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I'm no stylometrist, but that sounds so much like every other internet fake that we're going to demote this story pending some evidence.
(comment deleted)
I really doubt it is him. The writing style doesn't seem to match.
The headers indicate that this email was legitimately sent by satoshi@vistomail.com

Satoshi used this email address in his first announcement of bitcoin.

I have never seen anything PGP signed by Satoshi, thus the lack of a signature does not indicate forgery.

Further to that point Satoshi meticulously employed strong operational security techniques, making it very likely that he/she/they destroyed the private key after withdrawing from the community.

The evidence isn't strong either way, however it's certainly leaning towards the email being legitimate.

Received: from mail.vistomail.com (vistomail.com [190.97.163.93]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2175813F for <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>; Sat, 15 Aug 2015 19:00:05 +0000 (UTC)

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.general/12588...

( Originally posted on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h4goc/satoshi_nak... )

The header says that it's from vistomail.com. It doesn't have to be satoshi@vistomail.com.
(comment deleted)
The header indicates that it was sent via webmail.

Assuming vistomail.com is not compromised, then that indicates it was in fact sent by satoshi@vistomail.com

(I'll also note that they do not appear to expire registrations ever)

Lmao. That looks as far away from something Satoshi would say, note how all the points of the "block minimalists" are mentioned, as night and day.

And Satoshi being reasonably smart would know that he needs some sort of evidence to not be called fake after years of not participating. I am sure too he knows how to sign one of his bitcoin addresses. Moreover, his e-mail account was hacked once, it was a different email address but it seems clear that he seems to have wanted those e-mail addresses to become breached at some point. And vistomail - the e-mail provider is no longer even operational.

What would be the actual consequence of Nakamoto declaring Bitcoin a "failed Project"?
Nothing. The genius behind Bitcoin is that it doesn't stand or fall on one person's opinion.
Just lemme vent it out: shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Oh shit.

Anyways, rationality now kicking in, and until proven otherwise, I'll assume it is not the real Satoshi.

Regardless, I think it's fair point this person raises. I'm all for lower fees. In my country, the current transaction fee costs 2 rupees, and I wouldn't buy a 5 rupee lollipop for 7, and raising the blocksize sounded like a quickfix, but it comes at a terrible cost. I can't imagine bitcoin being bitcoin if the blockchain become so hideously large to the point hobbyists couldn't download and run a full node on their pcs. Not to mention the obvious harmful precedence it sets if the lead devs bully their way into a community project (which is the defacto super cryptrocurrency)

IMHO the community should put resources into finding a sustainable solution.. lightning networks are a great hack, and i'm waiting on them with bated breath.

If you don't know about them, watch the video on this: https://lightning.network/

> Anyways, rationality now kicking in, and until proven otherwise, I'll assume it is not the real Satoshi.

Why? So far there hasn't been any evidence pointing towards it not being Satoshi.

I mean sure, the prior probability is low, but that's it. it appears to have actually been sent by vistomail to the linux foundation. Unless you want to assume that this was an IP spoofed mail or vistomail was cracked? No evidence of that so far.

The burden of proof lies on the side trying to prove that it is Satoshi, instead of the side having to disprove it. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof An irrefutable proof would be a PGP signed message, but in absence of that and since spoofing a mail is relatively easy, i'll just assume it isn't him unless proven otherwise.

Regardless, it really doesn't matter whether it is Satoshi or not because he has nothing to do with the project. I'm just saying that it's a fair point this dude raises.

For reference here is a description of the fork being discussed.

  - Mike Hearn [1]
  - Redit [2]
--

  [1]: https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-is-bitcoin-forking-d647312d22c1
  [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h42cz/bitcoin_is_forked/
Well that proves at least someone feels threatened enough by the Bitcoin fork's possible success. Interesting move on the counter party parts, I would expect something more along the lines of a counter point to Mike Hearn's blog posting rather than this.

I also find it kind of sobering the kind of enemies you would have if you're fork of a project managed to "kill" its viability.

I don't see it as a issue / question of whether or not the forks possible success, but the way which the fork is being pushed without wide and near unanimous acceptance (assuming that was a core principal and vision).

If the original intent was to made it super hard to change the rules, but now the rules are being changed by a 'few in power', I could see how that would be concerning in general.

Regardless, this is rather interesting to watch play out. Especially for all the companies that have popped up.