Satoshi, the common

[SirArthur]

I've never actually care much about doxxing Satoshi, he wanted his privacy and I just respect that, but this issue keep coming up with the community. So, from those who came out or get named as a possible Satoshi, I think the major error of the research is to keep looking into "hot shots", whereas Satoshi was most likely "poor" or at least unable to buy the latest hardware at the time, as the versions he used to code the first version of what is now Bitcoin Core were way outdated at the time; Windows XP, Visual Studio 6. Nick Szabo, for an instance, would have access to all the new stuff of the time, such as Visual Studio 2008 and probably Windows Vista (even if this last one was a failure of an OS and 7 would be released later on 2009).
Also Satoshi stated he wasn't able to test his software with Vista, which may mean his computer wasn't enough for that OS, which included some heavy visual features (for the time, obviously) and required fairly expensive hardware.

So, out of all stories around, the one I found more plausible was of a British-Indian guy who came out at a newspaper a few years ago explaining he was Satoshi, what happened to his coins in a hardware failure and showing a picture of the computer used to create the first Bitcoin ever. His story was promptly discarded or overlooked and somehow I'm unable to find it again, as the noise caused by the imbecile CW just pops up at all results, but would be interesting to look into it again and probably give credit to the right person, even if the keys for his "magnificent fortune" are gone forever.

[swogerino]

I've never actually care much about doxxing Satoshi, he wanted his privacy and I just respect that, but this issue keep coming up with the community. So, from those who came out or get named as a possible Satoshi, I think the major error of the research is to keep looking into "hot shots", whereas Satoshi was most likely "poor" or at least unable to buy the latest hardware at the time, as the versions he used to code the first version of what is now Bitcoin Core were way outdated at the time; Windows XP, Visual Studio 6. Nick Szabo, for an instance, would have access to all the new stuff of the time, such as Visual Studio 2008 and probably Windows Vista (even if this last one was a failure of an OS and 7 would be released later on 2009).
Also Satoshi stated he wasn't able to test his software with Vista, which may mean his computer wasn't enough for that OS, which included some heavy visual features (for the time, obviously) and required fairly expensive hardware.

So, out of all stories around, the one I found more plausible was of a British-Indian guy who came out at a newspaper a few years ago explaining he was Satoshi, what happened to his coins in a hardware failure and showing a picture of the computer used to create the first Bitcoin ever. His story was promptly discarded or overlooked and somehow I'm unable to find it again, as the noise caused by the imbecile CW just pops up at all results, but would be interesting to look into it again and probably give credit to the right person, even if the keys for his "magnificent fortune" are gone forever.

Since I work in IT I think the the hard disk which is where we store our coins if we use desktop wallets that keeps all the blockchain and also all other data like the tools to create the first Bitcoin rarely fails,sure it can be corrupted but data can be in most of the cases 100% recovered.I would also like to find out more about Satoshi as we owe him a lot,personally I use Bitcoin from quite some years now and it is my go to form of payment of both investing and both using it as a store of value.However I am not convinced from this story as a genius like him cannot be justified by a hardware failure,he is way years ahead to be stopped by a computer failure.

[ololajulo]

We have those closest to the being Satoshi in the last few years and they have only been distraction to the project and irrelevant. At the moment I dont think knowing Satoshi would be that interesting especially since the claim of holding 1 million bitcoin looks invalid. Saying Satoshi is a poor guy is never true with your premises, inventions in IT are not easy and cheap especially in 20th century. Bitcoin was described as a PhD project, after it, many marketing process followed into making it known which I dont think is cheap as well

[SirArthur]

@swogerino;

Magnetic disks can suffer catastrophic failure and be impossible to recover at all. I've two here, one even went to a lab at USA and no chance, the other suffered an electrical surcharge.


@ololajulo

Programming is cheap, the outcome can be PhD level but there isn't any price tag attached to it, all you need is a brain and skill, specially taken the tools used were outdated at the time, making it a sign the hardware was also outdated. He also hadn't made any marketing other than this community. Look at my account, I'm here from May 2010 (even if I came to BTC around December 2009, just had nothing to do at the forum) and I'm #217, in its first year of existence just 216 users registered before me.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

~Snip~

However I am not convinced from this story as a genius like him cannot be justified by a hardware failure,he is way years ahead to be stopped by a computer failure.

My dear , don't be so conclusive in your assumptions, I believe there is a good reason why the wise man said ~ No body is above mistakes.
Even highly trained professional drivers still get involved in motor accidents on the high way.
Though I am not trying to say that I believe that satoshi has actually lost access to his bitcoins, but what I am saying is, if the real satoshi(after proving above all reasonable doubt that he is the real satoshi) comes out to say that he lost access to his bitcoins, then I don't think there is any need to doubt him, even the most careful people still sometimes, made mistakes that cost them their lives.

[BIT-BENDER]

If satoshi actually wanted to be know it would have been very easy. He would just act like what Ethereum co-founder vitalik did, which is make yourself open in the first place.

I strongly doubt Satoshi ever wanted to be like that but rather he had more larger vision which puts his creation bitcoin of more importance than his creation. And contrary to what you said about his finances, I wouldn't say Satoshi was a poor man, I would consider him a very reserved man and even if he has money he would be the time that values what he has rather than getting the latest version (there are rich people like that) the major thing right now is that he created Bitcoin and it's in use now and would be for a very long time, I don't bother about all the drama surrounding his identity.

[SirArthur]

And contrary to what you said about his finances, I wouldn't say Satoshi was a poor man, I would consider him a very reserved man and even if he has money he would be the time that values what he has rather than getting the latest version (there are rich people like that) the major thing right now is that he created Bitcoin and it's in use now and would be for a very long time, I don't bother about all the drama surrounding his identity.

That's false for a C programmer, as it would cost a LOT of time compiling, a C programmer always try to have the best possible CPU he can get. Imagine take 2 hours+ for a build to find a bug, fix it and take more 2 hours+ to rebuild... Building C/C++ sources with old CPUs wasn't like nowadays, it takes ages for compile and link!
Nick Szabo would have resources for test it with Vista, and probably MacOS and all Linux flavors, even if not his own hardware, as he works with universities.

This also give Bitcoin the aura of being created by a common person, "for the people, by the people".

Though yes, I keep respecting his privacy, if that's his wish, yet from all the stories I read about the attempts to get his identity or people coming forward claiming to be him, that story was the only one I can give some credit.

[Doan9269]

So, out of all stories around, the one I found more plausible was of a British-Indian guy who came out at a newspaper a few years ago explaining he was Satoshi, what happened to his coins in a hardware failure and showing a picture of the computer used to create the first Bitcoin ever. His story was promptly discarded or overlooked and somehow I'm unable to find it again, as the noise caused by the imbecile CW just pops up at all results

There have been several occasions of people making noise around in saying they are Satoshi bit the real thing hear is that Satoshi cannot come out definitely we all know that, to make such and brag about himself to everyone, i think the empty vessel makes the loudest noise here and Craig is the ring leader among them all, but with time all will soon die down because no one from onset supported Craig

but would be interesting to look into it again and probably give credit to the right person, even if the keys for his "magnificent fortune" are gone forever.

Have you discussed that together with Satoshi and he gave that utterance? Or am i the one nit getting what you mean here, i hope you're not constituting to another claim on Satoshi by framing this up.

[SirArthur]

So, out of all stories around, the one I found more plausible was of a British-Indian guy who came out at a newspaper a few years ago explaining he was Satoshi, what happened to his coins in a hardware failure and showing a picture of the computer used to create the first Bitcoin ever. His story was promptly discarded or overlooked and somehow I'm unable to find it again, as the noise caused by the imbecile CW just pops up at all results

There have been several occasions of people making noise around in saying they are Satoshi bit the real thing hear is that Satoshi cannot come out definitely we all know that, to make such and brag about himself to everyone, i think the empty vessel makes the loudest noise here and Craig is the ring leader among them all, but with time all will soon die down because no one from onset supported Craig

Craig is just ridiculous, not only his story is full of holes as he doesn't seem to even know how Bitcoin works ("I can't sign because I put the coins in a fund!" - seriously?! Which fund will take the keys when they worth a round zero?!) as he is the opposite of Satoshi, as his mind is 110% into fiat money.

but would be interesting to look into it again and probably give credit to the right person, even if the keys for his "magnificent fortune" are gone forever.

Have you discussed that together with Satoshi and he gave that utterance? Or am i the one nit getting what you mean here, i hope you're not constituting to another claim on Satoshi by framing this up.

That was part of the article I unfortunately can't find again. Hope someone kept it and post here.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

if he cared about his privacy and anonymity as many know then why would he come out later on to claim that he is the master mind behind the bitcoin network?

What was the point of privacy in the first place then?

All those folks coming out claiming that they are satoshi are not satoshi, period!

[dansus021]

Since I work in IT I think the the hard disk which is where we store our coins if we use desktop wallets that keeps all the blockchain and also all other data like the tools to create the first Bitcoin rarely fails,sure it can be corrupted but data can be in most of the cases 100% recovered.I would also like to find out more about Satoshi as we owe him a lot,personally I use Bitcoin from quite some years now and it is my go to form of payment of both investing and both using it as a store of value.However I am not convinced from this story as a genius like him cannot be justified by a hardware failure,he is way years ahead to be stopped by a computer failure.

yess  i do agree with you because satoshi is super genius i think he disappears for good not because the hardware failure. and till this date there is bunch of people that say 'im real satoshi' but pfftt i don't believe any of that

[n0nce]

Satoshi was most likely "poor" or at least unable to buy the latest hardware at the time, as the versions he used to code the first version of what is now Bitcoin Core were way outdated at the time; Windows XP, Visual Studio 6.

Do you have a source for this? I haven't heard of satoshi talking about which editor he writes his code in and which operating system he's running.
I would actually have assumed satoshi to be mainly a Linux user, somehow.

From his posts, it's apparent he did have at least access to an XP machine, but it doesn't mean it was his only computer.

I tested this with a non-lower-ASCII account name on XP and confirmed the bug, then tested that the new GetDefaultDataDir fixed it.  This change is revision 102 of the SVN.

However that's the only search result I get when searching for his posts with the keyword 'XP'.

Meanwhile, there are no relevant results when looking for 'Visual Studio'.

Also Satoshi stated he wasn't able to test his software with Vista, which may mean his computer wasn't enough for that OS, which included some heavy visual features (for the time, obviously) and required fairly expensive hardware.

When did he state that?
https://ninjastic.space/search?author=satoshi&content=Vista

The Linux version is on its way.  Martti's Linux port was merged into the main code branch and New Liberty Standard has been testing it.  It'll be in the next release, version 0.2.

Command line is on the to-do list after 0.2.

This post may give away that he primarily focused on Windows in the very beginning. But not sure about the whole low-end hardware idea. XP remained popular well into the 2010's; he may just not have wanted to install the extremely crappy Vista or early 7 versions, which many still viewed with skepticism after the Vista fiasco.

Mainstream support for Windows XP ended on April 14, 2009, and extended support ended on April 8, 2014.

[pooya87]

whereas Satoshi was most likely "poor" or at least unable to buy the latest hardware at the time,

How do you know what kind of hardware Satoshi was using? He never announced it publicly and he had access to decent enough system(s) that allowed him to mine bitcoin in very first days. If Satoshi's hardware were weak the time between blocks would have been a lot higher than what they actually were in first couple of days.

as the versions he used to code the first version of what is now Bitcoin Core were way outdated at the time; Windows XP, Visual Studio 6.

I don't know where you got this information from either but lets assume you are right.
Satoshi was developing bitcoin before 2009 (at least for a year so from 2007 to 2008).
A lot of Windows users never upgraded from XP to any of the versions released prior to 7 because of how terrible they were. And Windows 7 was release late 2009.
As for VS6 I'm having a hard time believing that since there is 7 released in 2003 and v6 is from 1998. This has nothing to do with being poor, why would someone use such an old version?

~a British-Indian guy who came out at a newspaper a few years ago explaining he was Satoshi,

Anybody who claims to be Satoshi in a newspaper is definitely not Satoshi. More so when they don't offer any proof.

[SirArthur]

When did he state that?

From the Bitcoin 0.1.0 release notes:

Operating Systems
-----------------
Windows NT/2000/XP (and probably Vista)

Vista hasn't been tested yet.  All the libraries used are cross-platform, so
there's nothing preventing future Linux and Mac builds.

Compilers Supported
-------------------
MinGW GCC (v3.4.5)
Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 SP6

About the article, which I don't remember the newspaper it was on, what I can remember:

• He wasn't asking for anything (such as recover his keys or anything Craig Wright alike)
• He said to be done with Bitcoin
• He said to had told his wife about it just shortly before the article
• He said that after the hardware incident he published here a post about the importance of keep a backup of your keys

Let's see if someone has it, as it is either vanished from internet or really hard to find.

As for VS6 I'm having a hard time believing that since there is 7 released in 2003 and v6 is from 1998. This has nothing to do with being poor, why would someone use such an old version?

There was a reason for it; Visual Studio 2002 introduced .NET Framework, without retro compatibility, meaning VS6 was the last one to support Visual Basic or ASP.

He never announced it publicly and he had access to decent enough system(s) that allowed him to mine bitcoin in very first days.

My first Bitcoins were mined using a Sempron 1300 Mhz, 1024 Mb RAM... Bitcoin has no hardware requirements on its own, its the miners competing with each other that causes difficulty to grow.

[n0nce]

He never announced it publicly and he had access to decent enough system(s) that allowed him to mine bitcoin in very first days.

My first Bitcoins were mined using a Sempron 1300 Mhz, 1024 Mb RAM... Bitcoin has no hardware requirements on its own, its the miners competing with each other that causes difficulty to grow.

pooya87 is referring to the first few blocks that are basically guaranteed to have been mined by satoshi himself. As the difficulty is a function of the total network hashrate and the block time, by assuming satoshi had the total network hashrate in those first days, we can calculate from the (known) early blocks difficulty target and block time, how much computing power he could access.

There is a thread about it here:
Does it sound right? Estimating the hashrate of CPU likely used to Mine Genesis

[SirArthur]

The first block took 5~6 days to mine, yet there's no tell if it was a constant work and the total hashes produced is also unknown. So any exercise on such grounds leads nowhere.

Assuming it was a continuous work, then his computer was way worse than a 1.3 Ghz Sempron, probably Pentium II or III (which were way old by then).

As for Vista, someone with more resources would be able to get the software tested with it. Bitcoin project took him some time wasn't like he was in a rush to release it.

[pooya87]

Bitcoin has no hardware requirements on its own, its the miners competing with each other that causes difficulty to grow.

The minimum difficulty is 1 and even at that level (without it going up) you can't mine blocks on 10 minutes average (or close to it) on a very old computer with a weak CPU.

The first block took 5~6 days to mine,

That is a very special case which you can not use to determine Satoshi's hashrate. He basically created that block hardcoded it in the software then waited a couple of days for unknown reasons before released the software 6 days later when block #1 was mined.
You are also ignoring the fact that time between blocks 1+ isn't that long.
For example:

Code:

Height: Time
1	2009-01-09 02:54:25
2	2009-01-09 02:55:44
3	2009-01-09 03:02:53
4	2009-01-09 03:16:28
5	2009-01-09 03:23:48
6	2009-01-09 03:29:49
7	2009-01-09 03:39:29
8	2009-01-09 03:45:43
9	2009-01-09 03:54:39
10	2009-01-09 04:05:52
11	2009-01-09 04:12:40
12	2009-01-09 04:21:28
13	2009-01-09 04:23:40
14	2009-01-09 04:33:09
15	2009-01-10 04:45:46
16	2009-01-10 04:45:58
17	2009-01-10 05:03:11
18	2009-01-10 05:12:14
19	2009-01-10 05:22:54

[SirArthur]

Average hashes to find a block within 10 minutes at difficulty 1: ~7 Mhash (1*2^32/600), though we are talking about an 100% coverage, whereas it's safe to assume in brute force that with a 50% coverage you've a good probability of hit a valid result already, bringing this number to 3.5 Mhash. A Pentium III Coppermine would provide about 0.4 Mhash/s, 240 Mhash/10 minutes.

As of a set of hashrate tests, even a MIPS from an old Asus router (WL-500G) would provide enough hashrate to beat the 1 block/10 minutes cadence at difficulty 1.
( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparison )

[pooya87]

Average hashes to find a block within 10 minutes at difficulty 1: ~7 Mhash (1*2^32/600),

There is no guarantee to find a hash by exhausting the entire 32-bit nonce space even at difficulty = 1. Which is why miners have always used "extranonse" which can be found in the signature script of the coinbase transaction and most early blocks have a non-zero one which indicates multiple nonces were checked from 0 to 2³² before the result was found.
Another alternative to extranonce is updating the block time or rearranging the transactions in the block but this last one doesn't apply to early blocks.

[Darker45]

You don't care about doxing Satoshi and yet you created this thread suggesting another less recognized person to be the real Satoshi. I thought you would just share your idea about Satoshi being most likely poor rather than rich. But then you ended up pushing forward another Satoshi candidate. I though you wanted to respect the choice of Satoshi to be private? Why are you bringing this issue back when the British-Indian guy you're referring to has already been forgotten? That's what Satoshi wanted.