Identifying Satoshi Would Be a BAD Thing

[titular]

For the past decade or so, there have been people who have practically dedicated their lives to finding the creator of Bitcoin.  

Even over a decade later, there are still folks who are actively seeking to track down this ghost. All with the hope of finally knowing the truth. Who created one of, if not the most important invention of our generation?

Naturally, this would be something everyone would want to happen. We want to give credit where credit is due. We want to put a face to this now mythical pseudonym. Under all of this curiosity, however, lies a rather dubious double-edged sword. Especially when Bitcoin was in its infancy. (Arguably still is.)

Obviously, Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym. Meaning if we were to find this individual, their true name would likely have to surface. While we would ultimately have found Bitcoin's beloved creator and his real name, we would have opened ourselves to a whole new planet of FUD.  Not FUD towards Bitcoin itself, but its creator.

I want to be clear that the impact of finding Satoshi now would be very different than finding him 7+ years ago.

Governments and financial institutions would now have the identity of the individual that is attacking the very infrastructure upon which they made a fortune.   This is bad news.
While I am not insinuating they would have gone after Satoshi's life, I firmly believe they would have done everything in their massive amount of power to defame, discredit, and slander the founder of Bitcoin.

This includes:

    

• Fraud Allegations
• Terrorism Funding Allegations
• Allegations for Funding Criminal Enterprises

         Etc..

They could even make this man look like a pedo by "linking" him to certain organizations and saying that THIS was the sole purpose of Bitcoin. The problem is, they now have a face to attack. We know the media, they can say whatever they want.     With zero accountability.

Accusations like these would not be as effective as they would have been 7+ years ago like I had mentioned. These days, the Bitcoin community is more vast and immeasurably stronger than it was during these early times. Much of this would have been recognized as manipulation by big government and HODLers would remain headstrong. Even still, it would be ignorant to think there would not be some considerable problems in an event such as this.

However, in the earlier days of Bitcoin, FUD at these levels combined with a face to attach to it could have been fatal to our still fragile ecosystem. If Satoshi had chosen not to remain anonymous from the beginning, financial institutions/governments would have stopped the party well before it got out of hand. They could have exercised any of the aforementioned options and given themselves more than enough justification to make Bitcoin highly illegal globally. On a different timeline, something like this would have greatly hindered crypto development.

This is why it was inexpressibly important for Satoshi to remain anonymous. If you ask me, this is why he should stay anonymous.

I am in no way suggesting that people looking for this figure stop looking for this figure. If it is your mission, accomplish it. Just understand there are more serious implications at hand once he/she is identified.

[Welsh]

Government would likely use propoganda as I believe they have already done so to combat the adoption of Bitcoin. Though, being able to tie it to a person, is much more impactful than tying it to a currency. If they could convince people that the creator of Bitcoin, created it for malicious purposes, it would likely be forever seen in that light. Plus, even if it wasn't propaganda, and lets just speculate that Satoshi did create it for malicious purposes or perhaps has a particularly bad history/background, that would absolutely negatively effect Bitcoin, and in the same way would tarnish Bitcoin in the same light.

We already have the issue that Bitcoin is branded as a currency used by criminals because it offers more privacy than fiat currencies, well supposedly. Since cash is pretty damn popular among the crime industry. 

[mindrust]

If you want to know what it would be like to know satoshi's real identity, look at Vitalik.

He is not as popular as satoshi but he is still something and whenever he says something, he can move the markets and affect the prices. Despite what he says, he is a centralized figure which damages the decentralization narrative of ethereum.

[DeathAngel]

It’s never going to happen, even if he is alive he left little to no trace of his whereabouts. You’re right that it’d be a bad thing for the community as a whole but luckily for us I don’t think it’ll happen.

[kaggie]

I respectfully, but partially, disagree. Only partially.

A large portion of this depends on how much governments and/or hackers have identified Satoshi - and if such a person is still alive. If it's Hal, I highly doubt that anyone could hold him in disrepute. The threads that have come up are nothing new though, and have been publicly looked at for years.

While we have our chats here, there could exist other information that such parties could be privvy to. I'm not saying that people should release such information. In fact, just the opposite at least for our lifetimes. There will be more Satoshi-wannabes that pop up, as well as people who claim to be owners of fortunes without proof. Quite frankly, all yall best prepare your best facts and proofs for when those times are right, because you very well could save lives against financial ruin of scam suits. For humanity's sake, people should also have a record of their own experiences so that people in future generations can piece together what happened. Just don't be too quick on the trigger. It is a balance.

Take our infamous whats his name who wants to destroy blockchain by making transactions reversible. Pointed proofs about Satoshi could save individuals in this forum. There have been more than one people claiming that name.

Satoshi isn't the ecosystem. So, proof about him (probably being Hal) could affect things for a bit. All crypto is still young. It should eventually recover.

Governments and financial institutions would now have the identity of the individual that is attacking the very infrastructure upon which they made a fortune.   This is bad news.
While I am not insinuating they would have gone after Satoshi's life, I firmly believe they would have done everything in their massive amount of power to defame, discredit, and slander the founder of Bitcoin.

However, in the earlier days of Bitcoin, FUD at these levels combined with a face to attach to it could have been fatal to our still fragile ecosystem. If Satoshi had chosen not to remain anonymous from the beginning, financial institutions/governments would have stopped the party well before it got out of hand. They could have exercised any of the aforementioned options and given themselves more than enough justification to make Bitcoin highly illegal globally. On a different timeline, something like this would have greatly hindered crypto development.

I do completely agree here.
Everyone should keep anonymity if possible because people will try to scam you out of your money, or worse.
And it is incredibly difficult to be anonymous these days since everything you do leaks information, even your two factor authentication on google...

[Welsh]

Satoshi isn't the ecosystem. So, proof about him (probably being Hal) could affect things for a bit. All crypto is still young. It should eventually recover.

Partially true, although marketing is a multi million pound industry, and if we take a look at the book Edward Bernays wrote titled; Propaganda you'll be able to see the techniques, and the lengths the government will go to essentially convince people that a certain movement / technology is dangerous, bad or risky.

The only thing that Bitcoin really benefits from is; its not controlled by the person that made it, and therefore its decentralized nature should be able to somewhat combat any propaganda thrown at it. I do believe we've already seen this, as news reporters seem hell bent on discrediting it at every available opportunity.

[kaggie]

Partially true, although marketing is a multi million pound industry, and if we take a look at the book Edward Bernays wrote titled; Propaganda you'll be able to see the techniques, and the lengths the government will go to essentially convince people that a certain movement / technology is dangerous, bad or risky.

Agreed. Bitcoin is anti-fragile. It's lasted for 10+ years, so if it was going to break easily, it would have broken earlier. It will grow because it's grown, at least while there is room to do so (which is still plenty).

It is still breakable, but it's impossible to tell what all threats to it could be. Humans are malleable. Most of us have locked down for around two years, which we may never have expected. Plenty conform en masse. The unpredictable happens. I wouldn't discount anything from happening.

I'm a big fan of many complicated interacting systems, which includes human behaviour. You can rarely trust any side completely, but if you trust enough people, sides or systems just enough, you'll hopefully land on the right answers more often, or have the most robust systems. Hopefully. Blockchain may fit my spiritual philosophy in that there is rarely a single big right answer, but a lot of small ones that make all the difference in the world.

[Lanatsa]

If you want to know what it would be like to know satoshi's real identity, look at Vitalik.

He is not as popular as satoshi but he is still something and whenever he says something, he can move the markets and affect the prices. Despite what he says, he is a centralized figure which damages the decentralization narrative of ethereum.

Totally opposing or contradictive? Not that surprising but its their own choice because some people do really give out some good impressions into those projects which does have known devs/creators.

We've been searching Satoshi through ages now but still we cant even have a glimpse of his shadow.There are lots of faketoshi out there trying to claim out just for their own interest.

We know the real thing wont really be doing such bullshit, about market sentiments then high profile or known ones would make out significant impact whenever what words would be spitting into their mouths.

[Yaunfitda]

If I'm not mistaken, after the Gavin will visit the CIA, Satoshi might have thought that indeed bitcoin is already making some noise that time and the CIA or any other intelligence agencies might have been looking and trying to dissect it already. So it's better for him to go underground first. My speculation is that he just want to go out and probably would surface later. However, since bitcoin is taking the limelight after his disappearance, he just decided to get out and not comeback anymore.

And up to this time, we have seen the same bad narratives or the attacks on bitcoin itself and yet it is still thriving under the premise that it was design or being used by criminals, and other arguments.

[hatshepsut93]

I doubt anyone would be prosecuting Satoshi for creating Bitcoin. Creators of the torrent protocol weren't charged with anything, TOR was funded by the US military, etc. Just because an invention is used by criminals, doesn't mean that the creators have done something wrong.

But I agree that it would be bad, any rumors about Satoshi could be negatively influencing Bitcoin, and every word of satoshi could tremendously move market if they would choose to.

[titular]

I doubt anyone would be prosecuting Satoshi for creating Bitcoin. Creators of the torrent protocol weren't charged with anything, TOR was funded by the US military, etc. Just because an invention is used by criminals, doesn't mean that the creators have done something wrong.

But I agree that it would be bad, any rumors about Satoshi could be negatively influencing Bitcoin, and every word of satoshi could tremendously move market if they would choose to.

They wouldn't even need to prosecute. Just spreading false info is enough to put doubt on anything or anyone.

The issue is institutions wouldn't need any proof. They own the media.

[Zedpastin]

Ignoring governments there is the issue of other altcoin creators looking to challenge Satoshi with his identity out there that could become a real problem in terms of his health and his image. I could see multiple companies looking to discredit Bitcoin in hopes that they could take over from it. Just take a look at the altcoin scene and you will see that there are multiple accusations thrown at competitors and Bitcoin would be no different. To be the alpha male you have to take the current alpha male down Bitcoin is definitely the biggest target for altcoins to target and with his identify revealed there would be so many ways of doing it and would make Bitcoin more susceptible to failure because of that.

[OgNasty]

People are easy to spread lies about and make for wonderfully easy attack vectors to exploit. I think had satoshi not been anonymous, Bitcoin would not have been able to succeed as long as it has. He would have been exposed by the media, lies would be told, and he’d probably be cancelled for some diary entry he made in the third grade. While I don’t think his identity matters anymore since he’s long passed, we can all be thankful for his dedication and sacrifice.

[20kevin20]

Satoshi would have had his life destroyed today even if he would've been discovered 7 years ago. Governments HATE him, and if they were Satoshi themselves, releasing Bitcoin to the public is probably their biggest regret ever.. next to the release of internet to the citizens.

It would indeed be a very bad idea to identify him. Moreover, we would have no benefits anyway. Satoshi has no more influence over Bitcoin or over us, except over those who consider him their idol. Besides destroying his life, there is nothing to be "gained".

[Oceat]

Satoshi would have had his life destroyed today even if he would've been discovered 7 years ago. Governments HATE him, and if they were Satoshi themselves, releasing Bitcoin to the public is probably their biggest regret ever.. next to the release of internet to the citizens.

It would indeed be a very bad idea to identify him. Moreover, we would have no benefits anyway. Satoshi has no more influence over Bitcoin or over us, except over those who consider him their idol. Besides destroying his life, there is nothing to be "gained".

This is how eager and persistent the government for catching someone who did create something that would destroy any politicians reputation if they are going to use Bitcoin to know their financial records. Although, this is not the case right now but soon as someone approved the use of Bitcoin it would be a hell to them. No wonder why they don't seem to care and accept this innovative technology and all they have to do is make a FUD plus not every country would agree with this especially China because of some silly reason that they don't trust Bitcoin because it's not made or own from their people that's why they have to make their own which a centralized coins.

[pooya87]

I kinda disagree because this would have made sense if we didn't already have a ton of different FUDs. In other words they are already spreading all kinds of lies about bitcoin and have been misleading people for 12 years without knowing Satoshi's identity.
Besides, bitcoin is not some centralized altcoin that relies on or is controlled by its developer (like ethereum for example). It is a fully decentralized protocol that nobody can control and we already know every last detail about how it works. At this point any new FUD is only going to scare the idiots who are already being scared by any other FUD just as well!

As for the government, they are not waiting for anything if they wanted to ban bitcoin. As we know the handful of countries (4 or 5 out of 195) that wanted to ban bitcoin have done it years ago without needing any excuse.

[Darker45]

Identifying Satoshi is a bad thing provided they're successful. Otherwise, this is just a human tendency to be curious and to try to uncover a mystery. While I also dislike the idea of trying to exert the best efforts only to get to know the identity or identities behind the name, I am afraid this wouldn't stop, at least not for a long time. But I guess the longer the search goes, the more possibilities uncovered, the farther the truth is.

I still believe that successfully identifying Satoshi would only open a Pandora's box. This would only create huge problems which could spell the end of Bitcoin's genius.

[avikz]

I truly believe this! Identifying Satoshi would be a super bad thing for him and can be a danger to bitcoin as well. I am sure he doesn't deserve the nonsense in life when in fact he has shown the way to great wealth to many many people. I sometimes think that awarding the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto to Craig wright was a plan of US government to bring out Satoshi from his exile whih didn't work out. I am not sure how many of you though this way!

But if the true identity of Satoshi is revealed someday in future. He would probably live the rest of his life behind the bars for challenging the ideas of traditional finances.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

Lot of known analysts says so, that if we were to know the real identity behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, things will be problematic for the market. I think almost everyone here agrees that it is bad, no matter how much we want to know the person behind the invention. Plus remember the saying about not meeting your heroes? I think that the saying applies to this one too.

[crwth]

It's either he or she is already identified and it's not just news that is for everyone. We can all theorize on what could and couldn't happen with this theory but we all know that we cannot verify this and even if someone steps up to get the limelight, it's still not going to be possible to verify it unless you sign it with satoshi's address.

So I'm now thinking, why are there some people claiming to be him when it's not clearly him? Those possible allegations could have stopped imitators but they still get into the spotlight and want to be known for being "satoshi".