Satoshi Nakamoto: 10 curious facts about the bitcoin founder

in #crypto6 years ago (edited)

No clear evidence of Satoshi's real identity has been found. However, there a lot of stories and facts about his work since the first known evidence of his role in Bitcoin in 2008. Here are the most curious facts:

1. Satoshi Nakamoto used to place a long blanc space or two spaces after periods.

For example it can be found in his whitepaper that was published on November 1, 2008 and oddly in an email send by Nick Szabo in 1993 in the Cypherpunk mailing list.
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2. Nakamoto continued the ideas of bit gold and b-money

Bit gold and b-money (both 1998) are very similar to the Bitcoin project. However, Nakamoto mentioned only b-money as a reference.

3. Satoshi Nakamoto is an anagram and a syllabic abbreviation

Is it coincidence? Satoshi Nakamoto is an anagram by rearranging the words “so a man took a shit” or the syllabic abbreviation of four big tech companies: Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi and Motorola.

4. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman predicted a p2p payment system

In 1999, economist Friedman envisaged a future of trustful digital cash.

The one thing that's missing, but that will soon be developed is reliable e-cash.

Not only that: Even Satoshi Nakamoto was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

5. Satoshi Nakamoto made the first cryptocurrency transaction

The first transaction has been received by Hal Finney 100 BTC on January 12, 2009. Finney invented a system called Reusable Proof-of-Work which was the final piece to the BitGold/Bitcoin puzzle aslo known as the Nakamoto Consensus. The noted cryptographic activist died on August 28, 2014, of natural causes relating to ALS.

6. Nakamoto predicted how mining fees will work together with transaction fees.

Today we see a transaction fee of about 10% of the total mining reward.

“When [mining] runs out, the system can support transaction fees if
needed. It’s based on open market competition, and there will
probably always be nodes willing to process transactions for free.”

7. The e-mail account [email protected] got hacked

In Sep. 2014, Nakamotos e-mail account got hacked apparently by a hacker with the pseudonym Savaged. Nakamotos real identity could have been sold on the darknet.

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a ransom of 25 BTC or more for the identity of Nakamotos e-mail account

8. Satoshi has mined at least 1,148,800 BTC that has never been spent until May 2010

This assumption is based on a calculation of Sergio Demian Lerner.

9. In 2014, a newsweek reporter claimed that he has identified Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto as the founder of Bitcoin

It is very unlikely that he is the real founder. Ironically the said S. Nakamoto lived a few blocks away from Hal Finney’s former home.

10. Since April 2011 Nakamoto stopped replying to any posts or emails

This happended shortly after two announcements.
#1: PC World contexted Bitcoin with Wikileaks on December 10, 2010. Nakamoto who feared being linked to WikiLeaks commented the article in a bitcointalk blog post:

It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.

#2: Gavin Andresen announced that he was invited at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency headquarters to give a talk about Bitcoin.
On April 26, 2011, Gavin Andresen stated:

“Satoshi did suggest this morning that I (we) should try to de-emphasize the whole ‘mysterious founder’ thing when talking publicly about bitcoin.”

However, on March 7, 2014, the very last sign of life can be traced back to a comment on the the P2P foundation homepage that he denied to be Dorian Nakamoto.

After all that speculation I conclude that every effort to find Nakamotos identity is something against the Bitcoin project. Therefore, I will not longer seek unfolding the truth of his/her/their identity.

The only rightful contribution to the founder can only be honest apreciation to the world’s most disruptive technology that has happended to monetary science.

Anyway, it is not necessary to know who is Nakamoto but much more important to name the most influencing founders of the Cypherpunk movement that made cryptocurrencies possible as we can use them today:
Tim May (writer and scientist / CP movement leader), Nick Szabo (BitGold), Wei Dai (b-money, Adam Back (HashCash) and the solver of the Byzantine Generals Problem Hal Finney (RPoW).

Source: https://originalcontroltheory.tumblr.com http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/