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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

nytimes.com

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Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#591

Post by mike_hearn »

Thorrez wrote: post #582
mike_hearn wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody knows which coins Satoshi owns, it's just a guess for the very early coins and that guess gets progressively less accurate as time goes by. And this was a long time ago. There was no particular reason to think back then that Satoshi spending his coins would tank the price. Everyone back then was spending Bitcoins because that was the only way to build the economy. The idea that if his coins move everyone would…

This [1][2][3] seems to have a methodology for identifying Satoshi's coins, mined from 2009 to May 2010. But yes, for coins mined after May 2010, he likely can spend without scrutiny. >The idea that if his coins move everyone would panic is a post-2015 idea Here are 2 people in 2013 expressing that idea: [4][5]. [1] https://bitslog.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-fortune-of-... [2] https://bitslog.com/2013/04/17/mor…

There's ambiguity here. When people talk about crashing the market they mean if he attempted to sell every last coin he owns for dollars all at once. Of course that would be a signal of lost confidence. What I mean is the more likely scenario of spending coins to achieve some specific goal or project.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#592

Post by ghaff »

SpecialistK wrote: post #576
mike_hearn wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you "dox" a journalist? Are they writing under anonymous bylines now?

By releasing personal information which a reasonable person would expect to be private? I don't know the specifics of this case (only responding to the overly vague question) but information like address, private contact info, details about their families. Anything you would not immediately expect to become public knowledge simply by writing about topic(s).

In the US at least owning a residence is public record. It can be obfuscated with shell companies and things like that but most people don’t do.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#593

Post by anonu »

gyomu wrote: post #312

Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…

[dead]

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#594

Post by olalonde »

vidarh wrote: post #572
olalonde wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could tank the price to $1000 and still be a billionaire. There's a much more plausible reason for why Satoshi's coins haven't moved.

It would also seem likely that if he at any point was alive and realised he wouldn't be able to touch his original wallets, he'd still get in early enough to be rich from subsequently crested wallets nobody would suspect.

You find it likely that someone would give up their ~$70B fortune just in case it may reveal they are the creator of Bitcoin?

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#595

Post by functional_dev »

stevenalowe wrote: post #56

Why does it matter? Changes nothing except doxxing someone

true, but reading this made me learn something new.

Turns out HashCash (system Bitcoin borrowed), was originally built to fight email spam in 1977 - https://vectree.io/c/hashcash-the-proof-of-work-system-cited...

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#596

Post by chiefalchemist »

gyomu wrote: post #312

Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…

By definition, if they’re not concerned about the ethics, they are not journalists and their occupation is not journalism. Nor does your employer’s reputation[1] allow them to claim such titles simple because they sign your pay cheque. You can’t inherit the title like that.

Journalist/journalism is like leader/leadership… too often used inappropriately, too often used to mislead, too often used inappropriately. Words such as reporter, hack, or NYT agent are more appropriate and more accurate.

Put another way, if your pet barks, would you still call it a cat? Of course not! If these people and entities aren’t fulfilling the baseline of the definition why do we continue to call them something they are not?

Journalist is a verb. It’s the decisions made and the actions taken. We’d be doing the collective a favor if we stopped giving credit where credit is NOT due.

[1] editorial: Most of us would agree that the NYT has lost its way. That it’s getting by on the fumes of integrity long gone.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#597

Post by khalic »

gyomu wrote: post #312

Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…

Are you implying there is an inherent right for public figures to hide their wealth, “for security reasons”? WTF?

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#598

Post by ab5tract »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #530
jmyeet wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the wallets go well beyond "hundreds of millions". Aren't there like a million Bitcoin in dormant wallets associated with Satoshi? Personally, I'd assumed that whoever the person or persons were, they're dead because nobody can resist the pull of tens of billions of dollars regardless of their ideological position on cryptocurrencies. But that's just a guess. There's absolutely a public interest in this. Sorr…

If you were to attempt to transfer money out if those wallets it would have a knock on effect on the price.

Which is why fining the owners of the wallets should be a huge deal: they can crash bitcoin whenever is most convenient for them.

It always baffles me that people have near religious faith in a Holy Satoshi that walks away from billions of dollars “for the sake of the game”.

If he’s really so unconcerned with money or fame, it would be far more interesting for him to build it up precisely to blow it down. That’s some cosmic coyote kind of behavior and that I will always get behind.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#599

Post by vidarh »

olalonde wrote: post #594
vidarh wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also seem likely that if he at any point was alive and realised he wouldn't be able to touch his original wallets, he'd still get in early enough to be rich from subsequently crested wallets nobody would suspect.

You find it likely that someone would give up their ~$70B fortune just in case it may reveal they are the creator of Bitcoin?

I find it likely that someone who realised that if they were to touch that paper fortune the Bitcoin price will totally crater would have made additional billions they could actually access by mining more bitcoin at a point where the difficulty was still ridiculously low.

The value of the bitcoins in those early wallets isn't real, because they are the most watched bitcoin wallets in existence, and any movement there would send shockwaves through the crypto space.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#600

Post by hunter67 »

nekitamo wrote: post #466
johnfn wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYTimes infamously doxxed Slate Star Codex[1], despite him basically begging them not to because it would upend his psychiatry practice, back in 2020 for no reason other than because they could. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23610416

One of their journalists also doxxed Naomi Wu, intruding on her personal life, making her lose her income, and possibly getting her in trouble with Chinese authorities: https://x.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1209815150376574976 The journalist themselves is a real piece of work: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/463503-sarah-jeong-out-at... Kinda goes to show you the kind of people who write these stories. Ethics haven'…

when journalism is a business, stuff like this happens...
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