Topic: Satoshi’s exit - planned from day 1? (Read 427 times)

I really think that bitcoin was the project of a lifetime for Satoshi, it was his masterpiece, so I find it very likely he thought about all the possible scenarios and repercussions of releasing bitcoin to the public.

And it is difficult for time to believe he did not consider among all the possible scenarios at least one in which he had to leave bitcoin behind and disappear, maybe he was not planning on disappearing in the way and at the time he did and the circumstances forced him to do it at an earlier time than expected, but I believe he was prepared for it which is why he protected his identity from the very beginning.

If you think your invention is going to prosper soon, then you have to guide it all throughout without leaving it all of sudden. However, for Satoshi, it might be that leaving bitcoin is not part of the plan but thinking that Gavin’s visiting the CIA will require him to leave soon, then maybe anticipating it could be the best choice. Otherwise, his life will be put more in danger and he will be judged by these men in authorities.

Satoshi dumped Bitcoin right after Gavin announced he was going to the CIA.

There are also some leaked e-mails between various other parties that were passed around on pastebin awhile back, which seemed to be relevant in various ways.  Sorry, no link handy.

I was going to bring the Gavin/CIA thing up in my post. I personally think it was a combo. He both knew from the beginning he was going to leave at some point, and the Gavin/CIA meeting was the trigger point where he knew he’d at that point built the team up, including appointing a lead Dev, he handed the forum over to Theymos etc.

To that point, does anyone know exactly when Satoshi handed the forum over to Cyrus/Theymos? I’m curious how long before the Gavin/CIA meeting or even perhaps right after that, when he handed over the forum. I’m guessing Theymos has discussed this on here some somewhere?



I’m not looking for support and I’m not making a claim, I’m simply speculating.

I believe Satoshi knew from the start he’d eventually leave because having a founder at the helm being public is almost like having a CEO, or at least being perceived that way by some.. It makes it less so truly “of the people, by the people”.  He knew this only added on to the decentralization aspect of bitcoin.  Exactly why Charlie Lee sold most of his litecoin, he didn’t want the known creator and head developer to be sitting a top the coin with a majority share like a CEO.

Just fun speculating. Lots of great replies everyone!

I think that without a doubt after all these years that its temporary existence has been very well documented, it can be said that nothing in relation to its anonymity was left to chance, so anonymity is signed by Satoshi Nakamoto in the very essence of bitcoin.

Its physical essence vanishes in the existence of bitcoin, that is perhaps one of the best intentioned unwritten codes of Satoshi Nakamoto.

It's much harder for a group to keep things secret. You always have someone who falls in trouble and needs money, you have someone who seeks fame, you have someone who is not as perfect in hiding their online footprint as others.
I'm not a fan of this theory because after many years we had completely no leaks that would probably appear if these people were alive and used to work as a group.

I believe Satoshi was thinking about letting things play out without his involvement. I don't know if his exit was planned or forced. Maybe he wasn't planning for it to happen so soon, but things rarely play out the way we want them to.

I think Satoshi knew that anyone that dare to challenge the government on their monopoly to "Print" money, would have to "exit" at any given time, before the authorities caught up to him/her or them. I also think he did not anticipate that it will happen so early in the "experiment" ...so when Gavin revealed to him/her/them that he had contact with the 3letter agency... it hastened his/her/their decision to exit early.

So Satoshi knew that it will happen, but he/she/they did the "exit" way too early, because he/she/they got spooked. (Look at what happened with previous people who created their own currencies in the past)  

Before reading the arguments in the thread, I was more tempted to agree than disagree that Satoshi left the project intentionally and was always planning to do so. But it seems that Dave1 and pooya87 are right, and perhaps it was a decision made later on due to certain circumstances. Then again, while the CIA sounds like an argument to stay anonymous, I'm not sure it requires leaving altogether because people and authorities will try to track you down.
It makes perfect sense for a creator of a decentralized currency to leave the project, so that it remains decentralized in terms of further development as well. Whether Satoshi realized it from the start or came to this idea later is something we might never know.

What is also one of my theories is that Satoshi Nakamoto is the name of a group of people. They had a leader that did indeed write with a specific style, but in the end they decided to quit the main developer account they used as a group and decided to use individual accounts on the forum.

This may be true, but indeed we are only speculating now because there is still no clarity on this. Although it does make sense if you look at the quote from @Dave1 Because if you look at the ideology he wants to implement regarding Anonymity then indeed one hope is to leave rather than being forced to do things that are contrary to the beliefs he upholds.

For me, I feel as if there's really not much Satoshi needs to do after they were able to source out brilliant minds from all over the world working together on this project. They saw that bitcoin is already taking off and being noticed by a lot of people, and before someone from the community unveils Satoshi's real identity, they have to jump ship and abandon their responsibility on the project. Moreover, since bitcoin's ideology is centered on not having a central authority, it's just common sense that Satoshi leaves, as for sure they will be reinstated as the de facto figurehead of bitcoin even if it's not really the case.

I don't really understand why it would be important how many coins satoshi controls. In the end he has never moved those coins and since bitcoin is PoW there is also no security factor for the network?

As Adam Back said in a podcast recently, Satoshi has not left breadcrumbs that can lead us to him. He was a part of the cypherpunks list. There were about 10,000 members in that list and by Back's estimate maybe 5-10% were anonymous or pseudonymous. If Satoshi had not been privacy conscious he would have left breadcrumbs that would lead us back to him through that pre-2008 trail.

There's another way to look at it. Compare BTC to USD. Satoshi controls ~5% odd of the supply. This is similar to the structure of the USD reserve currency (I think he discussed this in a post somewhere). When he had garnered as much and the network had become decentralized enough that it would not easily shut down, he knew it was time. His job was done. BTC would ultimately bootstrap itself either directly or through its kids and siblings. The genie was out and couldn't be put back in.

Maybe Satoshi’s exit was planned from day, maybe he just did not want to have all the publicity once he noticed how popular Bitcoin was becoming. Maybe he though he would get punished by governments over some trumped up BS charges against him or downright assassinated by bankers and their cronies.

Or maybe he did not want to put a face on Bitcoin as the face of Bitcoin is the community. So maybe he wanted the community to be the face of Bitcoin. We might never know so there really is no big point in making guesses.

But thats just my thinking.

I think the same, especially since he disappeared in a hurry and basically mid conversation. There was no slow exit or a exit when the project bitcoin was finished. He was one day there, writing in this forum about stuff that has to be done and then gone the next day. To me it seems like it was at least to dangerous for him to use the account satoshi for any more time.
My guess was always that if he did not die, then he would have registered another account.

Having no face of the creator of Bitcoins creates another layer of secrecy to crypto currencies which is good. With bitcoins we have the chance of financial freedom and anonymity away from governments. Satoshi deverse the same for his identity. The question is what good would it do if we know how identity. Should he be a public figure that promotes bitcoins? I don't think we need him. Without him there is also not the risk people can take advantage of him. I can imagine that countries that ban bitcoins would also target Satoshi directly and try to sanction him. There would also be a big target on him since he must be very rich by now. Criminals could try and steal his coins or money. Bitcoin is doing fine without us knowing Satoshi, I think he planned from the start to remain anonymous.

I guess every developer of a certain open source project will do the same that's the very reason of being an open source project.

What i actually observed based on the previous discussions by him and the community. He doesn't want to leave that early as the bitcoin project is still on its very early stage of development.
But I know he has exit plan ^{(as I mentioned above as a developer of an open source projet)}. Though the very reason why he leave so early and force him to do it is because of the wikiLeaks incident.

He may have had plans to step back at some point, sooner or later, but from my knowledge, Gavin's visit at CIA has greatly rushed the things.

I'm not even convinced whether he has "left" willingly or not...

So how did he leave? I only know that he left, not the reason. Sure, CIA must have put some pressure as pooya87 pointed out, but that's not how he justified it. From the last conversation he had with Mike Hearn, he said he's moved on to other things. Completely unknown, though.

Full conversation here: https://plan99.net/%7Emike/satoshi-emails/thread5.html

Satoshi must have concealed his intentions on bitcoin, he constructed the network in a way it can run without his presence. So his intention in my veiw was to disappears and stay clear from too many interviews and disputes. Since the project can run without Satoshi what need is it to keep worrying about him, knowing he is fine in any of his location. The project he invented is doing perfectly well and getting the attention of the world on daily basis. Imagine what Zuckerberg pass through for owning Facebook, Satoshi would have been in a bigger mess for owning bitcoin and sticks around, he won't be safe or sleep well due to distraction from the Government personnel trying to change his mind on the regulation of bitcoin.

Satoshi likely did not make an exit plan at start but did make a solid plan to maintain privacy and anonymity. You can be doxed then exit if you want to leave but with Satoshi Nakamoto, nobody can know real identity of Satoshi after many years.

If Satoshi did not seriously care about identity, something would have been leaked in cypherpunk group, in sourcefoge forum or in this forum. In fact nothing was leak that could destroy his privacy and anonymity.

As an opinion, yes from the beginning Satoshi planned at some time to drop off the radar so to speak.

For the when and how, no I think it was more along the lines of when and how would be a good time to leave and let BTC be it's own thing. Had Satoshi thought having a big going away party with a reveal as to who they were in Vegas was better then that could have just as easily happened.

Was there external influence, probably some.
Since Satoshi always maintained anonymity it mattered less.

Just my view.

-Dave

 

in 2008 he did fear that creating 'new money', would get him into legal trouble. thus its why he hid himself from the start.
however he did quickly come to the understanding that bitcoin was unstoppable and he had no 'backdoor' key that an agency could torture out of him to break bitcoin so by the end that fear of torture/arrest was not his main fear.

he just didnt like idea's of bitcoin being corrupted into the illegal realms of where governments
a. wont allow bitcoin to grow
EG try to stop bitcoin due to associations with wikileaks/silkroad.
or
b.where other devs would get corrupted by governmetn agensies(bribed, employed, coerced) where governments gain control of bitcoin via becoming/using 'insider' devs tweaking code to government preferred utility.

but he didnt want to dictate the path bitcoin should follow to avoid getting bad reputations. so his end decision appeared more to do with not wanting to be seen as the manager/dictator of bitcoins future, for his personal philosophy reasons of what bitcoin should be(open and free of centralisation)

I believe in the theory of a tragic accident. Every day thousands of people die in car accidents and around the time he disappeared there were tsunamis in Asia. If he never shared details of his work with friends and family it's possible they threw away his computer or wiped it and sold it thinking there's some boring math and code in there for a project he never finished. Maybe he died a lonely man and there was nobody to inherit his belongings. Maybe they were lost in his accident, burned in his car or plane crash...

Seems possible but I think he decided to hide when bitcoins were quickly recognized and more people are becoming interested in them at the same time there are lots of agencies all around the world who wanted to track him and the moment he felt he is being monitored, he didn't waste a time and quickly hide forever. The guy was actively participating in this community and posting as if he was just a common user but I think when it was time to disappear, he really made a vow not to post anything forever. If he is still alive, he might be here with us using a different name but he won't gonna tell us.

We may not really concluded about saying Satoshi left the project because right from day one he started the forum he wad active not until after some while he left, situation may warrant that for him to left, or create an alts that has an entire different name just to remain more anonymous, but his major reason is best known to him since he never on any thread stated why, but am much convinced that Satoshi is there busy developing more solution to bitcoin application and coverage scope just as it may be in the case of metaverse for instance, he may stay mute as appearing to us but the consequences of his actions were felt all over the world.

he never planned to be the decision maker. the central point of failure and it seemed from his earlier messages he never had a exit plan scheduled. although he did have an idea that other peoples contributions would mean he can/would walk away at anytime. but it didnt seem like he planned when/why to leave as a schedule.

when he left it seemed like a decision he made at the time of leaving rather then a scheduled exit planned from the start.
he still had idea's flowing of things that bitcoin could become and wanted to help right up until the end, so it didnt seem like he was ready to leave in a sceduled way where he was wrapping things up ready to retire. but ended up leaving because it all just got too much risk for bitcoin/himself if he stayed as it will going to break his philosophy of bitcoin by staying any longer.

parts of the reasons he left were not just wikileaks or silkroad or gavin talking at a CIA presentation. it was that other devs were asking satoshi if they could/should add things, as if he was a decision maker. which he did not like being thought of as a central point.
i feel like he had a light bulb moment at the end where he realised he was becoming a central point.
EG not liking wikileaks/cia presentation. and realising if he starts to dictate what others should do, visit, accept. aswell as continue to pat people on the back for contributing, or weighing in on patch idea's too managerially, he would be breaking his own philosophy, so he just left


as for the leaving 'lending so much to its value as a currency and asset'.. not really.
the non-requirement of a central guy/core(central point not brand) team should be part of bitcoins value, although recent years people have foolishly become reliant on a core team(brand and central point)

the real value is this.
after 13 years. satoshi still has coin associated with certain public keys. anyone can see these. and yet after 13 years.
no one has been able to hack that value, or use the public data to associate to a human persons birth certified identity. now thats the true value indicator of a good currency that offers value store protection and identity dis-association.. not the fact that he left, but the fact that others cant use/abuse thecoins he left
(ontop of this block reward address of block9 is a 're-used' spend address, yet 13 years later no-one has been able to use the FUD of 're-used address risk' to gain anything out of satoshi)

Only Satoshi know whether he planned for an exit from the beginning or it happened by chance. According to my view on his innovation, his identity could've been a problem by now. During the initial stages this could've been never been into consideration. Right now the growth is big, even without any form of promotion. Everything we experience by now have taken place through word of mouth spreading. Beyond certain point the involvement of corporate have made it popular for their business revenue.

Right now the technology is much discussed as an innovation for transparency. Accordingly the transparency could cause a big change in the governance. So this could've been a threat and governments too might keep looking for Satoshi.

Regardless of whether he had planned it from the beginning or not, what he was clear about was the risks he faced, and so he took precautions not to be identified. To create a new P2P currency against the establishment in order to create a system that does not depend on central banks and governments is to put himself in the bull's eye. The creation of currencies is reserved for governments through central banks. It can be argued that the Fed is a private entity, but the US government has influence over it and in the case of the ECB it is a public institution.

Creating a new currency and proposing it as an alternative system to this one is punishable by imprisonment. Although today, if Satoshi were to come out, I don't know if he would have problems, because despite what he wrote in the White Paper, bitcoin has been considered a financial asset, and not a currency, so I don't think he could technically be prosecuted.

The way I see it, he left us the basics of the blockchain tech and wanted us to improve it.

Think it like this:

When you are in school (preferably primary school), the teacher asks you a math question, sometimes you just can't even move a finger and freeze. However, when the teacher gives you a hint, then everything becomes clear as day and you answer the question in a second.

That's what satoshi did. He gave us a hint. The basics of a blockchain. He wanted the other people to figure out the rest.

Whether or not it was a planed leave, it's completly understandable that people change their goals in life and do not align with the path that they are taking at the miment. Burn out, wanting to start something new, or just a wish to let things go to see what can happen of it, all legit resons to step back. It could have been planed, but not necesseraly as it looks to be some well thought out plan to keep BTC creation anonymous.

I think that your claim would gain more support if you would just provide something to back it up.

Sometimes, I ponder what would have happened to him if he hadn't gone so low,by keeping he's real identity a secret. I haven't real dug into Satoshi in general readings but he's done a big one for those who knows and see's the importance/ futuristic views of Bitcoin.
Those fiat currencies are Fvcked up day after day, backed up by nothing just the government and the media won't say shit about it.

 ( So much sorry cause that was off T ) but, gathering those cheap SATs while they're cheap would be worth it.  Real Life; I'll want to meet Satoshi Nakamoto in Person. Possibility ?

I think there is only a small chance that Satoshi planned his leave from the start. However, there is a bigger chance that the circumstances forced him to leave for good such as Gavin's visiting the CIA that @Dave1 mentioned and was very alarming for someone who wanted to protect his privacy and didn't want to be pressured into doing stuff to bitcoin that were against the ideology that bitcoin stands for.

In my opinion, he didn't plan to leave bitcoin in the beginning, based on this quote:


So the way I interpret it, perhaps he thinks of slowing down first or totally leaving the project in which he did. And Satoshi could have been right, because months after, Gavin will visit the CIA.

I’m sure this topic has been talked about before on here many times, but not sure I’ve ever seen anyone start a thread about it. I’ve read through many of Satoshis threads over the years (some more than once), studied everything about him I have been able to find etc, and one aspect of his creation I find really fascinating is that he left the project when he did. I’m convinced he knew from day one he was going to leave the project like he did. That fact that there’s no face to bitcoin lends so much to its value as a currency and asset. Do you feel the same way, or have a different take on it?