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Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

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Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#121

Post by Graffur »

1ark wrote: post #89
adamnemecek wrote: post #48

It’s funny that people always guess that Satoshi is someone already famous as opposed to someone who is not known.

Just some lurker of that early mailing list, absorbing knowledge that eventually culminated into the code and paper. The number of unknown great programmers is a lot. What I think is interesting is that it was both code and a paper, not only code. So at least a grad student. And likely someone that starts many projects, because they left after only one year. Something else could have gotten more interesting.

I wonder what could be more interesting

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#122

Post by tromp »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #19
tejohnso wrote: post #11

> Finney invented the concept of Reusable Proofs of Work which Bitcoin’s mining is based on. I had no idea someone else was involved in such a fundamental part of Bitcoin. Great article.

Hal, Wei Dai, Nick Szabo, Adam Back, all key contributors that did prior work in the space.

Some people are convinced it's the latter:

https://news.bitcoin.com/the-many-facts-pointing-to-adam-bac...

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#123

Post by derangedHorse »

wp381640 wrote: post #85
nostrademons wrote: post #31

Satoshi came out of retirement in March 2014 to state that he was not Dorian Nakamoto, in the wake of a Newsweek article that falsely fingered the latter as Satoshi: https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/satoshi-dorian/ I still think it was Hal Finney, who was in similar cypherpunk circles, created the first PoW system, received the first Bitcoin transaction, lived in the same town as Dorian Nakamoto for 10 years, was di…

> I still think it was Hal Finney Finney didn't mix British and American English the way Satoshi did in his writing. Finney was also an experienced and much better developer[0] than Satoshi[1] [0] https://github.com/halfinney/bitcoin/commit/dc411b51e0a3cffc... [1] https://github.com/Maguines/Bitcoin-v0.1/blob/master/bitcoin...

Nothing in that PR showed he was a much better developer, he just implemented an optimization he found in a book. Contrary to the medium post, Satoshi's code was fairly clean for a first release. The omission of unit tests just shows the uncertainty Satoshi had about the project (why make tests for something that hasn't found adoption?).

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#124

Post by mejutoco »

lottin wrote: post #101
futurepast wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% Nick Szabo with Hal Finney's help. There's a non-zero chance that there's an NSA/IC employee who worked with them. Just based on the 1996 NSA paper "How to Make a Mint" and the potential that a government cryptocurrency is the ultimate solution for the inflation problem. Regulated stablecoins and/or a CBDC is the perfect way to disintermediate the banks from the dollar. Source: speculation but I was around…

The "inflation problem" is not perceived as a problem by hardly anyone (certainly not by a government agency) since central banks around the world have shown that they are very capable of keeping inflation near the intended target. And the idea that the NSA thinks a cryptocurrency would be a solution to such a non-existent problem is even more bizarre.

If it leads to stagflation it might be a real problem, that definitely worries central banks.

Several central banks around the world are working on digital currencies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank_digital_currency). These would unlock more complex measures than giving people money and hope for the best to activate the economy (people might just save the money). Things like giving money to spend only in certain things, or for a limited time might come into effect then.

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#125

Post by aspenmayer »

mejutoco wrote: post #124
lottin wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "inflation problem" is not perceived as a problem by hardly anyone (certainly not by a government agency) since central banks around the world have shown that they are very capable of keeping inflation near the intended target. And the idea that the NSA thinks a cryptocurrency would be a solution to such a non-existent problem is even more bizarre.

If it leads to stagflation it might be a real problem, that definitely worries central banks. Several central banks around the world are working on digital currencies ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank_digital_currency ). These would unlock more complex measures than giving people money and hope for the best to activate the economy (people might just save the money). Things like giving money to spend only i…

China’s CBDC already incorporates limited time balances, which were demonstrated with airdrops that had an expiration date. Flexa has partnered with various crypto projects and traditional business to offer crypto denominated coupons that have an expiration date as well.

I’ll admit I’m bullish on crypto generally, but not like this. It may work for CBDCs, in that it will drive spending over saving to some degree, but I suspect they will be treated like radioactive hot potatoes. What’s to stop someone from selling their CBCD and simply buying a competing stablecoin that isn’t going to expire? Inflation can be both unpredictable and devastating; yet, predictable sudden devastating devaluation via expiration dates is held up as an improvement over the non-CBDC stablecoin status quo?

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#126

Post by christoph »

p1peridine wrote: post #110

Satoshi left an unfinished video poker game in the source code in Bitcoin v0.1.3 ALPHA: https://github.com/trottier/original-bitcoin/blob/master/src... I'm curious if either Szabo, Finney, Le Roux or Sassaman have had any connections to poker or gambling in the past?

Yes, Le Roux did for sure.

“Around the same time, Le Roux was working on a gaming engine for an online casino he intended to launch in Canada and Romania.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#127

Post by 542458 »

hatmatrix wrote: post #103
sneak wrote: post #3

While I didn't know Len, I've talked to a fair number of people who knew him well (including the person who put that ascii art portrait of him into the blockchain), and none of them have expressed strong agreement with this theory. All we know for sure about Satoshi is that s/he isn't Craig Wright.

I know he's failed to prove it (embarrassingly), but I feel like it's not implausible that it was him and the late Dave Kleinman together as he claims. The mixing of British and American English and time zone issue then makes sense. Also, that Craig Wright boldly claims to be Satoshi likely means he is involved somehow, as he should otherwise fear that the real Satoshi call him out. It may be that Kleinman was the ge…

> otherwise fear that the real Satoshi call him out

I mean, this could just be an educated gamble. Satoshi has been unwilling or unable to communicate for many years (with the exception of one highly suspect incident that is very possibly a case of compromised credentials).

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#128

Post by lottin »

aspenmayer wrote: post #125
mejutoco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it leads to stagflation it might be a real problem, that definitely worries central banks. Several central banks around the world are working on digital currencies ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank_digital_currency ). These would unlock more complex measures than giving people money and hope for the best to activate the economy (people might just save the money). Things like giving money to spend only i…

China’s CBDC already incorporates limited time balances, which were demonstrated with airdrops that had an expiration date. Flexa has partnered with various crypto projects and traditional business to offer crypto denominated coupons that have an expiration date as well. I’ll admit I’m bullish on crypto generally, but not like this. It may work for CBDCs, in that it will drive spending over saving to some degree, but…

> China’s CBDC already incorporates limited time balances

Citation?

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#129

Post by drcode »

reducesuffering wrote: post #52
nostrademons wrote: post #31

Satoshi came out of retirement in March 2014 to state that he was not Dorian Nakamoto, in the wake of a Newsweek article that falsely fingered the latter as Satoshi: https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/satoshi-dorian/ I still think it was Hal Finney, who was in similar cypherpunk circles, created the first PoW system, received the first Bitcoin transaction, lived in the same town as Dorian Nakamoto for 10 years, was di…

Hal Finney theory is too convoluted what with him talking to himself, a stark contrast in programming styles between Hal's organized manner and Satoshi's haphazard hacking, and no connection to the genesis block being a headline from UK/Europe and British lingo. A Nakamoto in town is just a common coincidence, there are 2,800 of them in the US.

There is nothing more straightforward and less convoluted than some dude creating a sock puppet account to interact with in order to help launch a product.

Re: Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history

#130

Post by drcode »

jjordan wrote: post #43
nostrademons wrote: post #31

Satoshi came out of retirement in March 2014 to state that he was not Dorian Nakamoto, in the wake of a Newsweek article that falsely fingered the latter as Satoshi: https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/satoshi-dorian/ I still think it was Hal Finney, who was in similar cypherpunk circles, created the first PoW system, received the first Bitcoin transaction, lived in the same town as Dorian Nakamoto for 10 years, was di…

I think it's Nick Szabo. This is the article that convinced me: https://www.bitcoininsider.org/article/78686/i-designed-bitc...

Being a developer, and following Nick Szabo over the years, I just don't think he's enough of a coder mindset to have created Bitcoin. Maybe he could have made it by teaming up with someone else (Not disparaging Nick Szabo, he's super smart but not a coder at heart)
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