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Topic: Satoshi might be mentally derranged - page 2. (Read 7857 times)

administrator
Activity: 5222
Merit: 13032
April 17, 2013, 07:20:31 PM
#72
I'll probably release Satoshi's PMs and logged IPs addresses in ~8 years. This'd probably be of great historical interest. (Though he always used Tor, as far as I can tell.)



2021 edit: I changed my mind: I am not going to release Satoshi's PMs in 2021. See my post here.
legendary
Activity: 1778
Merit: 1008
April 17, 2013, 07:15:43 PM
#71
regarding one or many: i think the logical thing would be one figurehead, one spokesperson, who does all the outward communication on forums and mailing lists. only way to keep it consistent. but determining how many may have worked together behind that figurehead? yea. good luck.

i would love to see it revealed someday though, when it's not a risk to their safety. like as a biography or something. gotta be a fascinating story.
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1042
Death to enemies!
April 17, 2013, 07:08:48 PM
#70
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That he (they) could see so far ahead in terms of a successful outcome to the Bitcoin experiment, so as to cover his (their) tracks so thoroughly from before the very first step.  The entire planet is trying to figure out his identity, yet his precautions resist being cracked.  Most of us would've slipped up somewhere, most likely talking about prelliminary ideas on mailing lists or forums or to friends or family while developing the concept, before grasping its significance or feeling the need to seriously assess political risk.
Paranoid people who understand how to be anonymous can do such things easily and routinely.
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Any normal person would have told people about the giant programming project to which he dedicated 2+ years of his life, and these people would have eventually blabbed, so Satoshi must have been unusual.
I also don't speak with people in real life about computers. They don't understand a shit and only babble half-truths about what I said or done.
Quote
I always pictured him as a shy but brilliant guy who doesn't normally deal with people. "I'm better with code than with words," he said. Maybe he left when he saw that Bitcoin's future had a lot more social problems than technical ones.
It is possible but not the absolute and final truth.

Or maybe Satoshi was too busy making and selling physical bitcoins.
Quote
I could also imagine someone not caring about the money. Some people do honestly not care about money. That may be weird for some people to grasp, but if Satoshi is a single individual, perhaps the reward of seeing his invention spring to life is a reward enough in itself, and that he will never touch those bitcoins we think he owns.
It is true. But if he don't care about money he might barter them for few exabytes of SSD storage for his next experiment with computers. Having large storage cluster from SSDs does not take away the enjoyment of creating Bitcoin.
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
April 17, 2013, 07:04:46 PM
#69
Quote
2. That he (they) could see so far ahead in terms of a successful outcome to the Bitcoin experiment, so as to cover his (their) tracks so thoroughly from before the very first step.  The entire planet is trying to figure out his identity, yet his precautions resist being cracked.  Most of us would've slipped up somewhere, most likely talking about prelliminary ideas on mailing lists or forums or to friends or family while developing the concept, before grasping its significance or feeling the need to seriously assess political risk.

In fact, the latter point makes me think it was a single individual.  These kinds of secrets and paranoia would be very hard to maintain as a group, especially when extended to friends and family of multiple individuals, who would undoubtedly take an interest and at least once ask "what's this new project you're working on which is taking up so much of your time?".

Or a "Above Top Secret" classified special psy-op team ... run with almost military precision and attention to detail, roll-out schedule, etc to create the "Satoshi" myth. Unlikely given the evidence but not impossible.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
April 17, 2013, 07:02:35 PM
#68
I could also imagine someone not caring about the money. Some people do honestly not care about money. That may be weird for some people to grasp, but if Satoshi is a single individual, perhaps the reward of seeing his invention spring to life is a reward enough in itself, and that he will never touch those bitcoins we think he owns.

He created bitcoin as an answer to attempt solving the problem with the world monetary systems, he was angry with how the current system works. And many reasons the current system is not good, is because of greed. Perhaps Satoshi is not a greedy person, he just wanted to contribute and create something better.

Now, most of you would probably take all that money and retire and move to some tropical island, but perhaps Satoshi is still teaching at a university, and living a rather quiet life. Since he obviously like intellectual challenges, I don't doubt that he's still exercising his mind.

Also, it might not be a single individual at all, perhaps a group.
newbie
Activity: 39
Merit: 0
April 17, 2013, 03:03:42 PM
#67
Isn't it possible that he is working on something more important than bitcoin now?

Or that two years of being nagged for free BTC got to be tiresome?
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
April 17, 2013, 02:22:47 PM
#66
Any normal person would have told people about the giant programming project to which he dedicated 2+ years of his life, and these people would have eventually blabbed, so Satoshi must have been unusual. I always pictured him as a shy but brilliant guy who doesn't normally deal with people. "I'm better with code than with words," he said. Maybe he left when he saw that Bitcoin's future had a lot more social problems than technical ones.

I don't believe that Satoshi was a group of people. I was here when he was active on the forum and I directly communicated with him a few times, and I got a distinct impression that he was one person.

Thanks for corroborating.  Even when reading his public output both here and on the various mailing lists, it seems very homgeneous, traces of multiple individuals would be obvious even if they were trying to be careful. 

This is similar to the Kennedy thing, the simplest explanation that goes with the facts is that there is only one gunman, and that's what makes his accomplishments especially significant. I hope he is happy with how things have turned out, and if not, then at least I hope he can buy himself an island and live out the rest of his days in peace with 100% privacy.

administrator
Activity: 5222
Merit: 13032
April 17, 2013, 01:43:21 PM
#65
Any normal person would have told people about the giant programming project to which he dedicated 2+ years of his life, and these people would have eventually blabbed, so Satoshi must have been unusual. I always pictured him as a shy but brilliant guy who doesn't normally deal with people. "I'm better with code than with words," he said. Maybe he left when he saw that Bitcoin's future had a lot more social problems than technical ones.

I don't believe that Satoshi was a group of people. I was here when he was active on the forum and I directly communicated with him a few times, and I got a distinct impression that he was one person.
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
donator
Activity: 1464
Merit: 1047
I outlived my lifetime membership:)
April 17, 2013, 01:25:55 PM
#63
DPR = Dread Pirate Roberts = founder and main operator of Silk Road drug trafficking site that buys/sells things with BTC.

Nice article in Forbes about him.

I don't have nearly as many. He must be the richest person on Earth, then. Is there anyone else who publicly owns 100kBTC or more?

Lol.  Hard to be the richest person on earth if all you own are Bitcoins...even f you owned all of them and could sell each one at current trading prices Wink
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
April 17, 2013, 01:25:09 PM
#62
Satoshi very likely crafted the identity to avoid the very kinds of attention that Gaven Andresen is having to deal with, but would have the added pressure of being "the guy who invented it all" and likely would have to take the brunt of a lot of verbal abuse from people who believed him to be the next incarnation of Satan or something. And so out of respect for the obvious talent of this individual to let go of any need to be a central figure, I offer heartfelt thanks for being strong enough to step out of the limelight and just allow Bitcoin to grow "in the wild" as it were, without having to be the one pumping it up into something it's not, or whatever.

Agree with you. 

I don't know what's more amazing:

1. That he (they?) knew enough about various fields (economics, p2p, software,crypto) to tie everything together brilliantly in an unprecedented stroke of insight with a working real-world implementation as a bonus.

2. That he (they) could see so far ahead in terms of a successful outcome to the Bitcoin experiment, so as to cover his (their) tracks so thoroughly from before the very first step.  The entire planet is trying to figure out his identity, yet his precautions resist being cracked.  Most of us would've slipped up somewhere, most likely talking about prelliminary ideas on mailing lists or forums or to friends or family while developing the concept, before grasping its significance or feeling the need to seriously assess political risk.

In fact, the latter point makes me think it was a single individual.  These kinds of secrets and paranoia would be very hard to maintain as a group, especially when extended to friends and family of multiple individuals, who would undoubtedly take an interest and at least once ask "what's this new project you're working on which is taking up so much of your time?".


legendary
Activity: 1722
Merit: 1217
April 17, 2013, 12:35:48 PM
#61
Satoshi probably would never spend his coins as that may reveal his identity. I wouldn't be surprised if he destroyed the keys for all his early BTC so he wouldn't be tempted to use them some time later. He could still mine a lot of BTC for himself when number of miners significantly increased, but that would not include easily traceable coins from 2009.

imagine if bitcoins became truly mainstream and your right satoshi could never spend them so he gives them to his offspring. Imagine being his offspring and having your dad hand you 100 trillion dollars one day near the end of his life =P
full member
Activity: 200
Merit: 104
Software design and user experience.
April 17, 2013, 12:27:26 PM
#60
Satoshi probably would never spend his coins as that may reveal his identity. I wouldn't be surprised if he destroyed the keys for all his early BTC so he wouldn't be tempted to use them some time later. He could still mine a lot of BTC for himself when number of miners significantly increased, but that would not include easily traceable coins from 2009.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1013
April 17, 2013, 12:09:34 PM
#59
While DPR probably can control those funds at will, it's not quite the same as saying they own those coins.
It's all well and good to say that possession doesn't equal ownership in some abstract normative sense, but what's the point if saying that has absolutely no relationship with what's actually happening in the real world?

The empirical facts, and the rules which are enforced by the Bitcoin protocol, are that DPR owns those coins. Most of them are coins he's promised to return to the people who gave them to him. He may or may not keep that promise.

It's the same situation with banks, bitcoin exchanges, web wallets, etc. When you give up possession of your bitcoins (dollars, euros, etc) you don't own them in any meaningful sense any more. You've given them away in exchange for a promise to give them back to you at some point in the future.

Promises can be broken. Better make sure what you're getting in return is worth the risk.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1022
No Maps for These Territories
April 17, 2013, 11:58:32 AM
#58
Not everyone cares that much about money and attention. Some people just like to be left alone and and work on interesting projects, some of which may improve the world. That doesn't make someone mentally deranged.
legendary
Activity: 1615
Merit: 1000
April 17, 2013, 11:37:27 AM
#57
Are you aware that DPR owns 600,000 coins (and that's a very conservative estimate)?

Is that the Silkroad wallet amount? While DPR probably can control those funds at will, it's not quite the same as saying they own those coins. Those are Silkroad users' coins, right?
legendary
Activity: 2618
Merit: 1022
April 17, 2013, 10:42:48 AM
#56
I think he intended to become rich. I think he intended to remain anonymous to make it easier for people to forget that advancing Bitcoin makes him richer. In fact, all future Bitcoin users are what speculators are banking on for profit. It's not that different from a Ponzi scheme...but it's not technically a Ponzi scheme (Or, it's no more a Ponzi scheme than fiat).


it's a ponzi scheme (but actually no it's not...anyway), except this time were have better sovereignty/currency so our ponzi scheme will out compete the FIAT ponzi scheme.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
April 17, 2013, 10:38:17 AM
#55
DPR = Dread Pirate Roberts = founder and main operator of Silk Road drug trafficking site that buys/sells things with BTC.

Nice article in Forbes about him.

I don't have nearly as many. He must be the richest person on Earth, then. Is there anyone else who publicly owns 100kBTC or more?

Wall observer thread regular "Loaded", 40K provable cold storage, more than 100K claimed.

About DPR: of course, since when is the world's largest public drug market owner not the richest person? Grin

EDIT: I think there is at least a hint of possiblity that DPR is actually Satoshi.
donator
Activity: 1722
Merit: 1036
April 17, 2013, 09:48:32 AM
#54
DPR = Dread Pirate Roberts = founder and main operator of Silk Road drug trafficking site that buys/sells things with BTC.

Nice article in Forbes about him.

I don't have nearly as many. He must be the richest person on Earth, then. Is there anyone else who publicly owns 100kBTC or more?
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
April 17, 2013, 08:44:40 AM
#53
I think this fucking nut might have just deleted all those early coins he mined in a fit of rage, seriously, starting to think this.  Most of those early blocks never moved. 

Maybe he got off to live as a munk in a mountain somewhere and doesn't know about bitcoins success!

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