Questioning Satoshi Nakamoto's existence...

[falsetigerlimbs]

Interesting theory... makes me want to read that book

[pointbiz]

Occams Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) tells me that:

This Satoshi dude/dudes/dudette is a guy that hangs out of the crypto list, he/she/they
read Paco Ahlgren’s book "Discipline", got inspired and created bitcoin.

Paco then found bitcoin and thought f*cking nice, this looks like the stuff in my book,
lets write about it.


All other explanations are less likely.
/GoK

good point!

[fently]

Occams Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) tells me that:

This Satoshi dude/dudes/dudette is a guy that hangs out of the crypto list, he/she/they
read Paco Ahlgren’s book "Discipline", got inspired and created bitcoin.

Paco then found bitcoin and thought f*cking nice, this looks like the stuff in my book,
lets write about it.


All other explanations are less likely.
/GoK

good point!

Of course all of this is pure speculation, but I think it was just two people who independently created their works, and we are after the fact trying to draw causal links between them. In other words, you'd need more to go on.

[cryptobard]

Hey guys, I'm Satoshi Nakamoto but I'm not Paco Ahlgren.

Sorry for the confusion.

[pacoahlgren]

The real Satoshi Nagasaki would never write the next sentence.

The fake Satoshi Nagasaki would never write the previous sentence.

[Desolator]

rofl, yeah and I think perhaps the most logical theory is that this is all a scam to sell copies of his book it stinks of modern, sneaky marketing and PR lol.

[LiZn2]

rofl, yeah and I think perhaps the most logical theory is that this is all a scam to sell copies of his book it stinks of modern, sneaky marketing and PR lol.

It's clear that you haven't read his book yet or you wouldn't so casually throw this idea out before some serious consideration...

[pointbiz]

Satoshi uses British English and inserts two spaces between sentences. Does Paco Ahlgren?

I noticed that too.

Satoshi gives some credit to others here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342.msg4508#msg4508

and does not mention Paco.

I think Satoshi is one person. It's too difficult for a group to stay cohesive enough to maintain anonymity.

[cryptobard]

Is the book worth reading? I've heard mixed things, although they were generally positive. The tie in with bitcoin is really that strong that this thread isn't kooky?

[The Core]

I read it and thought it was fantastic. It's actually the reason I found out about bitcoin, because I was looking up the author and found some of the threads discussing his role in bitcoin.

I consider myself to be an austrian/classical economist, and that's how I found out about Ahlgren's book originally. That's also why bitcoin has piqued my interest. To answer the question though, no, the whole book isn't about the currency. One of Ahlgren''s strong suits (and the reason I think there may be credence to the theory he is involved with, or actually *is* the mysterious Satoshi) is his diverse background. In several interviews, he talks about how Discipline was his attempt at fusing different philosophies -- most notably Taoism, Karl Popper's work, and quantum physics (a la many worlds, and string theories). You can also see the influences of his life as an economist and financial manager.

One of the things Ahlgren admittedly tried to do was present the material in a way that would be interesting to everyone. I think he succeeded, because the book isn't overbearing at all on technical or philosophical points. The price he paid, though is having to lay a long (and sometimes somewhat tedious) foundation to build the story on. But once you get through that, it's totally worth it. The characters are memorable, and the twist at the end is as surprising as I was told it would be. And, also true to the word on the street, you really do want to read it twice to get the fine points you may have missed prior to getting the revelation at the end.

I only read the book recently, so I can't say much about some of the older theories about Ahlgren and his experience. But I will say that the way it unfolds bears an uncanny resemblance to what's going on in the world today, and when I found out about bitcoin, the I immediately understood the reason for all the speculation. Bitcoin is a lot different than Ahlgren's PGU, but as one other observer noted, the book says the details of the story were changed purposely to protect fact.

And that just deepens the mystery... at least for me. How much of Discipline really is based on fact, if any of it?

[pointbiz]

Is the book worth reading? I've heard mixed things, although they were generally positive. The tie in with bitcoin is really that strong that this thread isn't kooky?

I haven't read Paco's book but you're better off reading these two articles and accusing Nick Szabo of being Nakamoto.

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/12/bit-gold.html

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-ye-so-long.html

He suggests that it's likely Wei Dai or Hal Finney are Nakamoto, which if you understand the implication he's saying that possibly he IS Nakamoto. Nick Szabo has clearly been thinking about bitgold/bitcoin for YEARS. He understands the value of money. He knows so few people have the knowledge or interest that he could just publish 90% of the solution in 2005 and people would not be able to take his idea to implementation. He clearly was missing a few ideas that Nakamoto eventually turned up with. But it's possible Nick had an epiphany discovered the remaining pieces of the puzzle and created his pseudonym Nakamoto. Nick also claims that he came up with bitgold in 1998 independently of Wei Dai's bmoney, at the same time on the same mailing list. He is defending his intellectual claim as the inventor of the bitgold/coin idea and Nakamoto is just the implementer. He also gives good credit to Nakamoto for what Nakamoto brought to the table (aka Byzantine distributed DB).

For the strange conspiracy twist.... Nick updates his 2005 bitgold blog post on Dec 27th 2008.... 4 days before bitcoins initial launch on Jan 1 2009. And he accidentally updated the blog date instead of leaving it as the original 2005 date. AND on that same day he posts this blog entry to describe Transactions, Script, Funging Bitgold, Bitgold Address Title Registry (aka bitcoins in the block chain). He talks about computing an adjustable puzzle difficulty factor. AND OMFSM he talks about the readjustment period in weeks (coincidence factor...).
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/04/bit-gold-markets.html

If we pause for a minute to think about the human ego... if Nick is Satoshi then his ego is soaking in the praise for being the intellectual muscle behind bitcoin (backed up by Satoshi's own acknowledgement). Plus Nick would be using a great technique of hiding in plain sight. Also, why didn't Nick comment on the bitcoin proposal on the cryptography mailing list...

Maybe a more senior forum member knows why people aren't pointing the finger at Nick. He had all the intellectual muscle to pull it off.... does he know how to code ?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bit_Gold_proposal

[MackTrow]

Paco's book is totally worth reading. In fact, I think it's one of the best books I've ever read. I've noticed that it got some bad press here and there (although most of it is really good). But I've also noticed that bitcoin has gotten a lot of bad press. So has Ayn Rand (and look how many books she's sold). People seem to hate good ideas, and they seem to be passionate about it. I think it's because most people  are afraid of change and ditching the status quo.

In my life, I've noticed that usually the best, most radical ideas are the ones that get blistered by the general population before they get accepted by the main stream. Newton was laughed at by his colleagues, as was Einstein. I'm not saying Paco Ahlgren is the best writer ever, but the way he brings together so many ideas is new and exciting.

For my money, I think if he's not Nakamoto, then he's in with him. Most likely, I think Paco and some other people probably did this together, and that they all planned this from the beginning. I hadn't read about Nick Szabo before, and that really makes things more interesting. What would help this whole discussion a lot is if Paco and/or Nick showed up here and clarified things a bit! :-) But I guess their probably not going to do that! But I'd bet my bottom bitcoin the two of them know each other, and probably quite well.

[goodlord666]

Everybody has an opinion, but I have the TRUTH:

[bitbites]

satoshi nakamoto is too smart to repeat these fallacies:

...the online gambling industry — which was, by the way, pumping billions of dollars into a struggling U.S. economy. ...

pumping billions of dollars? shuffling billions of dollars. which doesn't add any real production.

No, it was pumping billions of dollars in. Gamblers outside the US were using US companies to gamble online, thus pumping money in to the US economy.

[cryptobard]

I read it and thought it was fantastic. It's actually the reason I found out about bitcoin, because I was looking up the author and found some of the threads discussing his role in bitcoin.

I consider myself to be an austrian/classical economist, and that's how I found out about Ahlgren's book originally. That's also why bitcoin has piqued my interest. To answer the question though, no, the whole book isn't about the currency. One of Ahlgren''s strong suits (and the reason I think there may be credence to the theory he is involved with, or actually *is* the mysterious Satoshi) is his diverse background. In several interviews, he talks about how Discipline was his attempt at fusing different philosophies -- most notably Taoism, Karl Popper's work, and quantum physics (a la many worlds, and string theories). You can also see the influences of his life as an economist and financial manager.

One of the things Ahlgren admittedly tried to do was present the material in a way that would be interesting to everyone. I think he succeeded, because the book isn't overbearing at all on technical or philosophical points. The price he paid, though is having to lay a long (and sometimes somewhat tedious) foundation to build the story on. But once you get through that, it's totally worth it. The characters are memorable, and the twist at the end is as surprising as I was told it would be. And, also true to the word on the street, you really do want to read it twice to get the fine points you may have missed prior to getting the revelation at the end.

I only read the book recently, so I can't say much about some of the older theories about Ahlgren and his experience. But I will say that the way it unfolds bears an uncanny resemblance to what's going on in the world today, and when I found out about bitcoin, the I immediately understood the reason for all the speculation. Bitcoin is a lot different than Ahlgren's PGU, but as one other observer noted, the book says the details of the story were changed purposely to protect fact.

And that just deepens the mystery... at least for me. How much of Discipline really is based on fact, if any of it?

Thank you and the other posters who took the time to answer me. You've convinced me to check it out.

The only actual criticism I heard about the book involved readers not getting into the writing/empathizing with characters. Considering how outnumbered they were and how they weren't critical of the ideas in the book, I'm thinking I can ignore them for now

That this particular endorsement comes from an Austrian schooler makes it all the more credible to me. Cheers. Perhaps I'll let you know what I think at some point here.

[Sabi]

His BitCoins exist,
Satoshi Nakamoto,
Please send some to me.

A Haiku.

1CRfw8JjgpgX4m5LcstGcgWqYZt6vGRe4G

[wilfra]

Does anybody have a link to Satoshi's bitcointalk profile?

[Ciber]

Does anybody have a link to Satoshi's bitcointalk profile?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3

[BulletCoin]

Does anybody have a link to Satoshi's bitcointalk profile?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3

Any idea if he is using some alter ego profile after the last login?

[Gabi]

It is surprising how many 2010 articles are much more well done than today ones