
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - sindreaa
http://www.drcraigwright.net/extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-proof/
======
alva
If by some extremely small chance he is Satoshi And his identity was close to
being revealed (I think his name was first lingering in the ether around
August), this could be a truly beautiful sleight of hand.

Purposely release 'proof' you know could be quickly refuted. Get the papers
covering you with lots of photos and unnecessary blurb about companies you
have been involved in. Drag the whole ordeal out over a week or two. Would
come across as a complete loony, attention seeker in the tech community no?
Quickly forgotten about and dismissed as Satoshi for a long time.

Do note! I do not imagine this is the case, but wouldn't it be great if it
was?

~~~
kbenson
The only thing greater would be if he actually was both a complete loony _and_
all his claims were true. It would be interesting to have something as
important and useful as Bitcoin have an origin such as that.

------
tcoppi
Watching this unfold is simply fascinating to me from a sociological point of
view. The number of scammers, liars, and pure weirdos that have gravitated to
Bitcoin is incredible. I am simultaneously entertained, and saddened that
people like this are able to wield such power over the community.

~~~
tacos
It's reaching the point where you have to consider external motivations to
damaging Bitcoin's credibility. The only thing keeping me out of full-on
tinfoil hat mode is that this stuff just felt shady and douchebag riddled from
day one.

~~~
bsder
The fact that coins could be "mined" was the problem from day 1. This created
a pyramid scheme/gold rush system that tainted everything.

Of course, if you are holding a large chunk of the initial coins, this is
exactly what you want. In addition, there are always lots of people willing to
fall for pyramid schemes, so it's good to bootstrap adoption.

Once Bitcoin finishes being "mined out", we'll see if it has any value. I
suspect that answer is "not".

------
reso
All we need is a signed message. That's all, Craig.

------
tunesmith
This is a prime opportunity for skeptics to identify for themselves, _ahead of
time_ , the clear conditions where

1) If Wright meets them, they will accept he is Satoshi 2) If Wright doesn't,
then they will not

A great exercise in avoiding the moving of goalposts, by setting a clear
expectation ahead of time.

~~~
ultramancool
Just sign a message using the pubkey in the genesis block and I'll admit it.
No questions asked.

Just like Charlie Lee did for Litecoin here:
[https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520](https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520)
(he did it to show just how easy and provable it is)

Anything less and I have to question it or call bullshit. Current state is
complete bullshit.

Moving coin from early blocks is not nearly as good. Bitcoin was publicized
early on a few mailing lists so it'd be entirely possible he's just an early
user trying to game himself up as the creator. Statistical evidence combined
with moving early coin could be semi-convincing, but still not as simple and
absolute as a single signature using the pubkey in the genesis block. Proving
this is dead easy and that signature is the on/off bit for me.

~~~
curiousgal
What if, and this is a big IF, he is Satoshi and somehow "lost" that key?

Heck what if the real Satoshi lost that key, how would he make us believe him
if he were to step out of the shadows?

~~~
MBCook
Then Satoshi is, for the purpose Bitcoin, dead. If there is no way to prove
who Satoshi really was, what other term could we use?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Then Satoshi is, for the purpose Bitcoin, dead. If there is no way to prove
> who Satoshi really was, what other term could we use?

"Satoshi's identity is unknowable" would be a more accurate description of
that scenario that "Satoshi is dead".

~~~
curiousgal
Well, speaking of dead, here's an interesting theory.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hnbli/did_someone...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hnbli/did_someone_rule_out_kleiman_wrights_dead_friend/)

------
jgrahamc
Don't need any more proof that transferring BTC from a block that Satoshi
controlled. Don't need reams of explanation or blog posts or anything else.

~~~
mbgaxyz
True, but possession of private keys does not prove identity. Having Gavin
confirm that this is indeed the person he spoke with thoughout the years is
also important. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next. Craig has
certainly left us with a cliffhanger...

~~~
throwanem
He really hasn't. His _ordinary_ proof has already been debunked, repeatedly
and in detail, so now he's spinning a bunch of bullshit to convince the
foolishly credulous they should trust him in spite of the plain facts of the
matter.

~~~
ifdefdebug
I'm not sure. Gavin has high reputation, and he has not yet revoked his
support for Craig's claim. Maybe there will come irrefutable cryptographic
proof around the next days. Or maybe not.

AAMOF, in yesterdays post, he talked about crypto, but he did not claim it to
be proof for anything. Today he is announcing proof for the next days. We'll
see...

~~~
captn3m0
Do we have any explanation on why Gavin hasn't revoked his post yet? He seems
to be tweeting supportive articles as well. Are we still going with the
"account was hacked" theory?

~~~
TillE
People who get scammed are usually reluctant to admit it, even to themselves.
I expect he'll come around in the next few days if and when there's no public
proof forthcoming from Wright.

------
Lxr
The guy is clearly an attention seeker, he has provided literally zero proof
he’s anyone noteworthy so let’s move on. He will likely continue to trickle
these convoluted and increasingly desperate blog posts as people gradually
forget about him.

~~~
narrator
This is reminding me of watching a free energy scam unfold. Lots of big
announcements, pending big announcements, some half ass attempts at
validation, some more news of tinkering and delay, etc, etc. He still can't
come up with the signature or the excess energy.

~~~
TillE
Exactly. Everything about the way this has been handled raises the classic red
flags of a scam, pseudoscientific or otherwise. The evasiveness, the
obfuscation, the private controlled circumstances under which "proof" is
provided.

He has a claim that would take five minutes to conclusively prove, but he
keeps spinning it out.

------
fapjacks
This thing stinks _exactly_ like when those two guys claimed to have shot and
killed a bigfoot, and "within a few days" they were going to "prove it" once
and for all. They ended up of course having a rubber costume in a freezer.
This post has totally hammered it home for me. I have everything I need to
know that this guy is a scamming compulsive liar.

------
kbenson
> For some there is no burden of proof high enough, no evidence that cannot be
> dismissed as fabrication or manipulation. This is the nature of belief and
> swimming against this current would be futile.

Regardless of whether his claims are true or not, this portion seems self
evident. People have too much invested emotionally in the outcome of this, for
some reason, to allow this to be settled easily. One only needs to look at
some of the discussions regarding this on HN to see people pointing at a
single piece of evidence that can be interpreted multiple ways to make
absolutist claims about this subject.

~~~
woodman
Given the context, a trustless cryptographic system, the phrases "self
evident" and "the nature of belief" are really out of place. This could all be
easily settled - no faith required.

~~~
kbenson
Given that I was referring to the irrational behavior of the people involved
in the discussion as a sociological event, and was not referring to the
cryptographic system at all, I don't think they are out of place at all.

> This could all be easily settled - no faith required.

My point is that I think there will be some people, far more than we should be
comfortable with, which at this point have invested themselves so much
emotionally in the outcome, that no proof will be enough. There's always some
possible explanation, no matter how outlandish.

~~~
woodman
> ...behavior of the people involved in the discussion...

It is the context of the "sociological event" that I refer to, not the
discussion about the discussion that you seem to have in mind.

> There's always some possible explanation, no matter how outlandish.

You are describing the satisfiability problem, where a lot of contrived
problems are obviously impossible to satisfy. That isn't emotionally driven
goalpost moving, that is a strict adherence to reason.

~~~
kbenson
> It is the context of the "sociological event" that I refer to, not the
> discussion about the discussion that you seem to have in mind.

Then let me clarify my intent. That "for some there is no burden of proof high
enough, no evidence that cannot be dismissed as fabrication or manipulation."
see,s self evident from my experience in seeing how people are treating this
discussion, and the "evidence" being put out to support or discredit any
specific claim, not just of Craig Wright, but of those just putting forth
possible explanations for his reasoning for his actions, in cased presupposing
him as both a fraud and as Satoshi. I think this has less to do with it being
about a cryptographic system than it does with people really liking the
mystery, and wanting to hold onto their belief in it.

> You are describing the satisfiability problem, where a lot of contrived
> problems are obviously impossible to satisfy. That isn't emotionally driven
> goalpost moving, that is a strict adherence to reason.

I wouldn't call the belief the moon landing was faked a strict adherence to
reason, and I think the same underlying motivations are at play. This will
play out, and the vast majority of people will come to the same belief, but I
believe, through what I've witnessed so far, that there will be a core the
refuses to let go of some of the more outlandish possibilities.

~~~
woodman
I'm sorry, but your clarifying statement left me even more uncertain about
your message. I think we'll just have to leave it, the comparison of any party
in a discussion to moon landing conspiracy theorists pretty much shuts down
the conversation in a Godwin like fashion.

~~~
kbenson
I think you really are misinterpreting me. I wasn't using belief of the moon
landing hoax in a terribly disparaging way, and I wasn't comparing a single
party of a discussion to people with that belief, but multiple people from
both sides (if you think I was taking a side, I urge you to re-read my
comments considering that I most definitely _am not_ ). That doesn't make them
stupid, it just means they have a narrative that they believe, and are
invested in, and that makes certain ideas that others would consider not worth
considering much more likely to be true in their eyes. Everyone does this,
some of us have a narrative that's more likely to match with reality in some
instances than others, but by the nature of the problem it's very hard to know
if that applies to yourself.

------
theli0nheart
If Dr. Wright is indeed taking us for a ride, he doesn't seem worried that the
"real" Satoshi won't come out and expose him as a fraud (like he did a few
years ago with Dorian Nakamoto). Although the circumstances were different
then, the chances of this happening are absolutely non-zero, and it could
happen at any time. Why continue pushing the issue and drawing attention,
which only adds to the risk of this happening?

I'm not saying at all that this is indicative that Dr. Wright is Satoshi, but
IMO it's definitely interesting.

~~~
geofft
Did he really? The message was in March 2014 from the "Satoshi Nakamoto"
account on p2pfoundation.ning.com:

[http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topic/listForContributor...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=0ye0gncqg772o)

which at one point (probably) belonged to Satoshi, but by September 2014
(almost certainly) belonged to someone else. The account was only used three
times before that, in February 2009, to write a post about Bitcoin and two
replies. It's certainly possible that if one non-Satoshi person gained access
to the account between 2009 and 2014, multiple people could have, and that the
person who sent the March 2014 message was just an unrelated kindhearted
person who wanted the paparazzi to stop bothering Dorian Nakamoto.

------
jonny_eh
> For some there is no burden of proof high enough

later:

> You should be sceptical. You should question. I would.

So he's saying people are being too skeptical, and then he says people should
be skeptical. This guy really has no idea what he's talking about. There's no
way he's Satoshi, he reads like a con-artist.

------
Animats
Well, if he really is, he has something like a billion dollars worth of
Bitcoins. There are still all those early blocks that never move.

"Soon, I will provide proof" sounds religious, not factual.

------
wrongc0ntinent
Is it possible he is making an offer to Satoshi? That he's willing to take on
the persona permanently (and maybe at a cost)?

------
cylinder
If he is lying, what does he gain by all this?

~~~
jamesdwilson
From a redditor:

"I posted this detailed analysis describing a likely motivation for Craig
needing to "prove" he is Satoshi.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3w9xec/just_think_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3w9xec/just_think_we_deserve_an_explanation_of_how_craig/cxuo6ac)
The short version is that he made fictional investments in a company by
claiming to have transferred his personal "interest" in $29m of bitcoin to the
target company. (I.e. no blockchain transfer, just a legal document claiming
to transfer that amount of bitcoin.) He then claimed substantial cash R&D
credits from those transactions. Australian taxation office (ATO) began
investigating. He has paperwork showing the transactions, but knows that ATO
might dig around and want to see verification that he truly owned $32m of
bitcoin. To cover that, he claims he put all his bitcoin in a trust, where the
trustee was another early bitcoiner. Unfortunately, that friend has now passed
away, and the private keys are lost. In order for the BS to be even vaguely
plausible, he needs to show that he originally had access to $32m of bitcoin.
This is why he pretends to be Satoshi."

~~~
hardlianotion
Doesn't seem that smart to preempt the investigation though. Seems better to
lay low and submit "proofs" quietly to ATO and hope for the best...

