
Craig Steven Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto - shazad
http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven-wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin
======
nikcub
I don't believe this for a second - and i'm more interested in figuring out
how he duped two Bitcoin developers and some of the most notable news outlets
in the world.

When the link to Wright was first reported in Wired[0] and Gizmodo[1], after
letting the news sink in for a day it was apparent that the evidence trail was
an elaborate ruse. I don't know if Wright leaked the hack to the media (I
think it was more likely to be a disgruntled former employee who bought into
the story), but there were many journalists who turned down that story while
it was being shopped widely because it didn't smell right (this is no slight
on gwern, Andy Greenburg and Sam Biddle who could bring to the story more than
what most ordinary journalists could, and mention that it could be a hoax)

Consider that Wright faked old blog posts, allowed them to be found, and then
deleted them. Consider that he added a new Satoshi Nakomoto PGP key to
keyservers with an email he controlled (which was different, obviously) in
2013, _three years_ after the real Satoshi disappeared. Consider that Wright
claimed to have a super computer and produced a reference letter from SGI, but
that SGI claimed no knowledge of the computer or letter and it turned out to
be fake (in some parts of the world - this is known as fraud)[2]. Consider his
LinkedIn said he earned a Phd. from Bathurst University but the University
knew nothing about it[3]. Consider the only people Wright revealed he was
Satoshi to were a few select employees and people _he was trying to raise
money from_ (he said he was a billionaire but the funds were _locked up_ \- it
is a modern digital version of a 419 scam).

Consider, also, that he says he "tried to keep his head down" but shows up at
a Bitcoin panel as an unknown and suggestively describes himself vaguely -
with a smirk and a wink. Consider that he says he doesn't want the fame or
attention, but shopped an exclusive deal around the media for a month and went
with the BBC, The Economist and GQ - and is currently on every TV channel.
Consider that Wright, despite being quasi-published, has never produced
anything approaching the complexity, clarity, succinctness and humble nature
of the Bitcoin paper, but is the complete opposite of all of these
characteristics (rambles and talks down to people, explaining detail not so
that the reader learns it - but so that you know that he knows this shit).

From what I know about him, it seems Wright is experienced with barely getting
along with big pie-in-the-sky ideas that convince a lot of people around him,
but that definitely are in the grey area between legitimate and fraud. He is
able to drown people in quasi-technical talk and on big ideas and is very
personable (we also have a word for people who take fraudulent action via
their charms).

He avoids people who are actual experts in the areas he himself professes to
be an expert in, and when he is in relevant forums or other online communities
he downplays his achievements.

Some examples: He claimed to be published in infosec, but rather than writing
for the usual outlets he wrote for political blogs on infosec topics[4] (often
poorly). He added his two supercomputers to the top 500 index (which is self
reported) but never participated in the online communities, but he did brag
about it in investment material. He didn't interact with professors or
students at universities, but did teach a remote webinar course on
supercomputing at a pay-for school[4] and finally, with Bitcoin - in
investment material and to employees he was a domain expert and the founder
but he was never a regular in online communities or conferences (although it
seems he got to a point of even convincing Bitcoin _experts_ that he knew what
he was talking about)

He is currently being pursued in Australia by tax authorities not because, as
was commonly reported, not paying taxes on the Satoshi coins (you don't pay
tax in Australia until gains are realized) but because he was one of the
largest claimants of R&D tax concessions in Australia (larger than Google and
Atlassian) and this is a common area of fraud (create a fake company, say you
employe 50 people, claim that 'R&D spend' back - similar to sales tax fraud).

One more point of doubt - but I leave it because it is a bit _ad hominem_ \-
it turns out that you can't work for long in Sydney without knowing someone
who worked for Wright in one of his schemes or knowing someone who knew
someone. Turns out I had 2 friends who worked with him at various points. Both
offered characterizations of Wright as being crazy and deceiving. He is very
convincing in the short term, but things start to unwind over time. One is
still, despite being mildly burnt by him, partly convinced he may have had
_something_ to do with Bitcoin because "he is just that crazy, you learn not
to be surprised by stuff" \- but then snapped out of it.

Is this really Satoshi? It isn't - i'm going to start from the perspective
that Wright has pulled off (another) impressive fraud. I'm more interested in
figuring out _how the hell he did this_.

edit: that didn't take long. It appears there is evidence in this thread, on
reddit and on Twitter that the 'verification' falls short and is just an old
bitcoin transaction[6]

edit: I just got this from another former employee of Wright's - "best conman
i've ever met"

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-
nakam...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is-
probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/)

[1] [http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead-
frie...](http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead-friend-
invented-bi-1746958692)

[2] [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/new-clues-suggest-satoshi-
susp...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/new-clues-suggest-satoshi-suspect-
craig-wright-may-be-a-hoaxer/)

[3] [http://gizmodo.com/the-mystery-of-craig-wright-and-
bitcoin-i...](http://gizmodo.com/the-mystery-of-craig-wright-and-bitcoin-isnt-
solved-yet-1747576675)

[4] [https://theconversation.com/lulzsec-anonymous-freedom-
fighte...](https://theconversation.com/lulzsec-anonymous-freedom-fighters-or-
the-new-face-of-evil-2605)

[5] [https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course-
programming-s...](https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course-programming-
super-computers/)

[6]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wrigh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wright_reveals_himself_as_satoshi_nakamoto/d2pf5op)

~~~
bootload
_" Questions about Mr Wright’s academic degrees arose because he had listed so
many on a LinkedIn profile which has since been deleted, and because some
could not be confirmed. He now says that the profile was a “joke”—to “take the
piss out of myself” and to keep people from bothering him. “No one took me
seriously, which was great... His doctorate in theology, however, remains a
mystery and Mr Wright does not want to talk about it"_ [0]

For once Nik, I tend to agree with you. The above line is a line from the
Economist that points to deception. Is that Doctorate a technical PhD? [1]
What matters most is a demonstration of the ideas in code and then discussions
with bitcoin peers. You don't need a doctorate on your CV to show this.

[0] [http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-
steve...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven-
wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin)

[1] _" His doctorate in theology, however, remains a mystery and Mr Wright
does not want to talk about it"_ ~
[http://www.drcraigwright.net/about/](http://www.drcraigwright.net/about/)

~~~
acqq
Note that in his bio on his site it's:

"He has a Doctorate in Theology and has submitted his completed thesis for his
second Doctorate in Computer Science."

It can be interpreted "second Doctorate in CS" and "second Doctorate, but this
time in CS," and based on the rest of the claims, it's the second. The
original phrasing on the site is exactly how a good conman would phrase it.
Which doesn't prove anything but adds to the other red flags.

And last year he claimed he has "a couple of Doctorates."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&t=2m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&t=2m10s)

------
chjj
This is absolutely fake and already debunked, as mentioned on the bitcointalk
forums:
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1457039.msg14728531#...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1457039.msg14728531#msg14728531)

The signature Wright posted is a signature from a transaction on the
blockchain (and therefore cannot be a signature of a Nobel prize refusal
speech or whatever other message he claims):
[https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69...](https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe)

The above tx's scriptSig:
3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb6841f55c34220ae0022066632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2de2865e9752585c53e7cce01

The signature Wright posted:

    
    
        $ echo 'MEUCIQDBKn1Uly8m0UyzETObUSL4wYdBfd4ejvtoQfVcNCIK4AIgZmMsXNQWHvo6KDd2Tu6euEl13VTC3ihl6XUlhcU+fM4=' | base64 -d | xxd -p
        3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb68
        41f55c34220ae0022066632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2
        de2865e9752585c53e7cce

~~~
nitrogen
Note to mods: the really long signature line makes the page unreadable on
mobile; probably too late for OP to edit.

~~~
acqq
It would be good if the HN software during accepting the post which contains
"the really long lines" inserts automatically pre tags around.

------
mappum
EDIT 2: Debunked!

The signature in Wright's post is just pulled straight from a transaction on
the blockchain. Convert the base64 signature from his post
(MEUCIQDBKn1Uly8m0UyzETObUSL4wYdBfd4ejvtoQfVcNCIK4AIgZmMsXNQWHvo6KDd2Tu6euEl13VTC3ihl6XUlhcU+fM4=)
to hex
(3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb6841f55c34220ae0022066632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2de2865e9752585c53e7cce),
and you get the signature found in this transaction input:
[https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69...](https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe)

Note that the base64 string at the top of his post isn't a signature, just a
cleartext message: " Wright, it is not the same as if I sign Craig Wright,
Satoshi.\n\n".

Now the only question is how he fooled Gavin. I would imagine this story will
still get spread around some naive channels for a while, just like the last
time Wright tried something like this.

Credit goes to jouke in #bitcoin for figuring it out.

\-----------------

EDIT: Current opinion: still skeptical. Here is the public cryptographic
"proof": [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
significance/)

Something still seems off to me, why does he go into such specific detail in
verifying the signature? I would have assumed he would just let people figure
out the verification themselves. But maybe I'm just skeptical because Satoshi
having a public identity takes some of the magic away.

As pointed out by maaku, he never revealed what message the signature is
supposed to be signing.

\-----------------

My Original Post:

Everyone in this thread is already taking this as the truth. But remember that
Wright has not publicly released any cryptographic proof, there is only a
claim from BBC that he showed the signature to them and a few magazines.

This strikes me as a little strange since originally Satoshi pretty much only
interacted with the community via the bitcoin mailing list. Why did he
"reveal" the proof by sending it to some magazines rather than emailing the
mailing list?

It really seems like the person who created Bitcoin, a trustless system based
on cryptographic proof, wouldn't make everyone take his word on his identity
when it could be trivially solved with one email.

~~~
dataker
That's an interesting position.

The question is: why creating this hoax in the first place? If anything, the
price of bitcoin has been negatively impacted by this.

[http://www.coindesk.com/price/](http://www.coindesk.com/price/)

What would it be one's motivation behind this?

~~~
cookiecaper
Let me put forth an alternate theory. Everyone is suggesting this is a scam
for more money, which is undoubtedly the most likely explanation. However, I
think an alternate explanation is that this may be a larger ploy to try to
bait the real Satoshi out of hiding. Get him to say "No, that guy's a poser,
it's really me." and while he's out, say "Hey man, what do you think about the
blocksize?" This could explain Gavin's participation; pulling out all the
stops to try to "save" bitcoin by getting founder-approval for a blocksize
bump.

~~~
stordoff
Even if that were the case, why would it reveal Satoshi? Even if the real
Satoshi felt the need to step in, he wouldn't need to reveal himself or open
up future communications - just post an anonymous message signed with a known
key that states "I am not Craig Wright".

~~~
mehdix
This is the best solution so far, however, it assumes the real Satoshi is
still around.

------
csomar
This is a hoax I think. And also Gavin supporting it is weird. The Signature
in the blog post, is, in fact a signature from this transaction:
828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe

Relevant Reddit Comment:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wrigh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wright_reveals_himself_as_satoshi_nakamoto/d2pf5op)

~~~
divbyzer0
Andresen's support would make sense in the context of building a new
blockchain\bitcoin business.

To have Satoshi & Bitcoin's chief scientist would be impressive for a start-
up.

Too good in fact.

~~~
csomar
No. It'd just kill his career in the bitcoin world.

------
meowface
Reposting my other comment:

I think Wright is just a smooth-talking conman with some crypto experience.
I'm betting he met Gavin and other (unfortunately, merely "supposed" at this
point...) experts in person, talked shop for a while, then took out his laptop
and staged verifying the signature of blocks 1 and 9 with dummy commands.
(Edit: Gavin actually claimed it was a clean computer, not one that Wright
brought. Disregard that.)

The Economist actually states this directly:

>Mr Wright has also demonstrated this verification in person to The
Economist—and not just for block 9, but block 1. Such demonstrations can be
stage-managed; and information that allows us to go through the verification
process independently was provided too late for us to do so fully. Still, as
far as we can tell he indeed seems to be in possession of the keys, at least
for block 9. This assessment is shared by two bitcoin insiders who have sat
through the same demonstration: Jon Matonis, a bitcoin consultant and former
director of the Bitcoin Foundation, and Gavin Andresen, Mr Nakamoto’s
successor as the lead developer of the cryptocurrency’s software (he has since
passed on the baton, but is still contributing to the code).

Relevant bit:

>Such demonstrations can be stage-managed; and information that allows us to
go through the verification process independently was provided too late for us
to do so fully.

For Gavin's demonstration, he claims Wright validated the signatures on a
"clean" computer, with the implication that it could not be staged.

>Part of that time was spent on a careful cryptographic verification of
messages signed with keys that only Satoshi should possess. But even before I
witnessed the keys signed and then verified on a clean computer that could not
have been tampered with, I was reasonably certain I was sitting next to the
Father of Bitcoin.

So, either the clean computer wasn't really clean, or Gavin's complicit in the
scam, or Wright does have Satoshi's private keys and may be Satoshi.

Either way, why would Satoshi want to prove it yet only demonstrate proof to a
few people in private rather than putting a message and signature online for
anyone to verify?

~~~
comboy
> I think Wright is just a smooth-talking conman with some crypto experience.
> I'm betting he met Gavin and other (unfortunately, merely "supposed" at this
> point...) experts in person, talked shop for a while, then took out his
> laptop and staged verifying the signature of blocks 1 and 9 with dummy
> commands.

I don't believe that anybody with the most basic understanding of cryptography
would fall for that. I don't think there is a slightest chance that Gavin
would. So the most interesting part of the story to me is why did he publish
his blog post.. Something made him do that, but it's beyond doubt to me that
he did not take part in planning of this operation.

~~~
meowface
I agree that it seems extremely absurd Bitcoin experts would fall for that.

I'm very interested to see how this story develops.

~~~
zipwitch
It doesn't seem at all absurd to me that an expert at any subject, speaking to
someone else they believe is another honest expert, but who is actually an
experienced con-artist / fraudster, can be fooled. Don't think of it as one
cryptographer deceiving another via cryptography. Think of it more like a Penn
& Teller trick (to use an example of some well-known experts in the art of
deceit - not that I think for a moment they'd ever actually defraud someone)
only with the computers and cryptography. The actual deception is likely so
far outside the mark's expectations and normal thought processes that the
possibility of it never even occurs to them.

------
MariuszGalus
This guy > [http://cdn.static-
economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...](http://cdn.static-
economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-
width/images/2016/05/articles/main/20160430_blp539.jpg) < cannot possibly be
Satoshi Nakamoto. He looks, feels, and smells like a conman. It only takes one
red flag to question credibility and this guy has several.

1\. Contradicts himself, privacy vs brokering a deal with major media outlets
for a story.

2\. Faking LinkedIn experience & degrees.

3\. Associates believe he is 'crazy' and a 'conman'

4\. Failed the writing syntax test comparing his multiple published works to
the original posts and bitcoin paper and eventually...

5\. ...Shifting blame or holes in his story towards the DEAD known people
who've worked on Bitcoin or who had contact with Satoshi in the past.

6\. SGI does not acknowledge him or his claimed statements regarding his
relationship with SGI.

7\. And I'm not going to go any further... the point is, he has too many
'excuses' for every little thing.

I understand he wants to be infallible and unchallenged in his claim, but just
the number of alibis and excuses he dishes out, sans his questionable private-
key proof, leaves a gut feeling that he's not Satoshi and smells of con.

~~~
koluft
Don't judge people by their looks when their actions speak far louder.

~~~
MariuszGalus
Sorry, I'm just taking this a bit personally because I know a guy who ruined a
few peoples' lives by telling lies habitually and scamming for investors. For
me, Dr. Wright relates to him and already as a bias I paint a bad image.

------
6nf
There's no real proof here that Craig is Satoshi. If he really wanted to prove
it to us, he would need to sign a message saying 'Craig Wright is Satoshi
signed 2016-05-02' using the genesis block key.

Read his post: [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
significance/) he goes into all sorts of details but then glosses over the
fact that the arbitrary Sartre quote could have been signed by anyone at any
point in the past.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Or he could just use the PGP key he used on the mailing list for months at the
start of bitcoin's life.

~~~
melchebo
Or donate some of the first blocks (s)he mined.

~~~
6nf
Pre-announce and donate Block 1 to the red cross or whatever.

------
darawk
This is a very interesting situation. Fundamentally, there is no reason he
shouldn't be willing to sign an additional message. If he is the crypto expert
he claims to be, he should understand the perfect legitimacy of such a
request. So either:

a) He can't sign it.

b) He is really that petulant and petty that he "won't keep jumping through
hoops", even when those hoops represent completely reasonable and trivially
fulfillable requests. Which itself doesn't really seem to match the
temperament I would have expected Satoshi to have, though i'm certainly no
expert on the man.

Something is wrong here. I'm not unconvinced, but i'm suspiciously reserving
judgment until he signs a second, unpredictable message.

~~~
saalweachter
Well, there is (d) paranoia.

Suppose he does have the private key, but, because it is literally worth
millions of dollars, he has it somewhere secure. It's not sitting on his
laptop, waiting for someone to steal it (physically or electronically).

Signing a message before the announcement was lower risk than signing messages
now, after the announcement. Accessing it a second time, with greedy little
eyes all over him, is risking millions of dollars to convince people who
probably wouldn't be convinced anyway.

------
om2
_" Mr Wright does not want to make public the proof for block 1, arguing that
block 9 contains the only bitcoin address that is clearly linked to Mr
Nakamoto (because he sent money to Hal Finney). Repeating the procedure for
other blocks, he says, would not add more certainty. He also says he can’t
send any bitcoin because they are now owned by a trust. And he rejected the
idea of having The Economist send him another text to sign as proof that he
actually possesses these private keys, rather than simply being the first to
publish a proof which was generated at some point in the past by somebody
else."_

Sounds extremely dubious. Especially when he's presented fake proof before.

------
markbao
Craig Wright says that (the late) "Hal Finney was one of the engineers who
helped turn Mr Wright's ideas into the Bitcoin protocol", according to this
article.

However, in Hal Finney's "Bitcoin and Me" post, Hal says he mined the first
block in 2008, then turned the miner off, and then heard about Bitcoin again
in 2010 and transferred his coins to a cold wallet. But he doesn't say
anything about working on the protocol.
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833#ms...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833#msg1643833)

Interesting story there. Either way – RIP, Hal.

~~~
rdl
Hopefully Hal comes back in some years in the future and sets the record
straight. (He's at Alcor now)

~~~
erdojo
Hal Finney (sadly) died two years ago.

~~~
csomar
No. He was cryonized. Hopefully, the future makes it possible to resurrect him
to life.

~~~
davidgerard
Alcor's competence, unfortunately, leaves a little to be desired.
[http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-
pein](http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein)

~~~
rdl
I've been to their conferences, and am a member.

I agree they could do far better. I think they are doing the best they think
they can do. I think the entire field got poisoned by defining itself in some
kind of struggle in the 60s/70s against anti-cryo people, which is stupid.

IVF, organ banking, etc. are progressing nicely. The Russians are doing a
great job on human cryo. My hope is that the Alcor preservations are still
good enough today that recovery is possible, although it's likely a better
preservation technique, causing less damage, might lead to a recoverable
person at an earlier date (i.e. Alcor 2016 person is recoverable in 2100; RU-
Cryo person cryopreserved with better technology and technique in 2020 is
recoverable in 2070.)

I still think Alcor is better odds than box in the ground or being
incinerated. For ~$1k/yr (membership + insurance), it's worth it to me, even
if only to fund/etc. research.

------
blakeross
"One of the most useful lessons I learned from working at Facebook had nothing
to do with technology: Doubt the media. Always doubt the media."

([https://medium.com/@blakeross/don-t-outsource-your-
thinking-...](https://medium.com/@blakeross/don-t-outsource-your-thinking-
ad825a9b4653))

I'm happy to see that The Economist, at least, has a healthy sense of
skepticism.

------
apsec112
Gavin Andresen says he's verified that Wright is Satoshi. If this is a hoax, a
lot of people are going to wind up with a lot of egg on their faces. :)

[http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi](http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi)

~~~
digitaurus
This happens. The historian Hugh Trevor Roper was the world's greatest expert
on Adolf Hitler and fell for a scam, famously publicly endorsing some fake
'Hitler diaries'.

------
patio11
Much more useful link: [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
significance/)

Working through it now -- lets say I am rapidly heading towards "Not a hoax"
territory.

[Edit: Or, possibly, totally quackadoodle -- but very convinced-in-himself
quackadoodle. I've gotten as far as proving "OK, he knows how to reverse a
Bitcoin address into a public key, and picked a good address for the
purpose."]

~~~
patio11
I was unable to torture the inputs into verifying, despite worksmanlike
effort, unless I trusted calculations made by "the adversary."

I consider the posts by others of this thread of a Bitcoin transaction with
the same signature to be dispositive that he was not signing any variant of
the Sartre message.

Conclusion: a) The linked blog post is pure hokum. b) I'm very clear on how he
got this past generalist media but unsure of how he got it past Gavin.

~~~
bootload
Patrick, Gavin is just a person and as fallible as any other person. If a long
con is being attempted, everything may appear to be right. Extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence. Time will tell.

------
VMG
Again? This was debunked months ago when he first tried to pull of this stunt.

Remember, it's easy to prove you're Satoshi by either

* Signing a message with his PGP key [http://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/satoshinakamoto.asc](http://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/satoshinakamoto.asc)

* Signing a message with one of his early Bitcoin address keys

Edit: apparently he did the latter, quote article

> Mr Wright said he planned to release information that would allow others to
> cryptographically verify that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Wonder why it takes so much planning.

Edit2: apparently he signed something

[http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
significance/)

Gavin Adresen also is convinced:
[http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi](http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi)

Edit3:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707)

~~~
jcoffland
His proof has been shown to be fake.

~~~
VMG
He didn't sign a message "Craig Wright is Satoshi", which would be the proper
way to prove this.

The signature he has could come from one of the signatures the real Satoshi
has created.

Edit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707)

The signature came from a blockchain tx.

------
ipsum2
This article from 2015 was right after all:
[https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-
nakam...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is-
probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/)

~~~
VMG
No, journalism is in an even worse shape than we expected.

------
toopok4k3
Why is no one talking about Dave Kleiman, the wheelchaired man who died in
2013? He was supposedly a friend of Wright. My gut feeling is that he was the
real Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright just sounds like an fraudulent opportunist who
tries to bank by all means necessary from knowing the guys secret.

~~~
jbpetersen
Nick Szabo as Satoshi is my own hypothesis.

------
manigandham
That's really interesting. I've been updating this Quora answer for a while
and he actually commented on it saying "People always know" in Sep 2015 before
his name ever came up.

I'm not sure I believe his comments fully in his latest video though. It seems
he's been conflicted for a long time on whether to reveal himself but for all
the times he says he wants to be left alone, he easily could have but yet here
he is.

[https://www.quora.com/Who-is-most-likely-Satoshi-
Nakamoto/an...](https://www.quora.com/Who-is-most-likely-Satoshi-
Nakamoto/answers/4157306)

~~~
hmsln
[https://www.quora.com/profile/Frank-
Blu/log](https://www.quora.com/profile/Frank-Blu/log)

The owner of the profile of the person who answered your question (whoever he
is) seems to have changed his username from "Craig S Wright" to Frank Blu on
Dec 12th 2015. He also seems to have deleted, on that same day, every post he
made on Quora after Dec 11 2014.

The titles of the questions on which he posted revolved a lot around
cryptocurrencies, cryptography and supercomputers, as well as finance and
economics. Some example of questions to which he contributed are:

"How large will the Bitcoin blockchain be in November 2015?" "How would I
estimate the cost of setting up a 100 Tera-Flop server at my..." "Why is gold
considered so precious and why does it have such high prices..." "Are there
better uses of stimulus funds than others?"

His earliest activity on the site is the creation of a topic called CSCSS, on
Jul 30th 2012.

[https://www.quora.com/topic/CSCSS](https://www.quora.com/topic/CSCSS)

------
danso
A little OT, but whenever the "real" Satoshi Nakamoto is found, what does that
mean for the lawsuit that Dorian Nakamoto has against Newsweek and its 2014
claim?

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/dorian-
nakamoto-f...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/dorian-nakamoto-
fingered-as-bitcoin-creator-wants-to-sue-newsweek/)

------
altotrees
Unless Craig Wright comes out with further proof, proof that is undeniable and
unquestionable, I am left feeling sick to my stomach.

I have read several articles this morning which tout this event as total fact
(BBC, Venturebeat, NPR and more), and it just saddens me. If this is a hoax, I
have lost even more respect for these outlets. If this is a hoax, I have also
lost respect for Gavin Andersen, unless he has an ulterior motive for backing
Wright in the first place, or was hacked as some have speculated.

Whenever this kind of "unveiling" happens, I get disheartened. It makes a
serious technical community and set of ides I care very much about look like
little more than a soap-opera or disorganized group of gossip-hounds, as
protrayed in major media outlets, overshadowing everything else.

Total bummer (until further proof and/or notice).

------
IkmoIkmo
It's kinda sad this is being reported by credible journals, it's super likely
to be completely false. I'm glad on HN the link states it's just a claim, and
that on the economist it's phrased as a question: 'is he Satoshi?' (the rule
being in 99/100 cases, the answer is no.) But I've seen otherwise.

~~~
bambax
Agence France Presse (AFP) says in English "Australian entrepreneur Craig
Wright on Monday revealed himself as the creator of the virtual Bitcoin
currency to media outlets..." which in French becomes "Bitcoin: le véritable
créateur de la monnaie numérique est Craig Wright".

This translates as "the actual inventor of the virtual Bitcoin currency IS
Craig Wright", conditionals or precautions be damned; and it's printed as is
all over the French press this morning.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Yup, Dutch media it was less bad but still not great.

Instead of saying it was a 'claim', or preferably not writing anything about
this scam, they wrote 'Wright admits he's Satoshi' in the title.

This 'admitting' implies everyone thought he was Satoshi, and he confirmed it.
When in reality, everyone thinks he's definitely not it, and he claimed it
without proof.

Then in the article they make completely false claims about him signing
messages he didn't etc. It's really sad, there wasn't a hint of skepticism
that was present in the Economist which I thought was poor itself already.

------
dang
We changed the URL from [http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-
finance/21698060-...](http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-
finance/21698060-craig-wright-reveals-himself-as-satoshi-nakamoto), which
points to this longer story.

------
jdlee0
There's more chicanery in Wright's code [1]

In the posted image of EcDSA.verify.sh, he base64 decodes $sign _i_ ture, but
this is uninitialised. The path is stored in $sign _a_ ture.

[http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-
significance/)

------
malbs
Didn't they debunk this guy as a hack? /r/bitcoin pretty much destroyed him
when he popped up last time

------
LeoPanthera
> arguing that block 9 contains the only bitcoin address that is clearly
> linked to Mr Nakamoto (because he sent money to Hal Finney)

Block 9 contains no transactions other than the mining reward.

[https://blockchain.info/block-
index/14858/000000008d9dc510f2...](https://blockchain.info/block-
index/14858/000000008d9dc510f23c2657fc4f67bea30078cc05a90eb89e84cc475c080805)

~~~
murbul
Block 9 reward payout address 12cbQ... was used in the transaction to Hal
Finney later in block 170.

------
adefa
Funny to go back and watch this panel:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&feature=youtu.be&t=57s)

------
partycoder
Some time ago I read this: [https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-
deserved-f...](https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-
fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/)

Not sure how effective this is, but if this is true then Satoshi has been
awarded most of the bitcoins.

------
joeyspn
Here we go again... anatomy of a new _" satoshi unmasked!"_ story:

\- Big media spreads bs claims (check)

\- BTC price drop (check)

\- Community CSI debunks story (check)

\- New core devs drama chapter (check)

\- Back to "normal" __

------
neuropie
The proof contains some strange bash commands, using & instead of &&:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610192)

------
argc
It would be pretty annoying if he was making all this up. Posting a signed
random quote does not prove anything. Signing something provably recent is
better, especially if that is message akin to "Satoshi is Craig".

------
curiousgal
So either Gavin knew or didn't. As a core dev I am not sure which is worse.

------
faraggi
I don't want to sound like a nerd-snob, but isn't weird that the potential
Satoshi Nakamoto uses Windows and notepad? [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-
paul-sartre-signing-signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-
signing-significance/)

I mean, to each his own- especially when talking about dev tools- so why not I
guess?

~~~
TD-Linux
Not really. The original Satoshi client only ran on Windows.

------
termos
Craig: But how will those who don't get ECC believe that it's me?

X: Set your hostname to be wintermute, that should remove all doubt people
might have.

------
scott_s
On the academic side of things, he has a very thin paper trail:
[http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/w/Wright:Craig_S=](http://dblp.uni-
trier.de/pers/hd/w/Wright:Craig_S=) and
[http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81488659808&coll=DL&dl=...](http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81488659808&coll=DL&dl=ACM&trk=0&cfid=779669783&cftoken=67111435)

I'm not saying the real Satoshi _has_ to be an academic computer scientist,
but if someone with a significant academic publication record in cryptography
stepped forward, I would take it much more seriously.

Of course, this is secondary to the fact that Wright has not signed a new
message with the original Satoshi key.

------
bshimmin
I'm not sure whether I actually care if he is or if he isn't - there's just so
much good material in this story: hidden super computers and theology degrees
and all sorts of craziness. The only thing that could really improve it would
be a link to Paul Le Roux!

------
daemonk
If this is fake, is this some kind of ploy to flush out the real Satoshi? Or a
publicity stunt?

------
eggy
What I find fascinating about all of this as a normal techie, not a crypto
specialist, is whether he is Satoshi or not, the idea of "Satoshi" in all its
guessing will be bigger than Craig Steven Wright, or I would say even the real
Satoshi if he came out and proved it. We romance our notions of who is behind
something to the point where that notion is too grand to be filled by an
ordinary (pretty smart) human being.

Only Craig Steven Wright for sure, and possibly the real Satoshi, knows the
truth. Whomever it is, he can cash out to the tune of $450 million!

Fun being on the sidelines here, but I do have a heavy intellectual, emotional
investment in the idea of Bitcoin, and I hope it carries on.

------
heimatau
"Mr Wright has also demonstrated this verification in person to The
Economist—and not just for block 9, but block 1." Economist confirms:
[http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-
steve...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven-
wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin)

BBC says it's also confirmed through GQ but I don't see anything related yet.

(My view below)

The way he is communicating in the interview sounds like the government was
putting pressure on him. Whomever is 'forcing him' to come out as Nakamoto, I
don't think this will end well for Wright nor his companies.

------
keithpeter
>> _In future, he explained, the blockchain could become so vast that it could
keep track of every Visa transaction, every stock-exchange transaction, every
bank transaction and much more. “We could even create an individual account
for that tissue”, he said, pointing to a paper napkin on the table._ <<

Quote from OA. Would this not short circuit any form of privacy? Or would
various agencies and individuals still have to show that the various 'napkin
accounts' that make up one's daily transaction count belonged to the same
person?

I'm less concerned with the identity of Nakamoto and more concerned with the
shape of the future!

~~~
aab0
> Would this not short circuit any form of privacy?

As far as I can tell, Wright wants to extend the blockchain considerably,
adding opcodes to get Turing-complete functionality. Among other things, he's
hinted at using ring signatures for tracking things, which would give one both
secure control and anonymity. (I think Monero and its descendants may have
stolen that thunder, though.)

------
brunomarx
I don't believe he would be so naive to publish this without having checked
that matter with transaction
828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe before.

------
gnuvince
Why do people care about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto?

~~~
acomjean
I don't know. Its kind of like "celebrity culture". I'm a little bit of an
outlier on these things (I lack a facebook account)

There is something in human brains that makes us really want to know about
social network around us. Despite the strange URL this article tries to expain
it [1]

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-
ooze/201503/why...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-
ooze/201503/why-caring-about-celebrities-can-be-good-you)

------
grondilu
That looks like an extremely elaborated way to make a claim that could
normally be done in a few lines.

And even if the claim would _require_ a long explanation, for instance if
Satoshi lost or destroyed the keys for the first few blocks, or the passwords
to his accounts on several forums where he used to write, there would be no
need for him to do this explanation himself. The burden of the proof his on
him, but not the explanation of the proof.

~~~
danielweber
The LiteCoin founder showed how easy it was:

[https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520](https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520)

------
martin1975
Satoshi can also log into bitcointalk.org where the real Satoshi communicated
with the public for quite some time during and after the release of the
bitcoin client. Can Wright log into it and post or is he gonna claim he forgot
his password? Oh wait, a password can be reset. Oh no, he forgot his password
to the email he registered on BitcoinTalk.org.. Damn... I guess we're SOL :).

~~~
aab0
No, he can't. That email was probably the hacked one, and Theymos locked the
Bitcointalk account ages ago. And that's a dumb method of proof compared to
cryptographic ones anyway - how many times has Bitcointalk been hacked now? 2?
3?

------
bobwaycott
What is up with this specific comment thread being so horribly wide on mobile?
Why isn't CSS enforcing a width and wrapping the page?

~~~
DanBC
This thread contains several posts that have very long, unbroken, lines. If
those lines had started with four (two?) spaces they've have got different CSS
- the pre-formatting would have put the very long unbroken line inside a
different box with scrollbars.

Here's one example post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610111)

~~~
bobwaycott
The top comment seems to be the one that sets the tone, and it doesn't look
like anything should be in a code block:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610101)

Edit: oddly, going directly to that comment looks better than going to the
main thread. It's still smaller than normal on mobile, but nowhere near as bad
as the main thread.

Here's what things look like for me in Safari on iOS:

[https://imgur.com/a/KVrSX](https://imgur.com/a/KVrSX)

------
rurban
I was convinced at the first outing 2015 already:
[https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-
nakam...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is-
probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/)

------
cm3
My impression is that these things happen in order to try to force the real
Satoshi to come forward. I wouldn't be surprised if guys like Wright are paid
and supported by others to do this. I hope Satoshi will never be revealed and
don't see what that would provide anyway. Just leave them be.

------
headgasket
sit the guy in a room. Fire up sublime, emacs, vim, or whatever IDE. Give him
an hour to write an app in C++ to solve something trivial that he does not
know in advance, such as the 8 queens problem. End of debate. The guy most
likely cannot code to save his life.

------
auggierose
Well, he either is Satoshi, or a genius conman. I would love for him to be
Satoshi, it would be a great story. It's also ridiculous that people think
they would be able to derive the personality of someone from a paper he wrote.

------
mamadontloveme
What is this - some kind of really, really weird hiring campaign for crypto
folks?

------
bobowzki
Maybe he is trying to get Nakamoto to out himself..? His claim is ridiculous.

------
mattanical
Guess the only way he can really prove he is S.N. is that he transfers cca.
million bitcoins to himself for everyone to see ;) ...Wanna see that happen,
lol. (most probably S.N. is a group not a person).

------
return0
So does the bitcoin community prefer it if the real satoshi comes forward or
not? It seems that many would prefer a leader to set the future of bitcoin,
eventhough that's counter to its principles.

------
nathanscully
"Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to amassed about one million Bitcoins which
would give him a net worth, if all were converted to cash, of about $450m."

Anyone know what this was worth at its peak?

~~~
abhi3
The question is can he liquidate his holdings without causing a market crash?
Not just because of economics of demand and supply but because of the
psychological effects on the market.

~~~
smegger001
considering the cause for him needing to liquidate is known, he has major tax
penalties he has to pay, exchanging them now won't cause as big of a stir as
if he did it when he was anonymous and would lead to suspicion of some sort of
problem with the protocol. and a run to cash in.

------
richtr
BBC interview with Craig Wright (video, 4m50s)

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36168863](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36168863)

------
Houshalter
This comment section is unreadable on mobile. Why is it so wide?

------
brunomarx
It seems, we either have someone lying or a SHA-256 collision.

------
brunomarx
[https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification](https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification)

------
discardorama
Simple. Satoshi owns millions of BTC. Anyone claiming to be Satoshi should
just spend a small chunk of BTC from that initial block as a challenge
response.

------
EGreg
Satoshi Nakamoto was most likely a group, like Bourbaki.

~~~
known
I second it

------
neugier
Might the reason they were fooled so easily be, that they were flattered, that
Satoshi would reveal himself to them, but not the community directly?

------
heimatau
Edit: (Sad that I submitted the long story yet original submission was just a
snippet but HN mods change the submission.) That's not fair.

Not full story. Just snippet.

Full story (HN Sub):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609708)

Direct: [http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-
steve...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven-
wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin)

------
EwanToo
In a way it's a slightly disappointing end to the mystery!

~~~
mystcb
I see what you mean! It felt like the end of the Perplexity puzzle that
existed, the moment it was found the excitement behind it all just didn't keep
going!

Mind you, the card to find someone using six degrees of separation is also
called Satoshi!

[http://perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Billion_to_One](http://perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Billion_to_One)

~~~
jazzychad
Hah, I was just thinking about Perplex City the other day and wondered if that
Satoshi was ever found. I really did love that game and the community around
it.

~~~
foota
Based on the wikipedia page that is one of two cards never solved, the other
being the Riemann hypothesis.

~~~
foota
I'm curious, why are people downvoting this?

------
alfiedotwtf
Just remember that The Economist a few years ago published a story on Steorn's
Perpetual Motion machine.

You don't go to The Economist when you want hard hitting investigative
journalism - you go The Economist when you need investor money.

~~~
icebraining
It was a (full-page) ad, not a story, not even a "sponsored" one, as the
layout was quite distinct:
[http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/images/steorn_economist_a...](http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/images/steorn_economist_ad.jpg)

~~~
alfiedotwtf
What's the difference between this and Nature having a full page ad for a
Homeopathy clinic?

------
sschueller
Is he going to way in on the whole Blockchain size debate?

------
max_
I wont believe so unless he signs the first block

------
disposeofnick9
Dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609619)

------
krick
Does it even matter? Why?

------
iamcreasy
I was hoping they would ask him why choose the name 'Satoshi Nakamoto'?

~~~
Untit1ed
The BBC article stated that Nakamoto was after Tominaga Nakamoto, and Satoshi
was a secret.

------
gsibble
Fascinating. Why would he chose to reveal himself now?

------
nxzero
Satoshi is Satoshi; please leave things be.

------
jmalloc
Are the details of the key signing public?

------
homero
Beyond fake

------
known
Hoax

------
redsummer
"He also says he can’t send any bitcoin because they are now owned by a
trust."

Well, the trust could create a new address, and send btc to itself. This above
all makes me not believe him.

~~~
danielweber
When he talks to media, he uses technobabble bamboozle.

When he talks to tech, he uses legalbabble bamboozle.

Even if he didn't want to transfer any original BTC pre-news-release, they
could have coordinated for him to transfer 1 BTC from an early block to some
charity at the time of reveal.

------
edoloughlin
Tech journalists: "Bitcoin creator confirms his identity by using, um, crypto
stuff. Or something"

------
xiphias
Of course he wants to be left alone: he didn't pay taxes. Also of course there
is no real public proof as he's not Satoshi.

~~~
f3llowtraveler
He wouldn't owe any taxes. At least, not any income tax. The coins were
worthless when he first mined them, and so there wouldn't have been any tax
due.

If he were to sell the coins now, he might incur a capital gains tax,
depending on where he lives.

~~~
xiphias
The tax fraud doesn't have anything to do with Bitcoin. The top comment
explains it more, but it was clear from earlier news about him as well.

------
omarforgotpwd
interesting that he didn't want to reveal his identity, but got in trouble and
thought it might help

------
abhi3
I'm sure people will still question his claims even though this should settle
the debate.

------
im3w1l
This is bittersweet. I loved the mystery and the whole guessing game of _what
Satoshi Nakamoto would have wanted_.

------
toomim
It's funny how many commenters on hacker news think that this is actually
satoshi nakamoto.

~~~
brunomarx
Man Has Never Set Foot on The Moon

------
daurnimator
Looks like the sceptics at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10701785](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10701785)
were wrong. Interesting to read through now that the truth is known.

------
dark_void
Why would he verify that he is the creator? Even though Bitcoin is past the
phase where the governments can criminalize it publicly they will surely
torture him in every roundabout way possible for the rest of his life.

He seems to be owning up to it in order to protect others but I think he has
no idea what he is getting into. They mention that his house was raided a
couple of years ago but I guess that didn't phase him.

~~~
_yosefk
Governments could have criminalized it at any point, they can criminalize it
now, and they will certainly criminalize it in the future if they feel a need
to do so (unless this thing gets used by >1% of the population which I'm
willing to bet money against.) They didn't because they didn't want to. If
they wanted to know who created Bitcoin in order to "torture" them they would
have found out, at this point we know how good they are at this sort of thing;
also, if they wanted to "torture" prominent people behind the Bitcoin software
there was never a shortage of people with known identities. That he didn't pay
his taxes seems to be a separate issue.

