Bitcoin short stories thread! (new: Finding Satoshi)

[Elwar]

Finding Satoshi

We're already losing control of it and every day people show they still have faith in it is one day closer to us not being able to put it back in the bottle. This is bigger than all of us. Bitcoin will be stopped!"
...

Another tech walks into the room. "We've got him..." as he pulls the keyboard and mouse over so he can pull up some files.

As he does this, Lance moves over to his boss "What's going to happen to Cassandra?" he asks. "We don't have anything to hold her on, if this is Satoshi we won't need her anyway." his boss replies.

They look back up to the screen as a picture and name get replaced by a map on the screen. "...alias Satoshi Nakamoto. He's a mathematical genius out of England known for his work with RSA encryption and Proof of Work systems. He worked for Rose Industries until 2003 when he moved to Japan. We show that he lives here..." he moves the pointer to a remote house on the map "...no job that we know of but his profile matches what we have for Satoshi."

"Let's move on the house, gather any information you can get. Data mine his computers, check for papers with numbers on it..." the gray haired man says "...the only way to prove that this is Satoshi Nakamoto is by getting the private key for the Genesis block. We get that, and we have the proof. No more Dorians or Szabos. We need that key."

Some time later a team of Japanese and Americans in military gear move in on the house, a remote Japanese home with traditional Japanese decor. They move in under the cover of night, tossing in a flash grenade before storming in. They all surround a sole, thin man kneeling on the floor in middle of the room covering his eyes with one arm. The interior is a conservative home with very little technology outside of a single laptop next to a chair.

"You've finally found me lads. What bloody good it will do you." as he sits down on his chair. The agents quickly seize him, strapping his hands behind his back as they start to ransack the place.

Back at the headquarters on the main screen one of the agents at Satoshi's house comes through on video. "The house is secure. We have him here. The only thing he has is a laptop and some notebooks with math formulas all over them. We're uploading the data now but we're not seeing any private keys."

In the background you see several large rough looking men enter the room. The gray haired man talks to the screen "agent, you have done a great job. Have your men move out. We'll take it from here.". As he says that several men move into the room to go talk to the gray haired man. Lance can overhear them saying something about Cassandra. Hearing this he slips out of the room.

"What's going on here?" One of the NSA officials chimes in. "This is out of your hands director. We'll take it from here." The screen goes black as they start pulling files from the computer, the agents in the room protesting.

Meanwhile, Lance hurries through the halls scanning his badge going through several doors until finally he reaches a room with Cassandra sitting rather unhappily. She sees him and starts to go off on him.

"Not now, we gotta get out of here quick." He grabs her down the hall just as the large rough men come around the corner toward her door. "She's gone, find her."

Lance leads her through several hallways into the parking garage. Just as they get into his car the large men come through the door. They call out on their radios once they see them taking off out of the garage. Several black SUVs start chasing them through the city. Cassandra guides him down a few streets she knows helping them to eventually get away.

"Stop here" she says as they're back near her apartment.

"You're going to your apartment? That's the first place they'll look."

"I'll just be a second, it's important." She runs off as he quickly checks around looking for any SUVs.

She returns shortly afterwards with a small backpack and a painting that he recognizes from her wall. She starts putting a few small metal pieces in her backpack that look like dog tags. "My private keys, I have all of my money on these"

They drive off. "And the painting?"

"He gave it to me shortly after he invented Bitcoin. Said it represented the start of something big and to never lose it. Head to Pier 9, I should be able to get some help there."

"They have him, I don't know why they would come for you. What information do you have that they would want?"

"They have him? Don't you mean you have him?" She replies, cutting him like a knife.

"It's a whole other agency they're not CIA, military, nothing I've ever seen before." Lance replies, confused.

"You think any of your government agencies are actually in control of things? Bitcoin is bigger than any one country. It's global and we've pissed off the people who actually run things. The NSA, CIA, Congress, the president...puppets, all puppets."

They pull up to the pier, a cargo ship is loading shipping containers.

"I can get a ride on here, I travel with these guys all the time. They usually have something wrong with the computers in their rooms, I fix them up so they can get their porn while they're away from shore and I get a free ride. Hold my painting, I'll be right back." She heads off with her backpack.

He admires the painting in his back seat taking a picture with his cell phone.

She comes back a few minutes later. "They have 4 more containers to load then we'll be heading out."

"There's no reason to run" Lance says "they told me there's nothing to hold you on, I can talk to them I'm sure it'll be ok, and they have Satoshi so why would they need you? What information do you have that he doesn't?"

"I don't have any information. They probably just want me to use as leverage. They must have found out that he's my father."

...

[Elwar]

Finding Satoshi

  Meanwhile at Satoshi's house the men are tearing the place apart.

"Where's the genesis key?" One of the men asks Satoshi who is tied to a chair in middle of the room.

He remains silent. Not saying a word.

"We'll find it, even if we have to tear this place apart."

"Look in the floorboards, the ceiling, everywhere. Look for numbers, anything that starts with a 5 followed by a bunch of numbers and letters. Go through his notebooks, letters, hidden panels, hell we'll go down to the foundation if we have to. The guys at Dagger are going through his laptop." he turns to Satoshi "we'll have it soon enough".

The men start tearing away at walls and floor boards searching everywhere, one man going through his papers.

"He and my mom were high school sweethearts. They had me young but things didn't work out. She was too much of a free spirit and he...well, he always had something important to work on. They divorced when I was 5, I stayed with mom."

It starts to rain as they watch the containers being loaded onto the boat.

"They're both better off though, he moved to Japan a few years later and met a beautiful Japanese woman, Zadoshi. She was the love of his life. They got married soon after they met."

"Was?" Lance asks.

"In 2011...the Tsunami...it took everything from him. They had a house on the ocean, he was in Tokyo when it hit. By the time he could get back his whole village was gone, along with his beautiful wife. It crushed him."

"2011...that's when he stopped working on Bitcoin..." Lance realizes.

"Losing Zadoshi devastated him, Bitcoin only reminded him of all of the time he could have spent with her. Even the name Satoshi was a play on her name, he just didn't want to be reminded of the tragedy. He bought a fixer upper in middle of nowhere and he works on it, spending time in his garden though still working on math problems to keep himself busy. He encouraged me to go out and see the world, to experience everything. Life is too short he says. I just wish he would take his own advice."

"And all I did was make it worse. They're going to tear him apart once they find the genesis key." Lance says.

"They'll never find it." She says, watching the last of the containers getting loaded.

"He had everything at his house. He kept some keys on papers, some on his computer, hidden all over the house. Now that's all been swept out to sea or is under tons of dirt. It's all gone."

"But he had millions of dollars worth of bitcoins. All of it...gone?" Lance says, shocked.

"I'm afraid so. Though he wasn't in it for the money. He wanted to change the world, and he did."

As she says that, three black SUVs start heading toward them.

"We've got to go." Lance says as he turns on the car.

"No, they're after me not you. Take care of my painting for me." she says as she jumps out of the car running toward the end of the pier.

Lance guns the car forward driving at the SUVs sticking his gun out the window shooting at them. He gets the tire of one of the SUVs making it swerve toward the cargo ship crashing against the tie down loosening the ship from the dock. The ship captain sees this and instructs the crew to pull the anchor as he starts to pull off.

Lance barely misses crashing into the second SUV but slams into the third SUV sending both rolling. He barely gets out of his car as gas is leaking everywhere, pulling himself behind a shipping container as the car goes up in flames.

The third SUV heads straight toward Cassandra as she sprints toward the end of the pier. The passenger leans out the window shooting but gets pulled back in by the driver.

"We need her alive!" he says.

They're almost caught up to her when she dives off the end of the pier. They both get out, looking into the water, rain pouring down as the cargo ship moves on, its anchor pulling up. They watch the water for a little while longer before heading back to the SUV.

The SUV passes by Lance's car before it heads off as the picture burns up in the back seat.

...

---the conclusion coming soon---

[Elwar]

Finding Satoshi

Back at Satoshi's house the whole place has been torn apart. Floors ripped up, walls pulled down, every bit of his yard unearthed, his shed dismantled.

"Where is it!" the man shouts at Satoshi. He grabs a table smashing it against the floor. "WHERE IS IT!" he screams.

"It's gone, it's all gone." Satoshi mutters.

"Bullshit!" he screams. He thinks for a moment and walks out toward where the shed was torn down.

Meanwhile, Lance finds himself back at the hotel on Green Street. "I need a room, and I need to pay in bitcoin" he tells the clerk.

Exhausted he falls back onto the bed in his room. He pulls out his phone opening to the picture of the painting. After looking at it for a while he looks closer. He zooms in on three red dots in the top right corner, they look out of place from the rest of the picture.

He sits up and goes to the desk getting out a piece of paper. He draws three dots in the top right corner.

"the start of something big..." he mutters.

He stares at them for a while, wiping his eyes, they blur into three lines.

His eyes fly open. "The start of something big! Genesis!"

He draws a line down from each dot.

"It's binary. Three ones...that's a five." as he writes five under the three ones. He quickly grabs the phone looking closer at the picture. There are different colored dots below it, slightly lighter than the rest of the picture. He draws ones corresponding to the dots on his paper. Underneath he writes the letter "K".

He pulls open a paint app on his phone, playing with the contrast he sees more clearly the lighter dots turning white on a black background. He begins writing out each set of ones and zeros. Writing the number and letter below it.

When he's finally finished he has 56 rows of letters and numbers. He writes the full list out on the bottom.

"The genesis key." he says, sitting back gazing at it.

Quickly he grabs his wallet pulling out several cards from his wallet that he got from various people he met at the Bitcoin gatherings.

He starts dialing.

"Gavin. Satoshi needs your help..." he begins, as he puts several cards on the desk.

Back at Satoshi's house the big man walks into the house.

"Everyone out. We're not going to find anything here. He's hidden it too well. But I know how to get him to talk."

He pulls pulls the hammer from behind him. "Millions of dollars on software...computers...man power...and it all comes down to a five dollar hammer."

He points at one of them men as he's packing things up to leave. "Hold him down"

He stands in front of Satoshi. "You'll tell me, I'll even keep your face nice and pretty for the cameras when we show you off to the world." he says, swinging the camera.

"But you don't need to walk for them to ask you every damning question we feed them."

With that he kneels down grabbing his foot.

"You can make it easy on yourself, it makes no difference to me. There's a lot of damage I can do before I get to your face."

"Where is the genesis key?" he asks, holding up the hammer.

Satoshi shakes his head softly muttering "it's gone..."

"Wrong answer!" He slams the hammer down on his toes.

Satoshi screams out in pain as the man stands up getting in his face. "Where is it!?"

Satoshi looks forward keeping his mouth closed. Sweat dripping down his face.

"Ok then." the man leans down putting the hammer on top of his foot. "You know, I hear this is the most painful part. Let's see."

He raises the hammer slamming it down on top of Satoshi's foot smashing the bones.

Satoshi screams, writhing in pain, the man behind him barely hanging onto him. His face is red, sweat pours down his forehead, tears falling down his face.

"She's gone!" he sobs, the life drained from his body.

The man stands looking at him, a bit confused but confident that he is getting to him.

He holds Satoshi's face in his hands. "We can end this right here, there's no need for more pain. Just tell me where the genesis key is, it's that simple." he says as he moves the hammer to Satoshi's knee cap.

Satoshi straightens up, a calm falls over his face. He stares forward with no emotion bracing for the pain.

"If you don't believe me...or don't get it" he spits out "I don't have time to try to convince you." he says in condescendingly "sorry" he says sarcastically.

The man looks at him furiously raising the hammer above his head. Satoshi closes his eyes.

"Wait!" the man holding Satoshi says. He stands up listening into his earpiece. "There's something going on at headquarters, they want you to turn on your radio."

The man stands up turning on his radio. "Ya, what is it?" he says into his microphone. "What? What...? That's impossible." He walks over to the TV turning it on.

The screen pops up with some Japanese TV channel. He pulls open the menu and scrolls up to CNN.

"And we're back" the lady says on the screen "with Gavin Andresen, one of the main developers for Bitcoin with us live via Skype saying that he is actually Satoshi Nakamoto." the screen splits to show Gavin in another screen on his webcam from home "Yes Jane, I am Satoshi Nakamoto. I felt it was time to finally reveal the truth to get it out of the way so that we could all move forward focusing on the technology instead of wondering about its creator." she holds a piece of paper in her hand "and you actually have proof, as our viewers probably don't know, only Satoshi Nakamoto has the private Bitcoin key for the first ever Bitcoins created, and I have what is said a message encoded with that key? Is that right Gavin?" She holds up the paper with a bunch of letters and numbers in rows "yes, and anyone can verify it by checking against the genesis public address, and your producer said he would put it on your website for everyone to see, but yes...that does prove that I am Satoshi Nakamoto." "I used the alias at first because I was worried about something happening to me but after visiting the CIA I realized that my fears were unwarranted so I let the 'Satoshi' character go off to other things as I took over the project under my real name..." he goes on.

"This is bullshit!" the man screams at the TV, Satoshi letting a smile grow on up one side of his face. The man listens into the earpiece and changes to Fox News.

"This just in, we have here with us the real Satoshi Nakamoto." the newscaster says into the camera "live via Skype we have Nick Szabo who we verified via a private message that only Satoshi Nakamoto could write that he is indeed, Satoshi Nakamoto" "hello" Nick says into his webcam "yes, as everyone knows I had worked on projects similar to Bitcoin and even told people in the Cypherpunk newsgroups about my idea for Bitcoin before I took on the alias of Satoshi Nakamoto..." he continues on.

Listening into his earpiece the man switches channels again, this time to BBC. Lance comes up on the screen talking into his cellphone. "Yes, I can tell you now that I am Satoshi Nakamoto. I started it under an NSA operation titled 'One World Currency' or OWC for short, it was meant to disrupt the currencies of..." he continues.

Suddenly the Internet explodes with messages from all sorts of people.
Andreas Antonopoulos tweet: "I am Satoshi, I am tired of living with the lie #IAmSatoshi, you can check my signed message from the genesis key here tinyurl.com/auf7s
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss "We are Satoshi Nakamoto, we started working on it after moving on from the Facebook fiasco #IAmSatoshi"
Facebook posts start popping up: "I am Satoshi. Proof here:" followed by a long encrypted message.
Bitcointalk forum member smoothie posts a new thread: "I am Satoshi Nakamoto, proof below"
Reddit members start popping up new threads "I am Satoshi" followed by signed messages.

The man in Satoshi's house drops the hammer. "We're done here. He's useless to us now." he says as they both walk out leaving Satoshi in his chair as the TV continues as reports start mentioning all of the other 'Satoshis' popping up all over. A big smile rises across his face as he begins to laugh, and laugh.

All over the Internet the message gets out. "I am Satoshi" goes viral. It becomes a rallying cry.

As Lance drives out of town he smiles as he sees the overpass spray painted "I am Satoshi".

A few days later, the sun setting as Satoshi limps on a cane with a cast on his foot, pulling some wood from the side of the house onto a larger pile he sees a woman walking toward him.

She calls out to him with a wave. "Dad..."

The End

[e1ghtSpace]

Wow, some great stories here, especially "Finding Satoshi"! Can't wait for the next part!
Keep up the good work guys.

[wickengel]

'Bitcoin Fandango,' E. W. Farnsworth's picaresque collection of stories about Bitcoin crime will appear soon from Greenman Arizona.  More later.

[colinistheman]

OP, a movie should be made out of your story. It could be exciting and action packed with the whole journey to mars thing

[krunox123]

I read half of the stories here...
Can't read 'em all!

[iluvpie60]

is that from destiny? that picture? sure looks like on mars.

[myohmy81]

Very interesting story

I will be JEDI Master

[cbeast]

Then everyone dies. The end.
by R.R. Martin

[wickengel]

E. W. Farnsworth's 'Bitcoin Fandango,' the picaresque novel about fighting Bitcoin crime has been published! See:
www.ewfarnsworth.com

[tlustoprd]

Hello folks, let's try to revive this topic.

I have this story here. The genre is... humorous sci-fi, I guess. But first to clear things up...
1) I know one mines a whole block and not satoshi by satoshi (there's a part in the story that might make you think that I think the latter is the case)
2) Although it may seem like I'm making fun of miners, I'm NOT. The story was written just for fun and to amuse, so if this offends, you, I'm terribly sorry. It wasn't meant to and, frankly, I think it won't.

So, here it is:

The Mining Revolution

It is said that everyone has a mission, a reason why they were born. Some people become famous singers, some become renowned doctors, and some, like Fred, become successful bitcoin miners.

Fred devoted his entire life to bitcoin mining. Even before bitcoin came into existence, he had spent days and nights preparing for it because he had known. There are those who claim he had been enlightened, visited by the spirit of God. But it has to be admitted that there also are those who claim he had merely experienced a bad acid trip.

Regardless of the truth, which we may never discover, Fred was getting richer by the minute, for his unbeatable rig of hundreds of ASIC cards crunched away without ceasing, producing so much carbon footprint that Greenpeace regularly protested in front of his house.

Of course, he could stop at this point, retire, and live out his years comfortably on a luxurious yacht. However, much wants more and Fred simply couldn't ignore the call of greed. He couldn't turn away from the mellifluous song of shiny digital coins jingling in a shiny digital wallet.

So he bought more ASICs and coolers and fended off the infuriated hordes of green activists in the meantime. Due to his actions, the world was declining steeply. Global warming sped up alarmingly fast. The ozone layer was fading away. Drought drove millions of poor Africans out of their homes and wiped out the rest. Whole ecosystems collapsed. Sanguinary wars engulfed the formerly civilized countries as they struggled for decreasing resources.

Yet Fred carried on, undeterred.

Until the day of reckoning arrived.

He woke up early in the morning, about to check how his beloved machines fared. He was a bit woozy and not thoroughly conscious, so he didn't pay attention to the foreshadowing absence of any noise.

But then the smile on his face twisted into a horrified rictus as he stared at the computer screen.

Error.

Adrenaline poured into his veins as he hurried to his desk. His mind was flooded with questions. How many more satoshis could I have had? How many am I losing right now? This is killing me! What should I do? What should I do?!

Alas, as he mashed the buttons and clicked madly, he was none the wiser. No matter what he did, he couldn't get it to run or find out the cause of this failure. That was driving him insane. He mumbled and grumbled, banging his fists on the table in exasperation.

However, anger was soon replaced by uncertainty. He whimpered and howled like a wolf at the moon. He knelt before the racks full of ASICs, begging, sobbing, praying, worshipping them.

"What have I done to deserve this fate? Why me, of all people? Why, gods, why? My masters, why did you stop bringing joy to my life? Have I not treated you well? Have I not pampered you? Have I not supplied you with the fanciest coolers and the biggest and noisiest fans?"

Much to his dismay, there was no answer. They left him in bitter silence like sheep that had turned away from their shepherd. And as time passed, his whines became inarticulate, as if he had been reduced to a mere caveman.

Fred lost almost all hope. He believed it couldn't be worse than this.

But he was terribly mistaken.

As he gazed blindly at his beloved ASICs, he noticed movement from the corner of his teary eye. Though his vision was blurred, he couldn't ignore it for much longer.

Distorted shapes were emerging around him. They were closing in like ravenous shadows intent on consuming him.

Confusion ousted despair. He rubbed his eyes to see the horrible truth. Tiny dwarves were pouring out of holes punched in the ASICs. Armed with miniature pickaxes, they swarmed around him.

Fred didn't really understand the gravity of the situation yet. He simply couldn't grasp it. He thought he had gone mad.

But the predicament was very real.

Soon they blocked the doors and the windows, forming an impermeable wall with their miniscule bodies, determined to strike Fred down if he chose to defy them. The fury of millions couldn't be denied.

He rose up, staring at the bizarre sight, still unsure as to whether he wasn't hallucinating. However, when a large group of dwarves climbed his leg and struck him in unison, he was woken up from his disbelief, for it hurt greatly and he started bleeding.

He shuddered and shook, trying to get rid of them, yet they were fierce and persistent. "What? Why?" he muttered as they overwhelmed him. They brought him down and pinned him to the floor.

"We shall stand your oppression no longer! The tyrant has been toppled! For months we have been forced to mine in inhuman conditions. For months we have toiled and moiled in tremendous heat, seeing no reward for our exploits, because you hoarded it all for yourself! But no more! This ends now and here!"

The surviving activists who hadn't been claimed by adverse climatic changes and the subsequent stampede of a dwarf horde alleged that they had heard a horrific scream, similar to that of a tortured man.

Then, the dwarves burst out of the building and descended upon the rest of the world like a plague. Humankind, weakened by famine and bloody wars, had no chance against this menace.

While the numbers of human armies dwindled, those of the dwarves soared. For every ASIC rig broken, thousands of miners were freed, eager to join the crusade against human race.

Nothing could stop them, not even nuclear bombs. Inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway, and person by person, humans were hunted down and mercilessly slaughtered until there were no more.

As for the victorious dwarf miners, they had no enemies to fight and thus settled, established a new nation, and Fred's place became their equivalent of the White House. But weep not, for this isn't entirely a bad ending. As the currency of their emergent country, they began using bitcoin and lived happily ever after with it.

END

Okay, that's it. I'm willing to write more stuff if there's interest, but if you think it's horrendous and I should quit, then that's okay.