, must eliminate their original identity as it is clear against the central world financial system. Bitcoin will get massive attacks from all circles both hackers and bureaucracies if its creators are visible and so far they have managed to bring changes to the world economy.

[ChinkyEyes]

Mystery is great for hyping something. Look at those Djs who don't show their face or those magicians with masks.