[ianferrel]

The thing is, most of the people heavily involved in early Bitcoin are fairly characterized as cryptoanarchists, a group strongly devoted to the principle of privacy and liberty effected through technological means.

The refusal to provide personal communications metadata by such a person is evidence of nothing but their steadfast commitment to the philosophy that presented them with the opportunity to be part of those email conversations in the first place.

[CamperBob2]

Then again, if I weren't Satoshi, but people suspected that I was, I'd be willing to do just about anything to prove that it's not me. No one in their right mind would want that kind of target on their back.

Satoshi is either dead, or he lost his keys and probably wishes he were.

[icelancer]

Handing over email metadata, or whatever your interrogator wants from you, will only cause them to shift the goalposts, or find something they want to find in the metadata even if it exonerates you.

There is no reason to cooperate with journalists with a slant.

[CamperBob2]

I tend to agree with you, to be honest. Seems fairly clear that Carreyrou was going to conclude that Back is Satoshi, come hell or high water.

Kind of a disappointing piece of work from the guy who took down Theranos. His journalistic talents are sorely needed elsewhere right now.

[pas]

it seems he pursued Theranos when it was hot, but he had not much to do with the background work

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47698933

[andirk]

His abrupt silence mid-conversation with a handful of people via email and on the main Bitcoin forum also leads me to believe he's no longer with us. Code is often written like speech where one can decipher different voices in its writing, and I have heard some suggest the beginning code did look like more than one person's writing. There's likely a few people who know/knew him personally and know what happened, but I'm fine with the desired anonymity to continue.

[ianferrel]

Or he cares more about promulgating the philosophy of cryptoanarchism than he does about his personal enrichment or safety.

Most attempts to analyze what Satoshi would do suffer from a serious theory of mind blindspot. Just a failure to imagine someone who's motivated by significantly different things than the average person. It's the same failure as when people marvel at billionaire CEOs who continue to work despite having more than enough money to satisfy their every material whim.

Yes, if I were Satoshi or Bezos I'd have fucked off to a private island long ago. But they're not like me.

[argsnd]

Supposing it is Adam Back, and supposing he lost his keys, he's still worth at least nine figures and is one of the most influential figures in the field he’s devoted his life to. Why would he wish he was dead?

[CamperBob2]

"Nine figures isn't cool. You know what's cool? Eleven figures."

That aside, I don't agree with the premise. Back might be Satoshi, but there's nowhere near enough evidence in Carreyrou's article to reach that conclusion. He should have run it by some other veteran figures in the crypto community, so they could point out how quotidian some of the language and tropes being cited really are.

[eddiewithzato]

it’s simply that Back has nothing to gain to claim to be Satoshi. It would make bitcoin a lot more volatile. He even said just now

> I also don't know who satoshi is, and i think it is good for bitcoin that this is the case, as it helps bitcoin be viewed a new asset class, the mathematically scarce digital commodity.

That’s as close to admitting it as you can get

[CamperBob2]

Point being, he has a lot to lose if people think he IS Satoshi.

I would be coughing up those email headers if I were him. Or forging some, if necessary.

[pas]

if he has the key he could buy security (move the money to a multisig, etc)

if he doesn't have the key then of course he's motivated to make sure bad people don't think otherwise (but the usual thing about bad people is they don't really have a habit of giving up without a fight, so if someone really thinks he has the keys he cannot do shit to convince them otherwise, so he's again back to hiring security)