The home page of http://www.drcraigwright.net/ currently just displays this image. Linked straight to it so that it wouldn't get flagged as a duplicate submission.
I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.
When the rumors began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this.
I know that this weakness will cause great damage to those that have supported me, and particularly to Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. I can only hope that their honour and credibility is not irreparably tainted by my actions. They were not deceived, but I know that the world will never believe that now. I can only say I'm sorry.
"They were not deceived" -- yeah, that's the ticket! [1]
Nice use of passive voice to obscure the subject of the sentence. He just couldn't bring himself to say "I did not deceive them." It's technically true that there's somebody in the universe who didn't deceive both of those people.
I thought he was quite convincing in that performance. In fact, what tipped me off was just how convincing he was, the way a conman would be. What about his body language tipped you off?
The thing is if he uses actual proof like the community wanted him to there would no longer be any skepticism. So the only reason to not do it is because you can't do it.
The worst part about this is he is playing so loose with words that it gives no closure at all. For years there will be people, especially newbies, that will believe Craig and will treat circumstances surrounding the whole affair, like the "leaked" and "hacked" documents alleging his involvement, as at least potentially true. In my view, anyone or anything that lends any legitimacy to Craig as far as bitcoin goes should not be trusted at this point.
For that matter, I believe most public people involved with bitcoin should not be trusted at all either, but that is incidental.
Bitcoin definitely attracts fraud, but it's also teaching many people an important lesson in trust. Trust code and math as these things are ultimately verifiable.
It's also a first-class lesson to a lot of young technologists as to how financial regulations and the modern banking system came to exist in the first place. Thankfully bitcoin was so well designed that we can ultimately trust the math behind it, but the code is still malleable by people who may not have the network's best intentions in mind.
It's a hard lesson for many, and it'll likely need to be learned many times over. Any number of individuals are willing to take advantage of the trustworthy nature the technology to imply that the things they do are also trustworthy.
And too often, it works - because the technology is secure, not enough people question those who are using it and proclaiming "secure" in a loud enough voice (mt gox, cryptsy, mintpal, and countless others).
Given that the entire source of his main website is
<img src="homepage.jpg">
my first guess would be that he wanted to delete basically everything and leave a static message but didn't want to figure out how to do that minimally in HTML/etc. so he just did an image.
How is this not the first thought people had? Poor guy, with a lot of signs of mental instability. The amount of animosity people have had towards him on HN (and elsewhere) isn't tempered by how obviously imbalanced he is. I think it's because of the disproportionate amount of media attention he's received for something he didn't earn.
To be fair to people here, we're discussing a new message by a person who is widely perceived to be running some type of scam. I hadn't considered the more serious subtext of this message but given the history here you have to consider that that might have been intentional to try to engender sympathy.
The internet loves to shoot first and ask questions later, but there's some things we need to be a little more compassionate about. I understand it's in his MO to pull a trick like this, but let's at least see that he's ok before treating it as such.
Yeah, but it still sounds like a legitimate suicide note and some semblance of worry makes sense.. I understand the desire fore fairness, but this was just posted without much followup context. Have a bit of heart for a second.
If this whole story is the a result of a mental health issue, well - mental health is a serious mother fucker.
He is also on the run from some major legal issues here is Australia so it wouldn't surprise me at all. I just hope that the people that know his whereabouts can help him, however poor his actions he needs all the mental help he can get.
One possible explanation to the whole thing not being considered so much is that he has the delusion of being Satoshi and might be trying to prove it and failing to understand why he can't.
It does make me feel like Ian Murdock tweets a little. I find the whole Satoshi comedy a bit sad but not to the point where he would quit earth. Even in the case he made himself suffer. Hope it's just words so far.
Given his character and previous form I would be more inclined to see it as another false trail, perhaps a prelude to faking his own death to avoid his tax problems.
If the real Satoshi is still around, he musst be cringing at all this. The man can't even accurately describe how SHA256 works, yet claims to be the mastermind behind all this.
Geee Craig, stop playing silly games. Sign the message or simply stfu.
> The man can't even accurately describe how SHA256 works, yet claims to be the mastermind behind all this.
On the other hand: It is clear from Bitcoin's source code that Satoshi Nakamoto did not understand Merkle trees that well: Just read the detailed comment at
This is not an apology or admission of guilt for conning people with his ridiculous stories. This is an enigmatic exit, complete with him still tacitly claiming to be Satoshi. Quite pathetic.
I believe that, what he wants us to take away from this, is that once he "proves" himself to be who he says he is, his life will change in ways similar, but worse, to the ways that it has since he claimed to be Satoshi. It is this change, he seems to be saying, that he is not courageous enough to face.
"This is an enigmatic exit, complete with him still tacitly claiming to be Satoshi. Quite pathetic."
Agreed. "I won't prove that I'm Satoshi anymore, but I am". It's getting more and more like religion -- we don't get to know for sure, we have to believe now.. And I'm sure a herd of idiots will do just that.
We are supposed to care about privacy, yet people can't stop trying to find out who is the creator of bitcoins, even though this person clearly doesn't want that to be known. I think we are all naturally hypocritical beings or something.
Are people actively trying to find the creator of bitcoin? Personally I don't care enough to actively find out. If someone presented themselves, then I'll have a passing interest - a few articles, HN comments, etc., but I'm not going to change my day-to-day at all.
They make promises about what will happen in the future.
When it (doesn't) happen in the future, they don't say that they let you down or that they were in error or even admit that they agreed to something ahead of time.
In drawn-out cases there will be many deadlines, the narcissist never owning up to missing prior deadlines.
When challenged, the narcissist will create an emotionally hostile situation to cause an immediate distraction, again promising something soon, and never return to the original claim.
Some people were deceived by a con artist named Wright. When he was called on it, he made a bunch of people think he was going to die soon, and made a bunch of other people feel marginally guilty for questioning his authenticity. Now, despite overwhelming evidence of trickery, despite perfect proof of his claims being trivially easy to create, there are still people in this very thread who think he's genuine. And probably will be for years to come, since those who believe him and defended him are emotionally invested in it, and those who disbelieve him will have ceased thinking about this embarrassing debacle a year from now.
Sounds like a suicide note from a distraught individual to me, leaving aside the lack of Satoshi's grammar. I do not know enough about his background to contact the police for a well-being check; does anyone here?
At face value, I would agree. But given that he's clearly lying about being Satoshi, and therefore also lying in this note, I figure it's likely that the "suicidal" tone was deliberately chosen. It's just another attempt to stir up controversy.
People were expecting the next Jesus Christ and now everyone's so disappointed that "Satoshi" is just an average geek with human weaknesses - not the messiah everyone expected.
Had he started a Unicorn startup, nobody would have even thought to question it, but now that the myth of Satoshi has been blown to astronomic proportions, people refuse to believe that their guru is just a "simple" guy who makes mistakes and is clumsy at PR.
Look at the source code of bitcoin-0.1 and you'll notice that Satoshi was an average C++ programmer who wrote sloppy code - yes it was a prototype - but it wouldn't have stood a chance if other people hadn't gotten involved to develop it into what Bitcoin is today.
Besides, if you look at the code, he wasn't even sure he was creating a currency - it looked like he was trying to create a marketplace, complete with products and chat.
Interestingly, a lot of people treat him like a fake prophet - and are proverbially crucifying him for not being able to perform the "miracle" of making a transaction from block 9.
---
He's not Jesus and he's not Buddha, he's just a programmer who had a brilliant idea and now tries to claim his invention.
But then again, maybe I'm wrong and Craig Wright is just an idiot compromising his reputation and career for a "moonshot" and a minute of glory. That would be totally stupid for a guy who has a family and a company and who's a cryptographer - to make a fool out of himself like this. Unless, what he claims is true..
Who knows, in the end it doesn't really matter that much.
Too much noise - all of them opinions and speculation...too many emotions.
The fact that Gavin Andersen (and others?) met him and talked to him and then said that he is "the father of Bitcoin"... means that either Wright is a very good con artist, good enough to convince the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, or he is the real deal.
I've also watched the interview... if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too.. to me Wright looked like a person in deep emotional turmoil.
Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin, while the public were pushing him to use it.
Andersen and Wright have explained the methodology used to 'prove' Wright is Satoshi and it has already been torn apart, here and other places on the net. I recommend you do further reading.
> if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too..
these two things very typically go hand-in-hand.
>Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin,
the only thing he would need to do is sign a message using the private key from an early block. This is extremely straightforward, widely known and expected, and he instead provided an bizarre and discredited method of proof. This also comes months after he tried to use easily discredited methods to take credit, like backdated blog entries. He's a scam artist.
No one is discrediting him because he isn't good at coding or "just an average geek"
People are skeptical because this isn't the first time he claimed to be Satoshi [1], and that time he did it by back-dating posts. This time he did it with a demonstrably fake signing of Sartre text.
Why would the real Satoshi go to great lengths to create fake evidence?
I wasn't clear; if you were trying to throw people off the scent of who made Bitcoin by making everyone think it wasn't you this is a pretty successful attempt- I think he's a troll but don't discount the possibility that it's really him :-D
now everyone's so disappointed that "Satoshi" is just an average geek with
He doesn't seem "an average geek." He is very smooth-talking and glad-handing. He also looks much more like the sales people than the technical people at all my places of employment.
... Who also happens to be a cryptographer and a programmer (at least according to the subject matter on his blog )..
He also managed to "sweet talk" and convince Gavin Andersen and others that he's for real...
I don't know. I cannot base my conclusion on opinions on what the Internet is saying. The noise level and the emotions are too high to make sense of it.
I've watched his interview, I've listened to what he said.
The man looks like he's serious and angry about everything... he also said that he will refuse any kind of award for it.
Being the inventor of Bitcoin is also a huge burden and risk so it's not easy what this man is going through..
At least in theory, that man can be Satoshi and my intuition tells me that he probably is, there's nothing more to it.
Forgive me as I'm a newbie to bitcoin and only ever seen it from the outside and watched a few things. I only know who Satoshi is because of the mass amounts of people wanting to know who this mysterious man really is. But my question is, why does it matter if Craig Wright is or isn't? I mean I can understand being upset that he lied about it if he really isn't for attention, but what if he is? The dude is literally being ripped apart left and right by everyone and anyone.
Whether Satoshi is finally identified or not, what difference will it make? I honestly don't understand the deafening attacks at Wright at first for being "outted" as a potential to be Satoshi and now when he says he is.
It doesn't matter so much whether he's Satoshi or not - but it matters that he's tried to make the claim with evidence that's been dispelled.
It'd be a significant claim if Mark Zuckerberg claimed to be a lost son of the late Steve Jobs and people would expect him to prove it. It'd be scandalous if the DNA test came back negative and would clearly peak people's interest in Mark Zuckerberg's character.
And I get that, but why the attacks? What if in your scenario everyone who didn't believe went ripping through Zuckerberg's life, attacking him and being all around a rude person (in harsher words) and then Zuckerberg was ACTUALLY the lost son of the late Steve Jobs?
> what if he is? The dude is literally being ripped apart left and right by everyone and anyone.
Because he's the guy who, when asked for ID to prove he's 21 when entering a bar, shows a piece of paper with "Date of birth: 21 years old" sharpied on it, and when the bouncer says "yeah this isn't actual ID" the guy goes "WOE IS ME! IF I GET THIS TREATMENT AT THE DOOR, IMAGINE WHAT THE ACTUAL BAR WOULD BE LIKE! I DO NOT HAVE THE COURAGE TO WALK PAST A DOOR SUCH AS THIS, ALAS, HORATIO" and feigns fainting.
His behavior has no affect on me. Why should I care? Even if your analogy is accurate, that guy at the bar doesn't affect me either.
What is dangerous and does affect me, indirectly in this case, is the online mob behavior and bullying. That does real harm to people and to our society. For example, whoever the real Satoshi is, would they ever want to be subjected to this?
Bullying probable conmen is a reasonable way to try and discourage future conmen. Come 'round our town selling snake oil, and you get run out on a rail. It's disproportionate; that's the point. It's a sort of social control.
I never said it was a good idea, but that's why people care about people like Wright walking in and appearing to try to take them for a ride. The response can be completely maladaptive, and cause more harm than good, but that doesn't mean it's completely unreasonable. It's the same reason people get steamed at companies like Theranos.
In this case, it's nuts because everyone agrees on what the standard of evidence is, including him, and he's refused to provide it and acting hurt that people are sceptical. Many people gave him the benefit of the doubt when Gavin et al vouched for him; it's entirely his behavior afterwards that has turned people against him.
First, Satoshi solved a very significant intellectual problem: how to allow a group of people, who may have antagonistic members, to collude successfully. It is known as "The Byzantine Generals' Problem." What else does this person understand or have insight into?
Second, people are innately curious. Who is this person and what motivates him or her? Was this done out of curiosity or financial gain or just plain "because I could?"
Third, Satoshi is sitting on a huge cache of coins when he or she started the process. Is there any intent to use them? If someone could steal the keys to these blocks, it would a major "bank heist."
I would guess that the majority of the angst can be summed up with the simple fact that some people get real pissy when you treat them like they are stupid. I think it wasted energy for strangers on the internet, but I can sympathize with the in person insult.
Well, I think it should be noted that this makes it clear that there's simply no way he is Satoshi. He claims to not "have the courage" to show proof that he has the keys, even when he claims to have shown Gavin and Jon proof of having those exact keys. The reality is that showing this proof is trivial, and if he wasn't willing to post it he wouldn't have claimed to be Satoshi at all - and if he actually was Satoshi, he would have posted this proof with his first post.
That said, if someone came out and proved themselves to be Satoshi, it would be a fairly big deal to the Bitcoin world. Satoshi himself has a lot of Bitcoins sitting under his control that he hasn't done anything with. Coupled with the fact that he was the original creator, his opinions would probably have a lot of weight behind them - and this is important when recognizing that Bitcoin right now is at a bit of a cross-roads, with people uncertain on how to proceed.
That said, I'm not heavily involved with Bitcoin, and while it was obvious to me (and most other people) that Wright isn't Satoshi, I wasn't yelling or calling for his head, and I don't really think there were that many other people doing that either - they were just a few loud mouths. All that said, you do have to keep in mind that, because of the power that Satoshi could wield, and the fact that some people have a lot invested in Bitcoin, I can understand the backlash over someone pretending to be Satoshi and potentially messing things up for everybody else.
He had promised to do the impossible -- cryptographically prove he had access to early coins which he did not in fact have. He had carefully developed two scam-proofs of this.
One scam proof was deployed on his blog where he claimed to sign a Sartre text with a key from bitcoin block 9. He carefully did not give the exact input text, only a supposed hash of the text. The hope was anyone trying to replicate would assume their problem was an incorrect source text. And there was proof that the given hash value was signed by the key. But that did not survive internet scrutiny; it was noticed that the signature came from an old bitcoin transaction. Instead of signing the hashed Sartre text as claimed, it signed the old transaction.
The other scam proof was presented in private to reporters and bitcoin developers Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. Here Wright supposedly demonstrated the ability to sign arbitrary messages using keys from bitcoin blocks 1 and 9. This scam succeeded: both Andresen and Matonis were convinced. But they were not allowed to keep copies of the evidence, to prevent the trick from being exposed. One speculation is that Wright was able to substitute a doctored version of the Electrum software used for the verification. But without evidence to examine outside of Wright's control, the exact details of the scam are still hidden.
But now Wright is out of ideas. His public-consumption scam failed, and his private controlled-scenario scam can't be more widely replicated.
So this message is his way of backing out, trying as much as possible to save face and keep open the possibility of claiming the Satoshi Nakamoto identity again later.
I had not cared that much about this, but his actions are exactly what I would have expected from bitcoin's creator. There are some guys who simply do not want to be found. The guy who created Bitcoin is one of them. Making things develop like this simultaneously repairs much of the damage to his anonymity while minimizing the damage to the two guys who put their reputations on the line for him. By acting the way that you are acting, you are acting exactly like he intended for you to act. There is simply insufficient public evidence to say whether he is or is not. He is in that pesky excluded middle that gives rise to pseudo-Boolean logic.
That being said, people should realize that the creator of Bitcoin does not want to be found and honor that.
People who "simply do not want to be found" don't make any sorts of claims whatsoever. People who make fraudulent claims are scammers, plain and simple.
The fraudulent evidence that Wright has presented doesn't make it more likely that he's Satoshi, they make it much, much less likely. At this point, it's more reasonable to assume Donald Trump invented BitCoin than Wright.
If we want to follow the conspiracy theory path, then this is sort of a last resort trick that may work when you're building up suspicion and need a way out, instead he started the whole charade without actually being ever closed to be linked to Satoshi
You are being downvoted because your statements simultaneously conflict and support themselves.
As for honor, if the creator of Bitcoin exists as a single entity then it's about time for them to stand up and take some responsibility in the disaster that is the Bitcoin community. Creating something so important and then leaving town is immature, illogical and down right annoying.
> As for honor, if the creator of Bitcoin exists as a single entity then it's about time for them to stand up and take some responsibility in the disaster that is the Bitcoin community. Creating something so important and then leaving town is immature, illogical and down right annoying.
Satoshi is not responsible for the Bitcoin community any more than he is responsible for the quality of this Hacker News comment you've just written. I understand the annoyance of not knowing who Satoshi is, but he/she/they doesn't owe us anything.
Apparently, he was able to prove, but did not allow others to keep copies of the evidence. At best, you can suspect. But how can you conclude so strongly that this was a "scam"?
The argument is that there is no legitimate reason for Wright to not allow them to keep copies of the proof, aside from the reason that the hardware/software he provided was a tampered version and the proof would not actually work on any machine not provided by him.
Sure, but then you consider the undeniably faked proof published on his blog, and now this inability to meet his recent promise to provide real proof today. For someone who actually had Satoshi's keys, all of this is probably more work than just publishing real proof in the first place.
If he was actually the creator of Bitcoin, this is the worst possible way he could convince people of it. That's were the extreme doubt comes from.
I think you greatly underestimate the real harm done to people who are victimized by online (and offline) mobs; people become objects of the sport of public vitriol. Just look at the remarks in this discussion; it's not a rational discussion, it's people acting out in anger - because it's become acceptable to hurt this person.
I can completely understand someone not wanting to deal with it any longer. Also, it doesn't matter what he does or says at this point; nobody will look at the evidence (even now, likley few in this discussion know more than what others in the mob have told them) and he will be lynched. Anything he does only will fuel the fire.
Wright has permanently damaged other people's reputations, and put substantial effort into impersonating another person. I don't know if "victim" is appropriate.
At any rate, this conversation is about whether or not he is Satoshi. This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not. And as @lucozade put it, "he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have".
Says who? Who tried and convicted him? The accusations of an angry mob are not at all reliable. And guilty or not, who are we to hurt him? If what you say is true then there is no reason for people to act this way; they simply could forget him and move on.
> This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not
In theory, but unfortunately not always in the real world.
This is not a court of law. People have a right to (and do!) form their own opinions without going through the courts. Calling something a scam does not require a legal judgment, AFAIK... unless you want to argue that it would be slander/libelous to do so. However, this would probably be a tough sell since saying "X is a scam" in everyday life would probably be interpreted (for legal purposes) as saying "It is my opinion that X is a scam" and opinions cannot be slander/libelous AFAIK.
I can think of a reason. If Gavin, for example, had both a new text and a signature that was demonstrably from Satoshi, then he could publish this and screw Craig's big reveal. I mean, if anyone is a reasonably credible Satoshi, it's Gavin.
That, at least, would be a good reason to not give the signature to Gavin or Jon.
However, the moment Craig failed to sign an unambiguously new text on his blog with a known Satoshi key everything that went before was suspect. Would it have proved he was Satoshi? No. Would almost everyone except a few tinfoils give him the benefit of the doubt. Assuredly.
The fact that that didn't happen is very strong evidence that Craig does not have the keys from early blocks. Does that prove he is not Satoshi? No. But he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have. And I'm pretty sure it's not me.
> That, at least, would be a good reason to not give the signature to Gavin or Jon.
Yes, but the message that was (supposedly) signed contained words to the effect of "Craig Wright is Satoshi", or else his initials? How would Gavin be able to use that message to show that Gavin was Satoshi?
Because there is no plausible narrative that can account for the known facts and account for the private proof as anything more than smoke and mirrors.
In particular, the person best placed and best motivated to produce such a narrative -- Wright himself -- offers no explanation.
As someone mostly in the dark about bitcoin and the community around it, why does this matter at all? Why do people care who created it at this stage, and if that person should come forth, what would the impact be? What could such a person realistically do?
That part I do understand, but this is already the case isn't it? Whether Satoshi comes forward or remains hidden. I wondered if it were more of a worry in the community that Satoshi would, perhaps, attempt to exert some form of central control, which I'm relatively certain is considered a bad thing in that community.
Don't underestimate curiosity. Whoever satoshi really is, he / they managed to release some truly ground breaking software, anonymously, and that software has never been broken, and millions if not billions of dollars rests upon that work. It all came from nowhere.
I for one have a lot of respect for this satoshi, and if they ever reveal themselves I would like to find out more about them, purely because they sound quite interesting.
Earlier this week Craig wright came out with a wild claim with "proof" that actually worked against his favour if anything. Most people see this as a selfish act to try to claim fame and respect, while having the audacity to claim that he doesn't want that. This naturally puts him in a very dislikeable position, and I imagine many people wanted to see how he would attempt to worm his way out of this mess he has got himself in, knowing full well he couldn't produce the goods.
You're right that it "doesn't matter" but then at some level perhaps nothing does... It all comes down to subjective interest at the end of the day.
I'm pretty sure Craig Wright is not the real Satoshi, but if he was the real Satoshi and didn't want anyone to know, he would be going about it in exactly the right way :)
If he is not Satoshi and just wanted the attention:
Narcissists have an incredible high rate of suicide, because when they fall from their high horse, the floor is quite some way down and the landing is too hard for them. Rather than being found out as fake, go with a bang... I fear the bang coming...
This note kind of worries me a little bit... no matter what he did wrong, I hope he will be okay.
(still speculating on the basis that he is not Satoshi and did it for reasons of getting attention)
Also a possibility of course... his method to safe at least some of his self-image, depends on how good he is at self-manipulation, people are often very good at it.
At this point, this is bordering on performance art.
(For what it's worth, I'm torn on this note: on the one hand, it's deeply upsetting that someone is writing that they're feeling such torment; on the other hand, should it turn out to have been written insincerely, he's just made it a tonne more difficult for anyone else who does legitimately express feelings like this. No winners.)
Honestly, I'm shocked anyone is taking it seriously. Every shred of evidence (from the past few days, and from last year) suggests he's a con artist.
I certainly believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it's laughable to think this guy is actually Satoshi, and therefore impossible to see this note as sincere.
There are only challenges if he doesn't have the key. If he has the key he should trivially be able to sign anything with it or decrypt anything encrypted to it.
The key could be in a vault inside his secret volcano base. If someone just wires him $ to charter a flight, he can retrieve his millions and share it.
I wonder if the scam he has been running is "front me money to build a supercomputer to bruteforce my passworded wallet containing Satoshi's millions." This would be more convincing if he were actually Satoshi and 'lost' the password....
Did anyone notice his pronunciation of "moniker" on the BBC piece? Needed a second or two to parse "monkier". Before seeing the weight of evidence both sides of the argument, this awkward language was my first whiff of BS. Just me?
187 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 294 ms ] threadedit: Here's a mirror of the image, in case it comes down: http://i.imgur.com/7lhU0mr.jpg
And here's the OCR'd text: I'm Sorry.
I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.
When the rumors began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this.
I know that this weakness will cause great damage to those that have supported me, and particularly to Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. I can only hope that their honour and credibility is not irreparably tainted by my actions. They were not deceived, but I know that the world will never believe that now. I can only say I'm sorry.
And goodbye.
And I call BS, with BS on top.
How convenient...
What do you and I have to be angry about? Isn't that just playing into online mob behavior?
Nice use of passive voice to obscure the subject of the sentence. He just couldn't bring himself to say "I did not deceive them." It's technically true that there's somebody in the universe who didn't deceive both of those people.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkYNBwCEeH4
Feels like a lot is going on in his mind. Maybe he can't express everything he wants too. Maybe he's just acting over its abilities.
For that matter, I believe most public people involved with bitcoin should not be trusted at all either, but that is incidental.
And too often, it works - because the technology is secure, not enough people question those who are using it and proclaiming "secure" in a loud enough voice (mt gox, cryptsy, mintpal, and countless others).
http://www.drcraigwright.net/
<img src="homepage.jpg">
my first guess would be that he wanted to delete basically everything and leave a static message but didn't want to figure out how to do that minimally in HTML/etc. so he just did an image.
If this whole story is the a result of a mental health issue, well - mental health is a serious mother fucker.
"Sounds". Let's not forget the guy's a con man.
But holding the proof and then such a dramatic exit, playing the victim? Wow.
Geee Craig, stop playing silly games. Sign the message or simply stfu.
On the other hand: It is clear from Bitcoin's source code that Satoshi Nakamoto did not understand Merkle trees that well: Just read the detailed comment at
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/a6a860796a44a2805a58...
Sounds like B.S. to me, but who tf am I to judge?
Agreed. "I won't prove that I'm Satoshi anymore, but I am". It's getting more and more like religion -- we don't get to know for sure, we have to believe now.. And I'm sure a herd of idiots will do just that.
The narcissists never do that.
They make promises about what will happen in the future.
When it (doesn't) happen in the future, they don't say that they let you down or that they were in error or even admit that they agreed to something ahead of time.
In drawn-out cases there will be many deadlines, the narcissist never owning up to missing prior deadlines.
When challenged, the narcissist will create an emotionally hostile situation to cause an immediate distraction, again promising something soon, and never return to the original claim.
Some trustworthy people saw Jesus, God and the miracles. Some people did not believe and some people might have claimed that it was fake.
But most people believed it anyway, and it's still believed by a big number of people to date.
Yes, it's a pretty good analogy.
That's a very serious thing to say in regard to something you know very little about.
People were expecting the next Jesus Christ and now everyone's so disappointed that "Satoshi" is just an average geek with human weaknesses - not the messiah everyone expected.
Had he started a Unicorn startup, nobody would have even thought to question it, but now that the myth of Satoshi has been blown to astronomic proportions, people refuse to believe that their guru is just a "simple" guy who makes mistakes and is clumsy at PR.
Look at the source code of bitcoin-0.1 and you'll notice that Satoshi was an average C++ programmer who wrote sloppy code - yes it was a prototype - but it wouldn't have stood a chance if other people hadn't gotten involved to develop it into what Bitcoin is today.
Besides, if you look at the code, he wasn't even sure he was creating a currency - it looked like he was trying to create a marketplace, complete with products and chat.
Interestingly, a lot of people treat him like a fake prophet - and are proverbially crucifying him for not being able to perform the "miracle" of making a transaction from block 9.
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He's not Jesus and he's not Buddha, he's just a programmer who had a brilliant idea and now tries to claim his invention.
But then again, maybe I'm wrong and Craig Wright is just an idiot compromising his reputation and career for a "moonshot" and a minute of glory. That would be totally stupid for a guy who has a family and a company and who's a cryptographer - to make a fool out of himself like this. Unless, what he claims is true..
Who knows, in the end it doesn't really matter that much.
The fact that Gavin Andersen (and others?) met him and talked to him and then said that he is "the father of Bitcoin"... means that either Wright is a very good con artist, good enough to convince the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, or he is the real deal.
I've also watched the interview... if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too.. to me Wright looked like a person in deep emotional turmoil.
Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin, while the public were pushing him to use it.
> if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too..
these two things very typically go hand-in-hand.
>Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin,
the only thing he would need to do is sign a message using the private key from an early block. This is extremely straightforward, widely known and expected, and he instead provided an bizarre and discredited method of proof. This also comes months after he tried to use easily discredited methods to take credit, like backdated blog entries. He's a scam artist.
People are skeptical because this isn't the first time he claimed to be Satoshi [1], and that time he did it by back-dating posts. This time he did it with a demonstrably fake signing of Sartre text.
Why would the real Satoshi go to great lengths to create fake evidence?
Maybe.
It was lengthy, time-consuming, very clearly fabricated evidence.
He claimed he had private keys tied to Satoshi, but refused to sign anything with it (which would have taken 30 seconds).
He doesn't seem "an average geek." He is very smooth-talking and glad-handing. He also looks much more like the sales people than the technical people at all my places of employment.
He also managed to "sweet talk" and convince Gavin Andersen and others that he's for real...
I don't know. I cannot base my conclusion on opinions on what the Internet is saying. The noise level and the emotions are too high to make sense of it.
I've watched his interview, I've listened to what he said.
The man looks like he's serious and angry about everything... he also said that he will refuse any kind of award for it.
Being the inventor of Bitcoin is also a huge burden and risk so it's not easy what this man is going through..
At least in theory, that man can be Satoshi and my intuition tells me that he probably is, there's nothing more to it.
Whether Satoshi is finally identified or not, what difference will it make? I honestly don't understand the deafening attacks at Wright at first for being "outted" as a potential to be Satoshi and now when he says he is.
It'd be a significant claim if Mark Zuckerberg claimed to be a lost son of the late Steve Jobs and people would expect him to prove it. It'd be scandalous if the DNA test came back negative and would clearly peak people's interest in Mark Zuckerberg's character.
Because he's the guy who, when asked for ID to prove he's 21 when entering a bar, shows a piece of paper with "Date of birth: 21 years old" sharpied on it, and when the bouncer says "yeah this isn't actual ID" the guy goes "WOE IS ME! IF I GET THIS TREATMENT AT THE DOOR, IMAGINE WHAT THE ACTUAL BAR WOULD BE LIKE! I DO NOT HAVE THE COURAGE TO WALK PAST A DOOR SUCH AS THIS, ALAS, HORATIO" and feigns fainting.
What is dangerous and does affect me, indirectly in this case, is the online mob behavior and bullying. That does real harm to people and to our society. For example, whoever the real Satoshi is, would they ever want to be subjected to this?
In this case, it's nuts because everyone agrees on what the standard of evidence is, including him, and he's refused to provide it and acting hurt that people are sceptical. Many people gave him the benefit of the doubt when Gavin et al vouched for him; it's entirely his behavior afterwards that has turned people against him.
First, Satoshi solved a very significant intellectual problem: how to allow a group of people, who may have antagonistic members, to collude successfully. It is known as "The Byzantine Generals' Problem." What else does this person understand or have insight into?
Second, people are innately curious. Who is this person and what motivates him or her? Was this done out of curiosity or financial gain or just plain "because I could?"
Third, Satoshi is sitting on a huge cache of coins when he or she started the process. Is there any intent to use them? If someone could steal the keys to these blocks, it would a major "bank heist."
That said, if someone came out and proved themselves to be Satoshi, it would be a fairly big deal to the Bitcoin world. Satoshi himself has a lot of Bitcoins sitting under his control that he hasn't done anything with. Coupled with the fact that he was the original creator, his opinions would probably have a lot of weight behind them - and this is important when recognizing that Bitcoin right now is at a bit of a cross-roads, with people uncertain on how to proceed.
That said, I'm not heavily involved with Bitcoin, and while it was obvious to me (and most other people) that Wright isn't Satoshi, I wasn't yelling or calling for his head, and I don't really think there were that many other people doing that either - they were just a few loud mouths. All that said, you do have to keep in mind that, because of the power that Satoshi could wield, and the fact that some people have a lot invested in Bitcoin, I can understand the backlash over someone pretending to be Satoshi and potentially messing things up for everybody else.
One scam proof was deployed on his blog where he claimed to sign a Sartre text with a key from bitcoin block 9. He carefully did not give the exact input text, only a supposed hash of the text. The hope was anyone trying to replicate would assume their problem was an incorrect source text. And there was proof that the given hash value was signed by the key. But that did not survive internet scrutiny; it was noticed that the signature came from an old bitcoin transaction. Instead of signing the hashed Sartre text as claimed, it signed the old transaction.
The other scam proof was presented in private to reporters and bitcoin developers Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. Here Wright supposedly demonstrated the ability to sign arbitrary messages using keys from bitcoin blocks 1 and 9. This scam succeeded: both Andresen and Matonis were convinced. But they were not allowed to keep copies of the evidence, to prevent the trick from being exposed. One speculation is that Wright was able to substitute a doctored version of the Electrum software used for the verification. But without evidence to examine outside of Wright's control, the exact details of the scam are still hidden.
But now Wright is out of ideas. His public-consumption scam failed, and his private controlled-scenario scam can't be more widely replicated.
So this message is his way of backing out, trying as much as possible to save face and keep open the possibility of claiming the Satoshi Nakamoto identity again later.
That being said, people should realize that the creator of Bitcoin does not want to be found and honor that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609611
People who "simply do not want to be found" don't make any sorts of claims whatsoever. People who make fraudulent claims are scammers, plain and simple.
The fraudulent evidence that Wright has presented doesn't make it more likely that he's Satoshi, they make it much, much less likely. At this point, it's more reasonable to assume Donald Trump invented BitCoin than Wright.
(PS I tried to upvote you out of invisibility because while I think you are wrong the replies are valuable)
https://twitter.com/RealCraigWright/status/72824283201683865...
I must find out who the real Real Craig Wright is at once. This is hilarious.
As for honor, if the creator of Bitcoin exists as a single entity then it's about time for them to stand up and take some responsibility in the disaster that is the Bitcoin community. Creating something so important and then leaving town is immature, illogical and down right annoying.
While I'm at it, fuck you Satoshi.
Satoshi is not responsible for the Bitcoin community any more than he is responsible for the quality of this Hacker News comment you've just written. I understand the annoyance of not knowing who Satoshi is, but he/she/they doesn't owe us anything.
Apparently, he was able to prove, but did not allow others to keep copies of the evidence. At best, you can suspect. But how can you conclude so strongly that this was a "scam"?
If he was actually the creator of Bitcoin, this is the worst possible way he could convince people of it. That's were the extreme doubt comes from.
I can completely understand someone not wanting to deal with it any longer. Also, it doesn't matter what he does or says at this point; nobody will look at the evidence (even now, likley few in this discussion know more than what others in the mob have told them) and he will be lynched. Anything he does only will fuel the fire.
At any rate, this conversation is about whether or not he is Satoshi. This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not. And as @lucozade put it, "he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have".
> This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not
In theory, but unfortunately not always in the real world.
This is not a court of law. People have a right to (and do!) form their own opinions without going through the courts. Calling something a scam does not require a legal judgment, AFAIK... unless you want to argue that it would be slander/libelous to do so. However, this would probably be a tough sell since saying "X is a scam" in everyday life would probably be interpreted (for legal purposes) as saying "It is my opinion that X is a scam" and opinions cannot be slander/libelous AFAIK.
That, at least, would be a good reason to not give the signature to Gavin or Jon.
However, the moment Craig failed to sign an unambiguously new text on his blog with a known Satoshi key everything that went before was suspect. Would it have proved he was Satoshi? No. Would almost everyone except a few tinfoils give him the benefit of the doubt. Assuredly.
The fact that that didn't happen is very strong evidence that Craig does not have the keys from early blocks. Does that prove he is not Satoshi? No. But he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have. And I'm pretty sure it's not me.
Or is it???
Yes, but the message that was (supposedly) signed contained words to the effect of "Craig Wright is Satoshi", or else his initials? How would Gavin be able to use that message to show that Gavin was Satoshi?
In particular, the person best placed and best motivated to produce such a narrative -- Wright himself -- offers no explanation.
I for one have a lot of respect for this satoshi, and if they ever reveal themselves I would like to find out more about them, purely because they sound quite interesting.
Earlier this week Craig wright came out with a wild claim with "proof" that actually worked against his favour if anything. Most people see this as a selfish act to try to claim fame and respect, while having the audacity to claim that he doesn't want that. This naturally puts him in a very dislikeable position, and I imagine many people wanted to see how he would attempt to worm his way out of this mess he has got himself in, knowing full well he couldn't produce the goods.
You're right that it "doesn't matter" but then at some level perhaps nothing does... It all comes down to subjective interest at the end of the day.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36213580
Narcissists have an incredible high rate of suicide, because when they fall from their high horse, the floor is quite some way down and the landing is too hard for them. Rather than being found out as fake, go with a bang... I fear the bang coming...
This note kind of worries me a little bit... no matter what he did wrong, I hope he will be okay.
Also a possibility of course... his method to safe at least some of his self-image, depends on how good he is at self-manipulation, people are often very good at it.
(For what it's worth, I'm torn on this note: on the one hand, it's deeply upsetting that someone is writing that they're feeling such torment; on the other hand, should it turn out to have been written insincerely, he's just made it a tonne more difficult for anyone else who does legitimately express feelings like this. No winners.)
I certainly believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it's laughable to think this guy is actually Satoshi, and therefore impossible to see this note as sincere.
I do feel uneasy about discounting a potential cry for help, though, however unlikely it may be.
Could someone tell me, in plain English, if there are any challenges in Wright divulging the information needed to verify that he is Satoshi?
I don't think spend isn't the proper technical term.
I wonder if the scam he has been running is "front me money to build a supercomputer to bruteforce my passworded wallet containing Satoshi's millions." This would be more convincing if he were actually Satoshi and 'lost' the password....