> Satoshi’s 1.1 million coins are the elephant in the room
The 1.1 million claim is a part of Craig Wright's fraud and is pedantically false (it's too many coins-- we know too many other owners).
What is actually known is that starting two weeks after bitcoin's release and running up to about a year after some person or organization mined with custom software that makes it possible to identify their blocks. None of these 13 thousand-ish blocks have been spent (the ish comes from the fact that the fingerprint is fuzzy). There is no evidence connecting this mining to Satoshi specifically though it's surely not a entirely crazy guess. The blocks that are known to be connected to Satoshi aren't part of this pattern.
The people most interested in this seem to be the pathological liars and so the claim gets continually expanded. Someone on reddit a day or two ago even insisted it was 2 million coins.
In any case even at the upper limit of common (false) claims it's 5% of all coins. Other entities are known to control more coins than that and it normally goes without remark. I think your argument is a grasping justification for abusive and unethical conduct, and the _pursuit_ of Satoshi is a gross prurient interest. You're not entitled to Satoshi's identity, full stop. If that makes you not want to use Bitcoin-- that's a choice you're free to make, no one is forcing you to use it.
> This is strange because we’re discussing Satoshi’s code from 2008/2009, not C++17 or contemporary features.
No. You're being sloppy. You and HBO have faulted Todd for making public statements about not being much of a C++ coder. These were statements made in the context of bitcoin conferences regarding his own ongoing contributions to Bitcoin. HBO implied that this was untrue and deceptive and constituted evidence that he was Satoshi because he was trying to mislead people about his background.
When it comes to "could someone have done it" -- it doesn't go very far, as Satoshi could have learned C++ specifically for that project precisely because it wasn't their preferred language. If your willing to believe a very young and inexperienced person could have created Bitcoin (still learning as they went) then someone writing in something other than their favorite language should seem even more likely.
In any case, feel free to go find some actual similarity in published code and bring it up. Absent that it's just a bunch of handwaving befitting only the code-illiterate.
> People who know me in real life but lack deep technical knowledge have asked me this seriously it seemed. It was amusing. One pointed out I used hashes of hashes in a tool I wrote at work! Very suspicious!
Yes, so you've seen the kind of fallacious reasoning people can engage in. "I know of a couple technical people interest in bitcoin, among them this one has some extra factor-- so they're probably satoshi". It doesn't just happen to people who lack deep technical knowledge.
> If someone genuinely believes this, what would I do? I’d release evidence to prove I’m not Satoshi. It’s not particularly difficult,
You keep reiterating how easy it is to produce proof. But when you first did it I requested you do so. You still haven't!
> I carry multiple weapons for self-defense.
The concern of many people isn't just the self-defense. It's what comes after. So you killed the idiot that was threatening you? Now you have to live with the consequence of that, which may include arrest and imprisonment. People who kill in obvious self defense still often go through a world of trouble for it.
Certainly it's better to be alive and charged with murder than dead. But it is very bad.
Harms like those created by being accused of being satoshi can be somewhat mitigated but they can't be eliminated except by not making the accusation in the first place.
The most recent attack pattern used by the cryptokidnappers seems to be to break into your home when you're not there and hide. You come home and find yourself facing a gun. It's pretty hard to secure against that without considerable cost.
> Can you explain this?
Yes, I can: https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-inte... search maxwell.
> At what date we have no idea, most likely after Hal’s passing
Certainly after because the particular signing algorithm used postdates him.
Le roux was in custody since September 2013, I don't think there is any reason to believe he was involved in that message. Considering that the message is reported to have been made public by an investor that previously went to prison from securities fraud, my assumption is that the key was purchased from the extortionists that attacked Hal's family and then was deployed in that manner in lame market manipulation attempt that was thwarted by competent journalism.
> Are you sure identifying Satoshi isn’t the right thing to do?
As much as one can be sure of anything of that sort, but it's also an irrelevant question: I don't know who Satoshi is, and as far as I can tell no one does.