As the global economy continues a slide towards another recession, savvy investors are increasingly looking for alternative ways to make their money work for them.

Day after day, the reputation of banks and financial institutions take a hammering as its revealed just what executives at these banks are quite happy to do with your hard-earned cash.

People are rightly fed up. But the slide of the traditional financial institution has led to a rise in the popularity of a new type of money crypto.

Invented by the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto at the start of 2009, Bitcoin this year celebrated its 10th anniversary.

And what a 10 years.

Bitcoin has spawned countless imitators, and created a completely new asset class that is insulated from the legacy financial system, and offers investors another way to make money.

Exchanges

So, whats the best way to invest with crypto? Well, if youre going to invest and trade you need to start using a cryptocurrency exchange.

Exchanges let you register, verify your identity, and (normally) pretty quickly you can be up and running buying, selling and investing in a huge range of digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, dozens of top-tier tokens, and many, many hundreds more of mid-tier to lower tier assets.

All of which for the savvy investor offer an opportunity to profit and get your hard earned money working for you, rather than propping up a dusty old bank vault.

As you would expect theres plenty of exchanges out there, but as with everything theres good, theres bad and theres downright ugly.

To help you navigate this tricky terrain, weve pulled together a guide to the top five cryptocurrency exchanges in operation, their strengths and weaknesses, the assets, and trading options they offer and more.

Depending on the type of exchange you use you might be able to directly invest your fiat currency (for example, the US dollar) directly, others only allow crypto-to-crypto trades, others offer promotions for registering with them.There really is a huge range available.

Online operation

Cryptocurrency was born on the web, and thats where you will find cryptocurrency exchanges.

They operate in a similar way to traditional stock exchange, offering a place for traders to come together and anonymously buy and sell assets.

The exchanges make their money by charging small fees on different transactions, and by trading on that exchange you are helping to provide it with liquidity, which in turn makes it more attractive to other traders.

Risks

As with any type of investment there is always a risk. If you are planning to invest in digital assets and trade them on an exchange you should always be aware of the risk, and have plans in place to minimize your exposure to it.

Firstly, exchanges have been (and will continue to be) hacked. As such you need to take the normal precautions, as you would with an online bank account, and ensure your account is password protected.

Most of this stuff is common sense, but you should ensure you have a long password, preferably held in a secured password manager like Lastpass, and you should ensure upon registering with an exchange to set up two-factor authentication through the Google Authenticator or Authy app (or similar).

This provides an extra layer of security to your account.

Some exchanges, like OKEx for example, also allow you to create a funding password, which you need to enter before any trades are made providing you with even more security.

Theres also a risk that exchanges can go bust. Its happened in the past to smaller exchanges.

However, the exchanges in this top 5 list are all very big, well supported exchanges with a lot of trading volume, and millions of customers.

To reduce your risk, keep any digital assets that you plan to hold on to for the long term off of a cryptocurrency exchange and store them on a hardware wallet, for example a Ledger Nano, or a Trezor.

This type of storage is called cold storage and is the most reliable way to protect your assets.

Only keep cryptocurrencies on an exchange that you expect to use on a day-to-day basis for trading.

Top 5 cryptocurrency exchanges

OKEx

OKEx is recognized globally as the best cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It offers industry-leading products and services, and a first class customer service experience and resource center to aid people new to cryptocurrency trading.

Launched in 2014 in Hong Kong, the exchange is now based out of Malta, and helps millions of customers globally trade cryptocurrencies.

As well as offering simple buy and sell trades, customers who have a bit more trading experience are also well served too. The exchange gives you options to conduct margin trading, futures trading as well as specialized products like perpetual swap trading.

People who have an interest in mining cryptocurrencies can also connect to the exchanges sister company OK Pool, which allows them to quickly and easily set up their mining hardware on OKExs mining pool.

As well as offering a huge variety of trading options across a wide range of older cryptocurrency assets, such as market leader Bitcoin, and Ethereum, customers can also trade newer digital assets as well, for example the exchange recently listed Hedera Hashgraphs HBAR token.

The platform supports new and developing cryptocurrency projects through its OK Jumpstart program, and offers customers the opportunity to trade in its USDK stable coin, while also supporting a huge range of other stable coins too.

On top of this, the exchange is very active in supporting and educating its community. Regularly providing trading guides and strategies to its users on its blog

Binance

Binance is recognized as one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Its charismatic founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) created the exchange to foster crypto-to-crypto trades across a huge range of digital assets. While it does not offer a fiat on-ramp (that is a simple way to deposit fiat currencies with the exchange) at present, this is something the team is working to add.

CZs mission was to create an exchange that solved the problems he perceived with other exchanges, and their trading infrastructure.

Users of Binance can quickly and easily make crypto-to-crypto exchanges, and the platform has recently undergone a complete redesign to bring its user interface up to the standard offered by other market leading exchanges, like OKEx.

The exchange prides itself in educating investors new to the space and features its dedicated Binance Academy as a place to go to watch and learn all the basics of cryptocurrency trading.

The exchange uses its native Binance Coin (BNB) to pay for fees, and customers that use BNB receive a discount on trading fees.

Unfortunately, earlier this year Binance was hacked by attackers, who stole around 7,000 Bitcoin, valued at about $40 million from the exchange. While the money has not been recovered, users funds were protected through the exchanges Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).

The exchange also attracted headlines earlier this year, after a large volume of customers personal data, including names, addresses, passport numbers and photos, was leaked online.

Coinbase

Coinbase was set up with the goal of offering its customers a quick and easy fiat on ramp with the aim of getting them trading on the platform as quickly as possible.

While it is probably one of the best known cryptocurrency exchanges, it has faced criticism on multiple fronts for its handling of user privacy and personal data, something that annoys everyone, but especially crypto enthusiasts, wedded to the idea of using crypto to escape the prying eyes of large institutions.

The Coinbase platform allows you to quickly transfer money from your bank account or credit card on to the platform to buy popular cryptocurrencies.

While in the early days of the platform only a limited number of tokens were supported, recently the exchange has taken to offering a wider range of assets to its customers as it works to try and match the offerings of its competitors.

The basic Coinbase platform (and app) are popular with people new to the cryptocurrency investing space, and despite some fiddly user interface issues Coinbase is, on the whole, quite easy to use.

Traders who are used to buying and selling cryptocurrencies can also take advantage of the Coinbase Pro platform. An exchange linked to the main Coinbase platform, but which provides many more advanced features, for example, stop-loss and limit orders.

However, whereas other exchange in this list make their platforms easy to understand, any new user stumbling onto the Coinbase Pro platform is likely to be dismayed by its overly technical approach to trading.

Unfortunately, Coinbase scores a low 1.5 stars out of five on Trustpilot, and recently angered users in the UK after it made changes to the way retail investors could deposit and withdraw from the exchange.

Bitfinex

While one of the oldest exchanges in operation, having been founded in 2012, it is still very widely used by customers across the crypto space. It offers a full range of services to its customers, including a trading platform, and a margin trading platform.

However, the exchange has not been without controversy. The owners of Bitfinex, iFinex, are the creators of the worlds most widely used stable coin, US dollar Tether (USDT). This asset has faced lots of criticism in the past, chief among them the allegation that the currency is not backed by physical dollars, meaning that users money could be at risk.

The three main functions of Bitfinex are offering customers a pure Bitcoin to fiat exchange, a margin trading exchange and a liquidity provider.

Using margin trading you can short Bitcoin to profit on downward volatility as well as upward movements.

The exchange takes security seriously, with users funds stored safely in a cold wallet. Despite its security the exchange has previously been the victim of a couple of high-profile hacks.

In 2015, around $400,000 was stolen from the exchange, while in 2016 hackers stole more than $73 million from customer accounts.

Huobi Global

Huobi Global is a cryptocurrency and digital asset exchange platform, with offices globally. The business operates in Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shenzhen, Singapore and Tokyo.

The exchange was set up in 2013 and it supports a wide variety of different cryptocurrencies, and stable coins. It features its own stable coin pegged to the US dollar, the HUSD, and the exchange also uses a utility token, HT, which customers can use for fee discounts, voting and more.

While the customer service is not as good as other exchanges in this list, the website is functional and easy to use, and customers with questions can use the exchanges live chat function to speak to customer representatives.

The exchange features a wide range of options for traders, including spot trading, margin trading and futures contracts

In terms of positive points, Huobi offers strong analytics, generally high liquidity and has a solid reputation among the crypto community. On the downside, it is only available to Chinese (and some US) residents, and the only supported fiat currency is the US dollar.

In summary

For people new to trading digital assets and cryptocurrencies the amount of information to take on board can be overwhelming.

Crypto is a nascent industry, which is developing quickly. There are many exchanges out there who treat the cryptocurrency space as the wild west.

Users new to the space should ensure they thoroughly research where they are putting their money before they decide to invest, and make sure whatever they invest in they have a risk management strategy in place that allows them to limit any potential losses they could face.

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The Top 5 Cryptocurrency Exchanges - Asia Crypto Today

SpaceChain, the blockchain startup who came up with this revolutionary idea of setting blockchain nodes into orbit, will be funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).

ESA had been counting on someone to bring this up and had a kick-start activities fund at the disposal of such projects. Nodes in space that are far from anyones reach providing data transfer capabilities around the globe in a far more secure, way with multi-signature smart contracts over the blockchain.

If we consider the fact that Earth as one big node made up of several smaller nodes within itself then all our processing power is centralized. This kills the whole concept of blockchain technology being decentralized as Satoshi Nakamoto had originally envisioned. Not to mention the EOS incident regarding security issues as well.

Perspective does matter when it comes to looking at things from different angles. Luckily, we have people like those working in the SpaceChain program to set things right.

Tests have already been made to confirm is setting having a node in space is feasible or not and theyre good. The transactions carried out on this system will require two of the three signatories to agree. Two signatory bodies reside on land while the third one: the satellite itself will be set into space and would operate from there.

The data protocols would directly upload data to the satellite from the terrestrial network. This is a much safer route to decentralization according to the CEO of SpaceChain, Zee Zheng.

The course of action taken from here on would include three launches in eighteen (18) months. ZeeZheng also added that the crypto market has suffered a loss of one (1) billion dollars in the past months. If hackers can get into systems that are in their reach, they certainly can not go for the ones that arent- is what Zees ideology sums up to be.

Originally posted here:

Are 18 months enough for SpaceChain's extraterrestrial blockchain network? - Cryptopolitan

The other day, the US Federal Reserve Bank (simply known as the Fed) did what many experts in the crypto sphere have spoken about recently took some quantitative easing measures and printed $53 bln.

Now, Arthur Hayes, the CEO of one of the top-line crypto exchanges, BitMEX, says that Bitcoin may soon reach the ATH of 2017 - $20,000.

The Fed has decreased interest rate on some type of loans that had exceeded 10 percent. Now, after an emergency measure of QE has been implemented, over $53 bln of cash has been injected into the global economy.

Commenting on that, the head of the BitMEX crypto trading giant Arthur Hayes has tweeted:

This is the second time the Fed has interfered by switching on its dollar-printing machine since the financial crisis of 2008. Many believe that that particular event directly drove the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (whether it was a single person or a group of developers) to create Bitcoin in the first place.

Recently, the market has proven that Bitcoin price starts growing when the global economy and politics are showing their actual face of uncertainty and instability.

In particular, this happened when the trade war between the US and China broke out earlier this year.

The Fed was not the only institution that decided to take the path of QE which is believed to be a fast cure when the economy bleeds. The EU central bank has used this measure twice this year, with the recent one happening last week.

Not long ago, Hayes also forecast that BTC would rise to hit $20,000.

Now he seems to be more certain on that. Along with him, the crypto expert and the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital, Anthony Pompliano, has also been often mentioning a possible QE by the Fed as one of the major reasons for the Bitcoin price soaring.

Read more:

Bitcoin Will Surge to $20,000, States BitMEX Chief Executive After Fed Prints $53 Bln of QE - U.Today

Latin America is one of the regions where cryptocurrencies are expected to make the most impact. With a high population of unbanked people, an expensive and inaccessible financial industry and political instability in some countries, cryptos have been a godsend for many. CoinGeeks Becky Liggero caught up with Boris Javier Barrera, the CEO of Bitek, a Colombian payments processor thats bringing the benefits of cryptos to the people of South America.

Speaking during the Expo-Bitcoin International conference held in Bogota, Colombia, Barrera stated that he believes Bitcoin is already making its mark in the country. The event, which his company organized, did more than just bring together the BSV community; it allowed the attendants to use BSV for payments, with everything in the conference being sold in crypto.

The conference also brought all the leading minds in the BSV community together, from the Founding President of the Bitcoin Association Jimmy Nguyen to nChain CTO Steve Shadders. However, for Barrera, the highlight was seeing Bitcoin creator, Dr. Craig Wright in person.

Dr. Wrights personality was as endearing as his intellect, Barrera told CoinGeek. Even when some people couldnt quite comprehend everything he was talking about, they were just happy to listen to him, take pictures with him and just interact with him.

Colombia is one of the largest crypto communities in the Latin American region, he continued. And theres even more potential for cryptos as more people recognize the freedom that they offer.

In 2017, it is estimated that almost 2% of the GDP of Colombia was represented by Bitcoin transactions. This is huge, he remarked.

However, unfortunately for many Colombians, what they have been referring to as Bitcoin is the corrupted SegWitCoin (BTC), which is slow and expensive. Barrera, through his company Bitek, is changing this narrative by introducing more people to Bitcoin SV, the only Bitcoin project that follows Satoshi Nakamotos original vision.

Bitcoin, the original version is fast, reliable and very, very cheap in fees. Bitcoin SV is the only cryptocurrency in the world which follows the original protocol of Bitcoin, of the original whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto.

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Bitek CEO talks spreading Bitcoin SV news in Latin America - CoinGeek

The Electric Coin Company (ECC) says it discovered a new way to scale blockchains with recursive proof composition,a proof to verify the entirety of a blockchain in one function. For the ECC and zcash, the new project,Halo, may hold the key to privacy at scale.

A privacy coin based on zero-knowledge proofs, referred to as zk-SNARKs, zcashs current underlying protocol relies on trusted setups. These mathematical parameters were used twice in zcashs short history: upon its launch in 2016 and first large protocol change, Sapling, in 2018.

Zcash masks transations through zk-SNARKs but the creation of initial parameters remains an issue. By not destroying a transactions mathematical foundation the trusted setup the holder can produce forged zcash.

Moreover, the elaborate ceremonies the zcash community undergoes to create the trusted setups are expensive and a weak point for the entire system. The reliance on trusted setups with zk-SNARKs was well known even before zcashs debut in 2016. While other research failed to close the gap, recursive proofs make trusted setups a thing of the past, the ECC claims.

Speaking with CoinDesk, ECC engineer and Halo inventor Sean Bowe said recursive proof composition is the result of years of labor by him and others and months of personal frustration. In fact, he almost gave up three separate times.

Bowe began working for the ECC after his interest in zk-SNARKs was noticed by ECC CEO and zcash co-founder Zooko Wilcox in 2015. After helping launch zcash and its first significant protocol change with Sapling, Bowe moved to full-time research with the company.

Before Halo, Bowe worked on a different zk-SNARK variant, Sonic, requiring only one trusted setup.

For most cypherpunks, thats one too many.

People we are also starting to think as far back as 2008, we should be able to have proofs that can verify other proofs, what we call recursive proof composition. This happened in 2014, Bowe told CoinDesk.

In essence, Bowe and Co. discovered a new method of proving the validity of transactions, while masked, by compressing computational data to the bare minimum. As the ECC paper puts it, proofs that are capable of verifying other instances of themselves.

Blockchain transaction such as bitcoin and zcash are based on elliptic curves with points on the curve serving as the basis for the public and private keys. The public address can be thought of the curve: we know what the elliptic curve looks like in general. What we do not know is where the private addresses are which reside on the curve.

It is the function of zk-SNARKs to communicate about private addresses and transactionsif an address exists and where it exists on the curveanonymously.

Bowes work is similar to bulletproofs, another zk-SNARK that requires no trusted setup. What you should think of when you think of Halo is like recursive bulletproofs, Bowe said.

From a technical standpoint, bulletproofs rely on the inner product argument, which relays certain information about the curves to one another. Unfortunately, the argument is both very expensive and time consuming compared to your typical zk-SNARK verification.

By proving multiple zk-SNARKs with onea task thought impossible until Bowes researchcomputational energy is pruned to a fraction of the cost.

People have been thinking of bulletproofs on top of bulletproofs. The problem the bulletproof verifier is extremely expensive because of the inner product argument, Bowe said. I dont use bulletproofs exactly, I use a previous idea bulletproofs are built on.

In fact, Bowe said recursive proofs mean you can prove the entirety of the bitcoin blockchain in less space than a bitcoin blockhead takes 80-bytes of data.

Writing on Twitter, Wilcox said his company is currently studying the Halo implementation as a Layer 1 solution on zcash.

Layer 1 solutions are implementations into the codebase constituting a blockchain. Most scaling solutions, like bitcoins Lightning Network, are Layer 2 solutions built on top of a blockchains state. The ECCs interest in turning Halo into a Layer 1 solution speaks to the originality of the discovery as it will reside next to code copied from bitcoins creator himself, Satoshi Nakamoto.

ECC is exploring the use of Halo for Zcash to both eliminate trusted setup and to scale Zcash at Layer 1 using nested proof composition.

zooko (@zooko) September 10, 2019

Since the early days of privacy coins, scaling has been a contentious issue: with so much data needed to mask transactions, how do you grow a global network?

Bowe and the ECC claim recursive proofs solve this dilemma: with only one proof needed to verify an entire blockchain, data concerns could be a thing of the past:

Privacy and scalability are two different concepts, but they come together nicely here. About 5 years ago, academics were working on recursive snarks, a proof that could verify itself or another proof [and even] verify multiple proofs. So, what [recursive proof composition] means is you only need one proof to verify an entire blockchain.

To be sure, this isnt sophomore-level algebra: Bowe told CoinDesk the proof alone took close to nine months of glueing various pieces together.

A further implication of recursive proofs is the amount of data stored on the blockchain. Since the entire ledger can be verified in one function, onboarding new nodes will be easier than ever, Bowe said.

Youre going to see blockchains that have much higher capacity because you dont have to communicate the entire history in one. The state of the chain still needs to be seen. But if you want to download the entire network you dont need to download the entire blockchain.

While state chains still need to be monitored for basic transaction verification, syncing the entire history of a blockchainover 400 GB and 200 GB for ethereum and bitcoin respectivelybecomes a redundancy.

For zcash, Halo means easier hard forks. Without trusted setups, ECC research claims, proofs of state changes need only reference the latest proof, allowing old history to be discarded forever.

When asked where his discovery ranks with other advancements, Bowe spoke on its practicality:

Where does this stand in the grand scheme of things in cryptocurrency? Its a cryptographic tool to compress computation and scale protocols.

Rubix cube image via Shutterstock

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You Can Now Prove a Whole Blockchain With One Math Problem Really - CoinDesk

That's a lot of bitcoin! Photo: Shutterstock

Imagine having 94,504 Bitcoin.

Well, someone does.

A transaction took place last week that saw $1.4 billion worth of Bitcoin moved into a wallet.

Early speculation suggested it was a sign of mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto the potential owner of a million Bitcoin.

The public key (37XuVSEpWW4trkfm vWzegTHQt7BdktSKUs) has received 34 other transactions on the Bitcoin ledger, many of them for mere fractions of a Bitcoin.

One analyst has linked the sending accounts to Huobi Global, a cryptocurrency exchange located in Singapore.

Surprisingly, this is not the largest number of Bitcoin ever moved.

A transaction of 500,000 Bitcoin took place back in 2011, long before the cryptocurrencys price skyrocketed.

Today, that much Bitcoin would be worth $7.4 billion.

Liquidating that much coin would certainly take a lot of trips to Bitcoin ATMs.

What could you buy with $1.4 billion?

A lot, obviously.

Avocado addiction means young Australians are struggling to buy homes, but with $1.4 billion, you could buy some prime real estate. Mansions, castles, towers, penthouses would all be in your price range.

Perhaps you have always wanted to make a movie. Avengers: Endgame cost an estimated $550 million to produce its well within your price range to make the highest grossing film of all time.

How about an experience? Well, you could always go to the moon. Elon Musk is planning on sending Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to our nearest celestial neighbour. The whole project is slated to cost around $7 billion, but you only need to buy one ticket after all.

Its such a short trip to the moon and back, so maybe you want something a bit more timeless.

Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi is the most expensive painting ever sold. The 16th century depiction of Jesus fetched a price tag of around $700 million, back in 2017.

One question though: does it suit your dcor?

Salvator Mundi by Leonardo di Vinci (c. 1500)

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Someone just moved $1.4 billion in Bitcoin - ACS

In the crypto community, there is a debate going on regarding the Bitcoin block size limit. And the community stands divided both in favor and against bigger sizes.

Some are totally in favor of larger blocks due to the perks that come along with it, such as less crowding and faster transactions.

While some dont seem to agree with it and point out the inconveniences attached to large blocks, such as the bandwidth issue and they take up large storage.

However, back in 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto first created Bitcoin, the block size limit was not introduced. It was introduced in 2010 when one megabyte (1MB) limit was instituted by him, giving birth to the debate.

It started gaining momentum over a period of five years as the transaction volume of Bitcoin started to rise.

After several proposals, the Bitcoin community increased its the limit of its block size to two megabytes (2MB) back in August 2017.

SegWit was also introduced by Bitcoin in November of 2017 to handle signatures efficiently and to free up some block space.

This addition of SegWit lead to the splitting of Bitcoin Cash and opted for the eight megabytes (8MB) limit that later increased up to thirty-two megabytes (32MB) in May 2018.

History repeated itself and in November of 2018, there was a split between Bitcoin SV from Bitcoin Cash to introduce a one hundred and twenty-eight megabytes (128MB) limit, which was then raised to two gigabytes (2GB) in July 2019.

Though the block size limit of these three blockchains, namely Bitcoin, Bitcoin SV, and Bitcoin Cash is different from each having ten minutes block time, roughly.

So, in order to observe their performance, it is best to do it indirectly rather than Bitcoin block size limit. Moreover, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have almost zero fees and this indicates that users need not to compete to in order to get their transactions included in the upcoming blocks:

However, low demand could be yet another factor involved in the high performance rather than the size of the block.

Furthermore, Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin Cash hardly ever reach their full block capacity, and typically their average bloc sizes are way low than those that are found in the Bitcoin.

Also, both the blockchains have lower transaction volumes than that of the Bitcoin, as illustrated above. Whereas, Bitcoin price against the United States dollar stands much higher than the two hard forks resting the case for comparison.

See original here:

Bitcoin block size limit debate: An overview - Cryptopolitan

Bitcoins in India had only started to gain momentum when a banking ban in 2018 by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cooled off the sentiment. RBI had then said that any entity regulated by it such as banks, wallets etc shall not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities for buying or selling of cryptocurrencies. Since then, Indian investors have been wary of Bitcoins.

For those unaware, Bitcoin is one of the earliest cryptocurrencies, forming part of the worldwide peer-to-peer payment system. The Bitcoin network and currency was introduced by an unknown person or group Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

But what exactly is a cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency is basically digital money and uses cryptography to secure its transactions. Cryptography is a method of converting comprehensible data into complicated codes which are tough to crack.

So basically, Bitcoin is like virtual cash. Each Bitcoin behaves like a computer file which is stored in a digital wallet app on a smartphone or computer. People can send Bitcoins to each others digital wallets. Every single transaction is recorded in a public list called the blockchain. This makes it possible to trace the history of Bitcoins to stop people from spending coins they do not own, making copies or undoing transactions. After Bitcoin, there has been a rapid increase in the number of cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Dash, Ripple etc.

However, India has not had a positive stance towards Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. A high-level government panel on virtual cryptocurrencies has recommended a ban on all virtual cryptocurrencies in India. The committee had submitted its report on 23 July 2019, along with a proposed draft bill, Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019. It is available on the website of the Department of Economic Affairs.

Along with the ban, the committee has also proposed a fine of Rs 25 crore and imprisonment up to 10 years for any activity related to virtual currencies, which is carried out by individuals or companies.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had also cautioned Indian public in the past over cryptocurrencies, with the central government vowing earlier this year to eliminate the use of digital currency, which it considers illegal.

However, even with this background, one can still say that there has been no blanket ban on Bitcoins in India yet as these are just committee recommendations and no law has been formulated as of now. In this regard, the Supreme Court of India in a ruling pronounced on 25 February 2019 had also asked the Indian government to come up with cryptocurrency regulation policies.

For those who have already invested in Bitcoin and hold the cryptocurrency, various media reports have suggested that even if a ban comes into effect, individuals may be given a time period of up to three months to dispose off their assets.

Bitcoin in India is mainly bought from digital currency exchanges like ZebPay, CoinDelta, CoinSecure, etc, through a credit card. Zebpay even had an Android and iPhone app which allowed individuals to link their bank accounts for quick transfers. There was a KYC requirement and buyers needed to verify their ID by simply clicking a photo of their PAN card.

Unocoin, another India-based exchange, allowed individuals to trade Bitcoins. They helped them buy, sell, store, use and accept Bitcoin. However, after RBIs restrictions, withdrawals and deposits via Indian bank accounts have been disabled.

Many cryptocurrency users also trade in Bitcoins through family or friends based in other countries where cryptocurrencies have been given legal status.

Get the best of News18 delivered to your inbox - subscribe to News18 Daybreak. Follow News18.com on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and on YouTube, and stay in the know with what's happening in the world around you in real time.

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Is it Legal to Invest in Bitcoins in India? Here's a Guide to Cryptocurrencies - News18

Image caption Craig Wright failed to deliver on his promise of "extraordinary proof" that we was Bitcoin's inventor

At the beginning of May, it seemed that a great mystery had been solved.

An Australian academic and entrepreneur, Craig Wright, identified himself as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the crypto-currency Bitcoin.

But, over the following days, the proof he offered was torn apart, not just by angry people on the Bitcoin forums but by a number of authorities on cryptography.

After first promising more evidence, Dr Wright then wrote a blog saying he did not have the strength to continue and retired from public view.

Nakamoto's true identity appeared as opaque as ever - the Australian had not proved his case, but nor had it been disproved.

Now, though, we have a whole new collection of evidence, in the form of a 35,000-word article about the Nakamoto affair in the London Review of Books.

The author is the journalist and novelist Andrew O'Hagan, whose work includes a fascinating and hilarious account of his time trying to be the ghost writer of Julian Assange's autobiography.

It seems Mr O'Hagan has an appetite for driven and difficult high-performing geeky types, because he spent six months with Craig Wright.

That meant he was there right through the period when Dr Wright was first outed as a potential Nakamoto last December, then dismissed as a fraud, and later through his own "self-outing" and the aftermath.

It is a gripping and beautifully written tale, more a short novel than a magazine article.

We learn all sorts of new details about Dr Wright's career, his claims about his involvement in the creation of Bitcoin, and his reasons for choosing to identify himself as Nakamoto seven years after the currency was created.

To me, the key revelation is about this motivation.

He had told the BBC that he had not wanted to come out into the spotlight but needed to dispel damaging rumours affecting his family, friends and colleagues.

But O'Hagan shows us something rather different - a man under intense pressure from business associates who stood to profit from him if he could be shown to be Nakamoto.

These people had signed a deal with Dr Wright in June last year, which saw them pay off his debts, including legal fees incurred in a battle with the Australian tax authorities.

Then, they had a plan for him.

"They would bring Wright to London and set up a research and development centre for him, with around 30 staff working under him," O'Hagan writes.

"They would complete the work on his inventions and patent applications - he appeared to have hundreds of them - and the whole lot would be sold as the work of Satoshi Nakamoto, who would be unmasked as part of the project."

The intellectual property, which he had already created and would now augment, would be worth as much as $1bn (700m) with the Nakamoto name attached, so they would all end up very rich indeed.

That may sound fanciful, but Dr Wright's research was into the block chain, the technology underlying Bitcoin, and the world's big banks are rushing to invest in exploring its potential.

Now, they may have had dollar signs in their eyes, but Dr Wright's backers certainly seemed to believe he was Nakamoto, and O'Hagan outlines some new evidence that supports that view.

He spends days talking to Dr Wright about his relationship with Dave Kleiman, an American who died in 2013 and is thought by many to have played a big part in the creation of Bitcoin.

With some reluctance, Dr Wright eventually supplies some emails that seem to suggest the two worked together on the 2008 Nakamoto white paper explaining the idea of the "peer-to-peer electronic cash system".

O'Hagan goes to meet Dr Wright's ex-wife, who stands up a story about the two men meeting at a conference in Orlando in 2009 - because she came along too.

She gives a detailed account of their meeting and the way Dr Wright hero-worshipped Mr Kleiman, which rings true coming from someone who has no reason to lie.

There is a document about a trust fund set up by Dr Wright to hold some bitcoins for Mr Kleiman, along with a promise not to reveal the identity behind Nakamoto's email address.

And there are minutes of a meeting between the Australian tax authorities and Dr Wright's business, where his advisor appears to suggest that he possessed 1.1m bitcoins - worth nearly 600m at the current exchange rate.

There is also an intriguing tale about a meeting between Dr Wright and Ross Ulbricht, the man now serving a life sentence in the United States for setting up the Silk Road, the bitcoin-fuelled drug and gun trading site.

And, then, we get a behind-the-scenes account of what happened when this brilliant, difficult, angry man - described by one colleague as "like Steve Jobs but only worse" - went public, in separate meetings with the BBC, the Economist and GQ, and the days afterwards, when everything fell apart.

As someone who played a part in that saga - and still asks himself whether he should have asked better questions of Dr Wright - I was just a little disappointed with this climax to the story.

The author seems more removed from the action at this point than in the months before the denouement.

Here is an example: on the Wednesday after the big reveal on Monday 2 May, Dr Wright agreed to undertake a much simpler proof of his identity than he had offered before.

He asked me, and the two Bitcoin experts who had verified his story - Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen - to send a small amount of bitcoins to an address known to be linked to Nakamoto.

He would then send it back, proving his claims to the identity.

The money was sent but never returned.

What was going on in the hours between us being invited to take part in this proof and the moment when we were told it was "on hold"?

The only reason we get for Dr Wright's bizarre behaviour, which sabotaged everything he had worked for, comes in the form of an email to O'Hagan.

He sends the writer a news story that suggests the father of Bitcoin might be arrested for helping to facilitate terrorism by allowing people to buy weapons anonymously.

Dr Wright, it seems, decided he would prefer to be called a fraud than risk spending years in jail.

This seems unconvincing.

After all, he had been planning to out himself for months - albeit under pressure from his backers - so why this sudden fear of the consequences now?

The other question left hanging is why the backers who had invested so much in their Nakamoto had not demanded more proof from him at an earlier stage.

In the end, we are left uncertain about Dr Wright's true role in the creation of Bitcoin.

It seems very likely he was involved, perhaps as part of a team that included Dave Kleiman and Hal Finney, the recipient of the first transaction with the currency.

He may have exaggerated his contribution, he may have constructed a very elaborate fantasy - or this fragile personality may have lost his nerve as he realised that his life would never be the same again once he was Craig "Nakamoto" Wright.

If you are expecting O'Hagan to reveal the truth behind Bitcoin's creation myth, you will be left disappointed.

But if you enjoy a ripping yarn - with some piercing insights into geek culture - then you will find the Satoshi Affair an engrossing way to spend a couple of hours.

Read more:

Back to the Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin affair - BBC News

Satoshi Nakamotos identity has perhaps been the best keptsecret of the whole crypto-verse. Since the creation of Bitcoin, the anonymouscharacter chose anonymity as a wayto protect himself and his creation.

From the moment he decided to move onto other things thecommunity was in charge of the project. However, in the absence of a centralfigure there have been certain conflicts and speculations, not only astowhich direction the project should best take, but who Satoshi Nakamotois (or was).

One of those who have claimed responsibility for creating Bitcoin is Craig Wright. This man claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto and recently filed a series of legal complaints against a group of media and people who dont believe hes telling the truth because he hasnt been able to prove it so far.

This action provoked the irritation of much of the crypto-verse, from crypto users to trulyinfluential people like CZ and John McAfee. While CZ got fed up with CSWs toxic actions, calling him a fraud; John McAfee remarked that he is 100% sure that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto:

The controversial tweet generated a lot of speculation inthe community. The only way McAfee could be absolutelysure Craig Wrightwas lying is by knowing the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

John McAfee is not afraid of threats from Calvin Ayre and CSW, and he doesnt seem to care if he gets The Letter. In the following tweets he continued criticizing CSW for not proving he is Satoshi. BSV got its part too.

However, the situation escalated the next day. McAfee leftnothing to the imagination and claimed to know the true identity of SatoshiNakamoto. The renowned cybersecurity expert then began a process in which hewould slowly offer clues about Satoshis true identity.

The first clue, if true, eliminates the leading conspiracytheory, but explains that Satoshi Nakamoto is actually a kind of organization,where several people had different responsibilities. Of this group, an American(or at least one person living in the United States) was responsible forwriting the Whitepaper.

In the following tweet he said he is this practice until the author of the whitepaper revealed himself, or until the community could discover who he is, based on McAfees clues.

What We Can Conclude After reading John McAfees tweets(both the ones on his TL and the replies provided to others):

Finally, McAfee concluded his first wave of clues with an epic ending, as always:

Go here to see the original:

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? John McCafee Claims to Know And ...

By CCN.com: According to blockchain data and CCN/Hacked reporter Greg Thomson, an anonymous miner who embeds the words Satoshi Nakamoto into all of the blocks they mine currently controls more than 40% of Bitcoin Cashs hashrate.

There are multiple running theories as to the intent behind amassing so much hashpower, beyond the pure profit motive of mining Bitcoin Cash. Mining Bitcoin Cash is generally a profitable endeavor, despite reduced transaction fees that are accrued on the more spacious chain. There is less competition, which means miners with significant investment earn more BCH.

Each theory has its merits. Some are conspiratorial, with BCH supporters believing that either Craig Wright and Bitcoin miners are working against Bitcoin Cash. One theory says that Wright and Coingeek, Calvin Ayres crypto operation which sports a mining pool and what can only be described as a propaganda outlet, are trying to amass a ton of BCH in order to dump it for Bitcoin SV, the effect being a drop in the price of Bitcoin Cash and a rise in the price of Bitcoin SV.

Many blocks have popped up with the Satoshi Nakamoto coinbase text. No one has stepped forward to declare themselves the miner of these blocks.

All the highlighted Coinbase texts denote blocks mined by the unknown Satoshi Nakamoto miner. Source: Coin.dance

Another theory posits that Bitcoin miners might want to intentionally slow down the Bitcoin network to raise transaction fees. This theory, of all of them, has perhaps the least sense to it. A severe hashrate decrease would have to happen on Bitcoin, coinciding with a corresponding hash rate increase on Bitcoin Cash.

However, the Bitcoin hashrate hasnt dropped significantly.

As you can see, Bitcoin hash rate continues unabated. The currency currently has more than 90% of all hashrate between Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV. Source: Bitinfocharts

The theory that the new miner comes from Bitcoin SV might hold more water, though. Bitcoin SV hashpower has recently dropped a little, while Bitcoin Cash has increased.

Bitcoin SV hashrate has been dropping lately, while Bitcoin Cash hashrate has been rising. Source: Coin.dance

Its unclear whether this trend is recent enough to accurately attribute the potential attack to the Bitcoin SV miners, however. Bitcoin SV miners would more likely be switching to the more profitable Bitcoin Cash chain in response to the recent downturn in Bitcoin SV prices, which result in part from the third Bitcoin being delisted from several exchanges.

A curious possibility is that an anonymous miner is looking to stir up a conversation about Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin Cash community. But the conspiracy theories around Craig Wrights potential involvement derive from the upstart nature of this unknown miner.

In Nakamoto Consensus blockchains such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV, a miner with more than 51% of the networks hashpower has significant power. Previous to an upgrade for Bitcoin Cash, reorganization was still a possibility. This would mean that a miner with such hashpower could essentially write already-confirmed transactions out of the blockchain.

Other potential attacks include the ability to deny any transaction with minimal fees. In Bitcoin Cash, this would be detrimental for several reasons. Bitcoin Cash users enjoy paying extremely low fees, and this miner mines so many blocks that such an attack could produce significant turbulence. They could also opt to include no transactions at all. That this miner has done neither of these things can serve as evidence that they do not intend to do so.

Previously, a miner with similar hashpower was using the boomboomboom for Coinbase text. Probably the same miner, as they went offline as the Satoshi Nakamoto miner came online.

This is far from the first time concerns over the state of the Bitcoin Cash mining network have arisen. Since the networks foundation in August 2017, miners have gained majority hashrate numerous times.

The Bitcoin Cash network continues to be functional at press time, but would the real Satoshi Nakamoto miner please stand up? Wed like to hear from you.

Read the rest here:

Satoshi Nakamoto Mines Over 40% of Bitcoin Cash, Sparks ...

For close to ten years many people have been on the hunt for the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of the decentralized technology called Bitcoin. This year the race to find the anonymous character, or group of individuals, who designed the peer-to-peer electronic cash system has been hotter than ever with more clues left behind Heres what we know so far.

**This is part one of a two-part story. Part two features a full-length interview with a man who claims to be a member of the Satoshi Nakamoto group, but has no verifiable proof. Part two can be read here**

Satoshi Nakamoto is the anonymous creator of the Bitcoin technology and the entire cryptocurrency economy today is based on Nakamotos words and original code. Satoshi is an unknown person or group who wrote the original white paper, launched the network, made the first transaction, communicated with software developers between 2008-2010, and possibly possesses over 1 million bitcoins. Since the creation of blockchain technology lots of people and news-outlets like Newsweek, Wired, Gizmodo, BBC, GQ, New York Times, Bloomberg, Fast Company, and many others have tried to uncover the mystery. Theres a lot of evidence, clues, and research on the subject and multiple suspects.

Some people believe knowing who Satoshi is doesnt matter. Other people believe Bitcoins creator does matter, as he could possibly help with scaling conflicts, and then theres the possibility of the alleged 1M bitcoins mined could affect the price if they were dumped on the market. Either way the hunt for Satoshi just out of mere curiosity alone has encouraged armchair sleuths and journalists to seek out the unknown person(s).

One of the first suspects in the search for Nakamoto is Hal Finney, a man who worked with Satoshi during the early days testing the protocol. Finney was an excellent cryptographer and was allegedly the first person to run the original Bitcoin protocol. Back in 2014 the journalist Andy Greenberg wrote an article called Nakamotos Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoins Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius which explains that Hal Finney could have been Satoshi. According to Greenbergs article, Finney could have also helped the Satoshi group ghost write some of the writings shared online. The reason this theory is bolstered is because the well-known writing analysis organization, Juola & Associates, detailed that Nakamotos and Finneys writings had the closest resemblance.

Another accused person who many people believe is Satoshi is the computer scientist Nick Szabo. The financial author Dominic Frisby had shown some circumstantial evidence in his novel connecting Szabo to Nakamoto. Szabo has denied being Nakamoto in an email to Frisby concerning the subject. Furthermore, Szabo has been linked to Satoshi Nakamoto through a writing analysis called stylometry. A writer named Skye Grey (and others) seem to believe Szabos writings are very similar to the Bitcoin white paper.

In 2014 the reporter Leah McGrath Goodman wrote an article for the publication Newsweek which said a Japanese American man living in California was the elusive creator of Bitcoin. Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real birth name is Satoshi Nakamoto, is an engineer who worked on many classified defense projects as a contractor for multiple businesses. The Newsweek reporters evidence was when she asked Dorian about Bitcoin he replied: I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. However, after the article had published Dorian denied being involved with the creation of the Bitcoin technology and said he misinterpreted Goodmans original question. Dorian has been praised as a lovable guy who was a victim of bad journalism.

The Australian academic Craig Steven Wright first got major attention on December 8, 2015, after appearing with his partner David Kleiman in two articles written by Wired, and then Gizmodo. Allegedly a hacker had stolen emails from Wright which explain that he and Kleiman were part of the Satoshi Nakamoto group, which may also have had 1-2 more players. There are numerous other articles by Motherboard Vice, and others that have different clues to the Craig Wright case. After the articles, Wright subsequentlydeleted his online presence and wasnt heard from again until May 2, 2016.

In 2016, Wright reappeared and claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto, and when he returned both Gavin Andresen and Jon Matonis vouched for his claim. Furthermore, Wright attempted to show cryptographic proof that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, but these claims were refuted by some researchers and called fraudulent by others.

Now this year more clues have been unraveling in regard to the Craig Wright case. Back in February 2018, Wright was sued for billions by the family of David Kleiman. The case 9:18-cv-80176-bb filed in Florida explains the plaintiff Ira Kleiman wants a settlement for 300,000BTC. According to the case, which also corroborates with the Wired and Gizmodo articles, the court documents explainthat Wright, Kleiman, and possibly others have keys to a BTC trust held in escrow in Seychelles which may unlock in 2020. The Tulip Trust will allegedly give Wright 1 million BTC, and Ira Kleiman (Davids sibling) believes his brothers estate deserves their share. Evidence online shows that Wright and Kleiman were partners in business, along with a secretary named Uyen Nguyenwhose online presence has disappeared. Other than that, the main evidence from case9:18-cv-80176-bb stems from the emails Ira Kleiman has and stories his brother David told him.

Then on August 29, a man named Phil Wilson, who has written some interesting topics on the origins of Bitcoinlast year, discussed the Tulip Trust on Twitter. Wilson claims to be a member of the Satoshi Nakamoto group, and worked with Wright and Kleiman on the project during the Genesis days. Wilson has also written about the creation of the Bitcoin logo, and explains that he was the person who designed the original symbol. However Wilson says I dont have access to any emails or IRC logs to reference and confirm specific events, actions or dates, but its not complete fiction because some of the main events took place similarly to how Ive recalled them. Wilson says his assistants/ surrogates were Dave Kleiman and Craig Wright, and they mostly knew him as Jamie. Moreover, Wilson details that on January 1, 2020, the 1 million BTC in the trust addresses will unlock and Wright will have access to the funds.

However, a few days later after Wilson tweeted about the Tulip Trust, Wright wrote four posts on Twitter specifically directed at Wilsons recent statements and origin story.

One thing I will say Phil Wilson knew nothing at all about bitcoin before 2011 and that he tried to extort me for money I shall provide sufficient evidence to enable a criminal fraud prosecution against Scronty, explains Craig Wright on August 31. This material shall be compiled and released in September It shall include his extortion attempt and far more Sorry He has nothing to do with Bitcoin, and his fall will be an example.

There is no Phil Jamie Wilson Jamie Wilson is a completely separate person to Phil Wilson. So, any emails involving myself and Jamie are unrelated to P Wilsons identity fraud.

Following this, news.Bitcoin.com discussed the Bitcoin origins story with Phil Wilson who doesnt have any hard evidence that he was part of the group, but says he has the right to express his memories. We asked him about the latest Twitter statements Craig Wright was writing publicly about him and his online alias Scronty.

Craig seems to be a tad aggressive towards a supposed no-body,' Wilson explains to news.Bitcoin.com.

News.Bitcoin.com (BC): Ok. But you say you worked with Craig and Dave?

Phil Wilson (PW):I initially was trying to help Craig with his attempt at an electronic cash. I left his project in mid-May 2008 when it became apparent that it would never work.Then I started my own project in early June 2008 and got Dave and Craig to help me with it.

BC: That would be the original client?

PW: Yep What everyone knows as Bitcoin evolved out of my project, not Craigs.Practically nothing from his code was left. Only the generic crypto functions were taken from his codebase (which was copy/ pasted from elsewhere). The white paper hed been working on from before 2007 was effectively thrown out. It was complete junk. Just a mish-mash of other peoples white papers.

To be continued: The rest of the interview with Phil Wilson will be published in its entirety in the next part of this story. News.Bitcoin.com readers can read part two here.

What do you think about the latest clues concerning Satoshi Nakamotos identity? Do you believe any of these theories and claims? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Images via Shutterstock, Wiki Commons, Twitter, Gizmodo, Newsweek, and Pixabay.

At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.

Jamie Redman is a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source code, and decentralized applications. Redman has written thousands of articles for news.Bitcoin.com about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

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New Information Heightens Satoshi Nakamoto Mystery - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin was conceived as a communal project. Designed as an open-source software and released to the public in 2009, Bitcoin was conceived with openness in mind. Functioning on an open ledger that is accessible to the public, Bitcoin is an open-source project.

But despite all its openness, one grand mystery remains unsolved:

Who Created Bitcoin and Who exactly is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Finding an answer to this question isnt easy. We know that all the code that created Bitcoin originated with Satoshi Nakamoto, but that is about all we know. Satoshi Nakamoto didnt work alone on launching Bitcoin.

Some of the early Bitcoin devs have been pointed to as possible Satoshis, but there are numerous issues when it comes to proving that any specific person was the creator of Bitcoin.

First, lets detail what is known for certain. The first step was taken in 2007, when Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin code. In November 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published hisnow famous White Paper, which laid the groundwork for the Bitcoin protocol.

On January 3rd, 2009, the first ever Bitcoin block was mined, marking the creation of the cryptocurrency, it bore the message :

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

Satoshi was heavily involved with the Bitcoin community, and collaborated with them in order to modify the underlying bitcoin protocol. After two years of involvement, Nakamoto handed the reins to Gavin Andresen, and seized involvement with the Bitcoin project in December of 2010.

In the Spring of 2011, Nakamoto returned to leave a final message, stating in a post that he had moved on to other things, and that Bitcoin was in good hands with Gavin [Andresen] and everyone. That was the last the world heard of the secretive Bitcoin creator.

The mystery behind Nakamotos identity has only grown, as the Bitcoin community eagerly speculates who it could potentially be. Satoshi Nakamoto claims to be Japanese, born on April 5, 1975. To this day, it is unknown whether Nakamoto is male or female, or whether Nakamoto is even a single person or a group of individuals.

Today most people are familiar with digital currency, thanks to the epic crypto rally of 2017. Back in 2008 when this was all getting started, the cryptocurrency world was a lot smaller. We know for sure that some of the people we talk about below knew each other.

In the case of David Kleiman and Craig Wright, there is solid evidence that the two worked together to get bitcoin off the ground, and both had substantial amounts of the tokens. There is an ongoing saga between Kleimans estate and Wright, alleging that there could have been some kind of graft, and that Wright ended up with bitcoins that were rightfully Kleimans.

You might notice that we wrote Kleimans estate and not Kleiman. The sad fact is that some of the people who could be Satoshi Nakamoto have died, which makes a positive identification much harder.

When the first bitcoins were being mined, basically nobody cared about them. The first bitcoin transaction was a trade of 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, which should give you some idea of how playful some of the early devs were with their project. There are a lot of questions surrounding the origins of Bitcoin, and as time goes on, they may become harder to answer.

While Nakamotos identity remains unknown, This has not stopped enthusiasts from investigating his background and drawing up conclusions.

Nakamotos use of perfect English in his posts and his publication of the White Paper has raised skepticism as to his Japanese origin. Furthermore, his occasional use of British English in the code and comments has fueled speculation that he is a native English speaker of commonwealth origin.

Additionally, Stefan Thomas, a Swiss coder and active member in the Bitcoin community, graphed the time stamps of Nakamotos more than 500 posts, showing his or her complete absence of posts between midnight am and 6 am Greenwich Time, further informing investigators as to his potential whereabouts.

To date, there are several potential individuals suspected of being the mysterious Bitcoin creator. One of the first suggestions was Nick Szabo, a decentralized currency enthusiast who published a paper on Bit Gold considered to be a precursor to the first cryptocurrency.

By running a reverse textual analysis, internet researcher Skye Grey found dozens of unique phrases that linked Szabos writing style to that of the original whitepaper. This evidence is only circumstantial, however, and Szabo has repeatedly denied that he is the creator of Bitcoin.

Despite all the denials, the research into how the Bitcoin whitepaper was written shows remarkable similarities between how Szabo writes, and also what was omitted. One of the most curious things is that Satoshi Nakamoto made numerous references to ideas that had been used by Bit Gold, but never talked about Bit Gold directly.

Omitting the origin of relevant ideas strange, unless Szabo was deliberately trying to cover up his tracks. None of this is hard evidence, and to date Szabo has flatly denied being the key driver of Bitcoins launch.

Nick Szabo, Image from The-Blockchain

Another possibility is a Japanese American man living in California, named Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, birth name Satoshi Nakamoto. First brought up in a March 2014 Newsweek article, Leah McGrath Goodman pointed to Nakamotos training as a physicist at Cal Poly University in Pomona and libertarian background as potential indicators of his identity.

Goodmans biggest piece of evidence was his response to a question regarding Bitcoin: I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. Its been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.This led to a wild media frenzy, which even included a car chase.

However, in a later interview, he recanted his previous position, stating that he had misunderstood the reporters question, thinking it was related to his previous classified work as a military contractor.

Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, Image from The Verge.

David Kleiman had an interesting life, and was certainly involved in the beginnings of Bitcoin. His involvement with Bitcoin goes back to its earliest days, and he was one of the first Bitcoin miners. Kleiman had a long standing interest in computer security, and had designed systems that were used by the highest levels of the US government to secure their digital systems.

After becoming a paraplegic in a motorcycle accident, Kleiman went barreling into the world of cryptography. He was on the Metzdowd list, which may be where he first came in contact with the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Another theory puts him and Craig Wright at the center of the project. Gizmodo cites an email that allegedly came from Wright that states,

I need your help editing a paper I am going to release later this year. I have been working on a new form of electronic money. Bit cash, Bitcoin and also, You are always there for me Dave. I want you to be a part of it all.

The email is alleged to predate the release of the Bitcoin whitepaper by a few months, which would make it a key piece of evidence in the search for Satoshi Nakamotos true identity.

Sadly, Kleiman died in 2013 under mysterious circumstances, which effectively eliminates him as a future source of information. Given his aptitude for data security, whatever digital information he left behind is also probably going to be difficult to access.

David Kleiman, Image from Gizmodo

Hal Finney is another potential candidate to be the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Finney was a pre-bitcoin cryptographic pioneer and was only the second person after Nakamoto himself to make use of the software, file bug reports, and suggest improvements.

Finney was the first to ever receive Bitcoin, stating in an interview that [he] was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to [him] as a test.

Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg speculated after requesting aid from writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates that Greenberg may have been the ghostwriter for Satoshi Nakamoto.

Further adding to the speculation that Finney was involved with the creation of Bitcoin was his correspondence with the aforementioned Nick Szabo, and the fact that he lived only blocks apart from Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto.

At the time of his death on August 28, 2014, only circumstantial evidence pointed to Hal Finney being the original Satoshi Nakamoto.

Hal Finney, Image from Wired.

Yet another possible contender to be Satoshi Nakamoto is the Australian academic, computer engineering expert, and entrepreneur, Craig Wright.

In early November of 2015, Gizmodo received an anonymous email (referenced above) from an individual stating that not only did he know that Craig Wright was the creator of Bitcoin, but that he had also worked for him.

On December 9, hours afterWiredcertified that Wright was indeed Nakamoto, the Australian Federal Police raided his home, and afterwards stating the [the] matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency Bitcoin.

Afterwards, Wright deleted his internet presence until May of 2016, when he stepped forward and revealed himself on Twitter as the creator of the digital currency Bitcoin, and claimed he had the proof to back up his statement. Then, amid a torrent of skepticism, Wright retracted his statement and did not offer the extraordinary proof he claimed to have, stating that he did not have the courage to prove his identity.

Craig Wright, Image from CCN.

In an era where information is widespread, Satoshi Nakamoto has managed to maintain his identity a complete secret. So why is uncovering Nakamotos identity so important? If Nakamoto is indeed a single individual, then he or she owns approximately 5% of the worlds Bitcoin supply, placing him or her as the 52nd richest person in the world as of December 12th.

The implications of this wealth are considerable, beyond even the real world implications. If Satoshi Nakamoto were ever to sell the rumored 980,000 Bitcoins in his or her possession (currently worth over $3.9 billion at todays price, as of 18th March 2019 ), the price of Bitcoincould potentially become more volatile than it already is.

A quote that is attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild goes like this, Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!

Like many famous quotes, the authenticity of the above statement is questionable.

On the other hand, the idea expressed is rock-solid. The power-of-the-purse is one of the most important ideas in modern political ideology. Being able to control the issuance of a popular currency gives the controller extreme amounts of power.Bitcoin undermines the idea of a central bank, or the involvement of centralized authorities at their most basic level. As the last decade has shown, the idea of decentralized money or political systems has been met with extreme opposition by many established organizations.

Satoshi Nakamoto wrote,

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust thats required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts, in their now-famous 2009 whitepaper.

In 2008 no one would have seen Satoshi Nakamoto as a threat to global socioeconomic system. Today, that probably isnt true. Nations like China have banned cryptos outright, and the Western central banking cartel has been vocal in its opposition to widespread use of cryptos.

Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, they are likely wise to have dropped off the radar when they did. The idea that fiat money could be replaced with a system that marginalizes central authorities is extremely dangerous to the people that currently hold power.

Anyone who could act as a lightening-rod for a global decentralized society would probably face some pretty nasty blowback.

Furthermore, there is significant debate as to the future of Bitcoin. Heated discussions have arisen due to some of the growing pains surrounding Bitcoin, particularly the issue of how to deal with an increase in transaction volume in the Bitcoin network. As the number of blocks increases, the Bitcoin network runs the risk of becoming overloaded.

One side of the debate wants to fundamentally change the Bitcoin node by increasing the block size, in order to allow the system to process transactions more quickly. The other side of the debate sees this as a betrayal of the original concept behind Bitcoin, arguing that this would lead to increased centralization.

Identifying Bitcoins true creator would create more certainty and could potentially lay down the following steps in Bitcoins ever growing development.

The Bitcoin community will be forced to coexist with the enigma that is Satoshi Nakamoto, whether they like it or not. There are a few ways that Satoshi Nakamoto could show that they are, in fact, the creator of Bitcoin, but convincing the entire crypto community will be a challenge.

Even if a plausible Satoshi came forward, they would probably have to deal with ongoing doubts from within the crypto community, and untold difficulties from the global power structure. The raid on Craig Wright by the AFP is a small taste of the legal morass that the real Satoshi Nakamoto would find themselves facing.

Ultimately, identifying Bitcoins creator may be a quixotic endeavor. His or her complete silence since the Spring of 2011 means it is likely we will never hear from them again. Nevertheless, Bitcoin, the open source digital currency created nearly a decade ago, will continue to in spite of this mystery.

The post Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? We Look at The Possible Candidates appeared first on Blockonomi.

Blockonomi.com is author of this content, TheBitcoinNews.com is is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? We Look at The Possible Candidates ...

With so little known about the person or group behind the mysterious pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, its difficult to imagine the motivation behind designing and developing the first-ever peer-to-peer electronic cash system with Bitcoin.

One goal was clear: create a decentralized cryptocurrency that cannot be controlled by governments. To do that, Nakamoto built in certain fail-safes into Bitcoins blueprint, including cryptography, decentralization, a proof of work consensus, a hard-capped supply and more. And according to speculation over what Satoshi meant in a quote being shared around social media could suggest that he or she was considering ways to render Bitcoin useless if it were stolen.

Ten years ago, following the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, Satoshi Nakamoto designed what is the closest thing to a perfect currency the world has ever seen. Its deflationary, decentralized money, protected by cryptography and consensus, in order to prevent governments from ever seizing control over an individuals funds.

Related Reading | Fundamentals Grow While Bitcoin Price Stagnates, Where Does BTC Go From Here?

As long as an individual retains their private keys, no one else can control their Bitcoin. In the rare case if someone did gain control over someone elses Bitcoin, possibly by the way of theft, Satoshi may have been researching a way to render that Bitcoin useless. And if the person who rightfully owned the Bitcoin ever regained control of it, the Bitcoin would be restored to its former value and use.

A tweet from a Twitter account dedicated to Satoshi Nakamoto quotes has crypto Twitter stirring today, as top crypto speculators discuss what the mysterious entity had meant when the thought was shared.

Imagine if gold turned to lead when stolen. If the thief gives it back, it turns to gold again, the quote reads.

Satoshi appears to be using gold as an example for what might be possible with Bitcoin.

Related Reading | Precious Metals Firm Drops Crypto: Is the Bitcoin Digital Gold Narrative In Trouble?

The quote was taken from a 2010 BitcoinTalk forum post about moving funds into escrow in order to complete transactions where both parties are satisfied. In the post, Satoshi sheds more light into his thinking process.

Imagine someone stole something from you. You cant get it back, but if you could, if it had a kill switch that could be remote triggered, would you do it? Would it be a good thing for thieves to know that everything you own has a kill switch and if they steal it, itll be useless to them, although you still lose it too? If they give it back, you can re-activate it, Satoshi said.

In the months following the comment, Satoshi vanished from the Internet and ceased all communication with the public and anyone involved with Bitcoin. Given Satoshis ability to create world-changing technology, its incredible to stop and think of just how much further their development support and leadership could have taken Bitcoin. Even without him or her, its come so far in just short ten years.

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Satoshi Nakamoto May Have Considered a Bitcoin Kill Switch

More Than Just a Name: Who or What Is Satoshi Nakamoto? The Facts That We Have

There are mysteries that we all have to deal with from personal to international. One of the mysteries that still hounds the cryptocurrency world is the one that surrounds one particular name: Satoshi Nakamoto, the illustrious and yet unknown figure that stood behind the creation and introduction of Bitcoin.

While the true face of Nakamoto, among other things, remain a mystery, we will be using these articles as a way to piece together all that we do know about them. From everything they had previously written, to who the media believed was the true' Nakamoto and whether there are still people out there who once previously bore the mantel.

We may never fully know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but with this series, we hope to, at the very least, shrink down the number of people who could resemble the illustrious figure.

Whatever could be construed as a public record of Satoshi Nakamoto can be easily condensed into a span of fewer than two years. While a brief legacy' the amount of buzz surrounding these records have kept forums, social media pages and financial experts ensconced in the possible answer to the question.

Not only would it be one of the internets biggest mysteries being solved, but whoever rightfully claimed to be Nakamoto would gain immediate legendary status for their involvement in the development of blockchain, the technology which is (and continues to) revolutionize the world as we know it.

Not only is there a legend to claim, but a fortune as well; one that is believed to total nearly 1 million Bitcoin. This means, by today's valuation of Bitcoin, would mean an inheritance' of over 8 Billion dollars, not accounting for future fluctuation, however.

One of the most comprehensive profiles we have for Nakamoto comes from their P2P foundation page, Satoshi Nakamoto is (or was) a 43-year-old male originating from Japan. This suggests that he is most active during the Japanese time cycle, but upon studying their posting behavior, it implies that they follow the GMT cycle due a habit of disappearing from 5am-11am yet being active during the earlier to late afternoon.

While that isn't evidence enough to suggest that while Nakamoto wasn't in Japan, but could mean that they had a highly unusual sleep pattern.

Satoshi, from their philosophy, was a firm advocate for economic or social Libertarianism specific to the world of technology. This viewpoint can be construed as Crypto-Anarchism', decentralizing the world of commerce, handing the power in the world of personal finance back to the individual consumer.

In the announcement and release of the Genesis block, otherwise known as Block 1' or 0, included a hidden message within its Coinbase parameter giving the headline for the news from the 3rd January 2009:

the Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of the second bailout for banks

While the use of the newspaper headline may simply function as a time-stamp for the interest of posterity with the release of the first Bitcoin block. Many crypto-enthusiasts and anarchists alike have, however, interpreted the headline as a stab against centralized financial institutions for their part in the unfurling global financial crisis and subsequent recession.

One of the other stabs that this message demonstrates, according to Nakamoto supporters, is in creating an inbuilt scarcity for Bitcoin, while governments and financial institutions are able to print a seemingly infinite volume of money at their own discretion, creating devaluation with users being powerless to do anything about it.

While Nakamoto has been personally responsible for mining and possessing nearly a million Bitcoin, he' only ever completed one transaction simply to demonstrate that a cryptocurrency could, and does, work.

Apart from that, Nakamoto never moved his Bitcoin from his initial mining address, but there are a number of reasons for why he would have instigated this action.

How is it we can theorize that these are the plausible scenarios as to Nakamoto's activities? Because a number of the texts of which he drafted and wrote give these very distinct impressions:

At this point in time, Satoshi announced through a Cryptography mailing list that Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, his officially white paper detailing the idea and function of Bitcoin, was formally published on Bitcoin.com.

Satoshi makes his first public post on the website P2P Foundation: The Foundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives'. This post consisted of a link to his recently published White Paper, including some additional insight into the paper and his reasoning for developing it.

Across this span of time when he's active on the site, he created three posts, with the last taking place on February 14th, 2009. The same account was used in March 2014, with the post including the statement that the user is not Dorian Nakamoto after being falsely outed as Satoshi Nakamoto days earlier.

This consisted of the official, inaugural post on the website Bitcointalk.org.' This would include a series of over 575 posts across 13 months, other contributors apart from Nakamoto consist ofMike Hearn and Jeff Garzik.

These contributors were effective in laying down the groundwork for what Bitcoin was to become. By December 12th, 2010, Nakamoto has effectively stopped operating on the site, for what reasons remains unknown.

This post is the last time that Nakamoto officially addressed the public within the forum, linking to the latest version of the Bitcoin, wallet client. Nine years on and the forum is one of the largest, most reputable forums of cryptocurrency discussion, with over 2 million users and hundreds of millions of post views.

One of the last posts from Nakamoto included the desire that Wikileaks which, at the time, had been vehemently opposed by the US governments, including banks which refused to work with them regarding providing funding.

Nakamoto stated that Bitcoin shouldn't be used as a means of supporting the site, citing its infancy' and fragility as some of the reasons why it is not best-suited for supporting Wikileaks.

Despite his urging against providing this support, it went on to be used, resulting in Wikileaks removing the page and description for Bitcoin. The reason for this post was to prevent Bitcoin from snuffed out by drawing too much negative press, especially in being linked to an institution which had just recently made some incredibly powerful enemies.

So who could this person be? We can get an understanding of Nakamoto's personality from one of his email addresses when messages to and from the account were made.

His account, [emailprotected] was reportedly hacked in 2014, with one of the email exchanges being between Nakamoto and the financial expert, Wei Dai, regarding obtaining proper accreditation for the ideas of his that were used in the development of Bitcoin.

The second was to Laszlo Hanyecz, the cryptocurrency developer that is famously known for the 10,000 Bitcoin for 2 Pizzas' challenge, which has gained a historical emphasis for being the first monetary transaction using Bitcoin.

When approached on what the exchanges between himself and Nakamoto were like, Hanyecz described them as Weird,' describing him as a bossy' figure who expected him to be an active contributor despite the fact that his tenure working on Bitcoin was predominantly unpaid.

Above all, Nakamoto, according to Hanyecz, tended to strongly deflect any questions about himself as a person while also demanding that the underlying code remain untampered with.

One of Bitcoins developers early on was Mike Hearn, who offered a very unique insight into what it was like to work alongside Nakamoto during the early days of the project. In one of the interactions between Nakamoto and Hearn, the latter made the email exchanges public online. The last of which was posted on April 23rd, 2011 contained the following:

Ive moved on to other things. Its in good hands with Gavin (Andresen) and everyone.

One of the final email exchanges including Nakamoto was between himself and Gavin Anderson, in which Anderson attempted to find out more about his utterly online colleague. The reply he got was laconic, direct and inciteful:

I wish you wouldnt keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle. Maybe instead make it about the open source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them.

The final email that Anderson sent to Nakamoto consisted of detailing an invitation to speak at an event that had direct connections with the Central Intelligence Agency. With the lack of response from Nakamoto, it could be construed that he had become, somewhat reasonably,freaked out by the sudden, meteoric rise to popularity the Bitcoin enjoyed.

Satoshi Nakamoto is one of the phantom names in the worlds of the internet and cryptocurrency that consists of a legendary status, a groundbreaking innovation and, while accompanied with a literal throne of $8 billion, the actual individual behind Satoshi Nakamoto' remains elusive.

In this article, we put together a list of potential suspects with the profile, intelligence, or character that make them the possible man behind the mask.

While these are claims, they are unsubstantiated and theoretical, the only way to truly KNOW who Satoshi Nakamoto is through verifying their wallet address which would link the individual to the man himself.

From 2009 to 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto was directly involved in the development, coding, design, and release of what we and millions of members of the general public now know as Bitcoin'. During this same stretch of time, Nakamoto was also involved in mining a large quantity of the coins during a time that only a select number of people were involved in mining.

The only way one could prove without a shadow of a doubt that they were Nakamoto, they would simply need to complete one or a number of transactions between the accounts that the original Nakamoto used during this time.

While this has yet to happen, a great number of internet researchers, financial experts, and genuinely curious individuals have yet to cease in piecing together ideas and theorizing as to who the real Satoshi Nakamoto was and is.

So who on earth do some of these researchers believe is the real Satoshi Nakamoto? We piece together the names of those people believe are linked to the man, from the interesting to the downright unusual.

For anyone to be considered as Satoshi Nakamoto, it requires that person to have a clear understanding of computer programming, especially from the aspect of cryptocurrency development, these consist of:

By these criteria, the number of people that may be Nakamoto thins out significantly especially considering the balance, intellectually, which would need to be struck between the deeper knowledge of economics, cryptography and computer programming in general.

One of the potential candidates for being Nakamoto was the former graduate student, cryptography enthusiast but had also been involved in some level of C++ Programming since he was 10, Michael Clear.

While all of the dominoes were in place, making Clear a shoe-in for being the real Satoshi Nakamoto, when asked the question during an interview, Clear explicitly stated that he was not Nakamoto.

Im not Satoshi, but even if I was I wouldnt tell you.

While Clear, at the time, was startled by the question which to him came out of left field. He believed it to be conclusive enough to not realise any further questions, this turned out to not be the case, as he would encounter incessant questions on whether he was, in fact, Nakamoto and just wanted to protect his anonymity.

It got to the point where, in 2013, after two years of questions pertaining to Bitcoin and Nakamoto, that he published a blog post, explicitly denying any links to Bitcoin and being Nakamoto.

Josh originally contacted me at Crypto 2011 about a paper I was involved with related to p2p, and I met up with him out of curiosity as to why he would be interested. For about 20 minutes we talked about that.

When bitcoin came up, I remember we had a brief casual chat; I was naturally startled when he thought I could be Satoshi, and there was some humor and regrettable mistakes on my part.

Nick Szabo, a Hungarian-American computer scientist was theorized to be a potential candidate for Satoshi Nakamoto for a number of reasons. During late 2013, the slow collapse of MtGOX led researchers to look at Szabo as a potential candidate for being Nakamoto.

Like in a Mirror', an anonymous blog post, listed out the reasons why Nick Szabo could be Satoshi Nakamoto. Across the two blog posts, the author lists the reasons why Szabo would be the founder of Bitcoin.

One of the reasons why this blog post, and Szabo by extension, gained so much credibility as being Nakamoto was due to the arguments provided by Like in a Mirror, but also due to Szabo's own involvement with the distant cousin to Bitcoin, Bit Gold'.

While Bit Gold presented a very interesting concept when initially proposed in 1998, it never really gained traction with which to enter wider development and implementation. However, Bit Gold did, in fact, contain a significant number of features which made Bitcoin possible as a system of peer-to-peer transaction.

These include a method of Decentralisation, the Proof of Work' system, and the implementation of Time Stamp Servers' including proper network security mechanisms to provide an additional layer of security and validation behind each transaction.

The blog post continued on to provide an additional number of reasons why Szabo could be Satoshi Nakamoto:

While the blog series provides a significant amount of research and a well thought out argument, Szabo himself categorically denies being Satoshi Nakamoto.

While denying being Satoshi Nakamoto, Szabo is a regular writer on the subjects of programming, Cryptography and the uses of Bitcoin on his personal blog. Along with this, Szabo is also a prolific and frequent speaker / lecturer on the subject of Bitcoin and the state of play for it and other cryptocurrencies.

One of the more famous potential Satoshis was Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, who shares a significant number of unique correlations with the original Satoshi Nakamoto, the name being just one of them.

Dorian Nakamoto, originally a resident of Japan, went on to attend college in California, studying and graduating with a degree in Physics. The correlation comes from Dorian's own experiences working with several different employees, these consist of Citibank and the U.S. Government as just a couple of the examples.

As an engineer, a great degree of his work is under both legal and personal secrecy. An article, which labeled Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto as the developer of Bitcoin was based off an initial, off the cuff comment made by himself, in which he stated that he was no longer involved' with the Bitcoin project.

While this confirmed to the reporter who he was, Dorian points out that there was a significant degree of misunderstanding on his part, believing that it was a question regarding his work with Citibank.

Five days after the interview', Newsweek read out a letter sent to them by Dorian, lamenting the challenges he's faced as a result of the false accusations of being Nakamoto.

I did not create, invent or otherwise work on Bitcoin. I unconditionally deny the Newsweek report The first time I heard the term bitcoin was from my son in mid-February 2014. After being contacted by a reporter, my son called me and used the word, which I had never before heard. Shortly thereafter, the reporter confronted me at my home.

I have no knowledge of nor have I ever worked on cryptography, peer to peer systems, or alternative currencies My prospects for gainful employment has been harmed because of Newsweeks article

Newsweeks false report has been the source of a great deal of confusion and stress for myself, my 93-year old mother, my siblings, and their families This will be our last public statement on this matter. I ask that you now respect our privacy.

Making a start to his career as a programmer with Atari working on video game design, Hal Finney has since become an individual considered by many to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

Ever since starting off on his career of computer programming, Finney became significantly interested and involved in the field of Cryptography, being on of the early joiners of the mailing list and social group, Cyberpunks.

One of the other organizations that Finney was involved in was Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) since its establishment in 1991. What tipped people off to his potential was his development of PGP 2.0, a system which incorporates features such as file encryption and authentication, as well as encrypted communications.

These features made PGP 2.0 the first truly secure version of the program, all based on the handy work of Hal Finney. Effectively, Finney had created the system we have come to know as peer-to-peer networking before there was even a name for it.

One of the reasons that Finney became heavily involved in Cryptography was due to being inspired by the developer David Chaum, a fellow Californian who wished to apply Cryptography to the world of online finance, specifically when addressing online transactions and finance management.

During his time at the University of California, Chaum had created one of the first systems of peer-to-peer transactions, called Ecash, which had some of the features we see in Bitcoin, but was tethered to the ongoing value of the US Dollar and never really gained significant traction.

Finney set about to expand upon what Ecash had attempted to be, adding a proof of work concept to the currency which was reusable back in 2004. This feature among others would be those applied in order to create Bitcoin in 2008.

Finney was a keen member of a number of cryptography forums and mailing lists, being one of the first users of the client software which Nakamoto had released. Within days of releasing this software, Finney made history by being the recipient of one of Bitcoins first transactions, in which he received 10 Bitcoin from Nakamoto.

Regrettably, Finney was later diagnosed with ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease, from which he died in 2014. Until then, Finney continued to be an active participant in conversations regarding cryptocurrency, using his final post to recap on all of his personal experiences interacting with Nakamoto.

When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.

Today, Satoshis true identity has become a mystery. But at the time, I thought I was dealing with a young man of Japanese ancestry who was very smart and sincere. Ive had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.

During the final year of his life, Finney was subjected to an unfortunate extortion attempt against him, in which he was ordered by the anonymous hacker to complete a transaction of 1,000 Bitcoin (Worth $400,000 at the time) or they would release sensitive personal information about Finney to the public.

Over the years, Finney's family would face constant extortion attempts, all of which amounted to no payout simply because Finney was not Nakamoto and that any Bitcoin Finney had extracted and collected over the years were used up in order to pay for his burdensome medical expenses.

Unfortunately, Craig Steven Wright is one of the more infamous individuals to be on the list of potential Satoshi Nakamoto's. The Australian computer scientist and businessman had led media outlets on an obscure hunt for after he came forward to a number of news broadcasters that he was the real Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2015.

In the past, Wright had been involved in the creation of the worlds first online casinos, including a Bitcoin-based bank which never completely materialized. This was due to a number of issues surrounding obtaining regulatory approval in order to do this, something that cryptocurrencies still face on a regular basis.

What does separate Wright from other individuals on this list is that he offered up Cryptographic proof that he was, in fact, Nakamoto, claiming to have access to the keys that he used in order to extract and complete some of the first Bitcoin transactions.

According to his interview with BBC, Wright claimed that he would provide this evidence as extraordinary proof for an extraordinary claim. Signing a message using a key known to be used by Satoshi Nakamoto.

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Satoshi Nakamoto: Who is Bitcoin's Mysterious Creator ...

Even as his face towered 10 feet above the crowd at the Bitcoin Investors Conference in Las Vegas, Craig Steven Wright was, to most of the audience of crypto and finance geeks, a nobody.

The 44-year-old Australian, Skyping into the D Hotel ballrooms screen, wore the bitcoin enthusiasts equivalent of camouflage: a black blazer and a tieless, rumpled shirt, his brown hair neatly parted. His name hadnt made the conferences list of "featured speakers." Even the panels moderator, a bitcoin blogger named Michele Seven, seemed concerned the audience wouldnt know why he was there. Wright had hardly begun to introduce himself as a "former academic who does research that no one ever hears about," when she interrupted him.

"Hold on a second, who are you?" Seven cut in, laughing. "Are you a computer scientist?"

"Im a bit of everything," Wright responded. "I have a master's in lawa masters in statistics, a couple doctorates..."

"How did you first learn about bitcoin?" Seven interrupted again, as if still trying to clarify Wrights significance.

Wright paused for three full seconds. "Um. Ive been involved with all this for a long time," he stuttered. "Itry and stayI keep my head down. Um..." He seemed to suppress a smile. The panels moderator moved on. And for what must have been the thousandth time in his last seven years of obscurity, Wright did not say the words WIREDs study of Wright over the past weeks suggests he may be dying to say out loud.

"I am Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin."

Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he's a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did.

Since that pseudonymous figure first released bitcoins code on January 9th, 2009, Nakamotos ingenious digital currency has grown from a nerd novelty to a kind of economic miracle. As its been adopted for everything from international money transfers to online narcotrafficking, the total value of all bitcoins has grown to nearly $5 billion. Nakamoto himself, whoever he is, appears to control a stash of bitcoins easily worth a nine-figure fortune (it rose to more than a billion at the cryptocurrencys peak exchange rate in 2014). But the true identity of bitcoins creator remains a cipher. Media outlets from the New Yorker to Fast Company to Newsweek have launched investigations into unmasking Nakamoto that were either inconclusive or, in Newsweeks case, pointed to a man who subsequently denied having anything to do with cryptography, not to mention cryptocurrency. Altogether, the worlds Satoshi-seekers have hardly put a dent in one of the most stubborn mysteries of the 21st century, one whose answer could resonate beyond a small sphere of crypto geeks and have real economic effects.

In the last weeks, WIRED has obtained the strongest evidence yet of Satoshi Nakamotos true identity. The signs point to Craig Steven Wright, a man who never even made it onto any Nakamoto hunters public list of candidates, yet fits the cryptocurrency creators profile in nearly every detail. And despite a massive trove of evidence, we still cant say with absolute certainty that the mystery is solved. But two possibilities outweigh all others: Either Wright invented bitcoin, or hes a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did.

The first evidence pointing to Wright appeared in mid-November, when an anonymous source close to Wright began leaking documents to Gwern Branwen, a pseudonymous, independent security researcher and dark web analyst. Branwen provided those documents to WIRED, and they immediately led to several direct, publicly visible connections between Nakamoto and Wright:

WIRED

In addition to those three blog posts, we received a cache of leaked emails, transcripts, and accounting forms that corroborate the link. Theres a leaked message from Wright to his lawyer date June 2008 in which Wright imagines "a P2P distributed ledger"an apparent reference to bitcoins public record of transactions known as the blockchain, long before it was publicly released. The email goes on to reference a paper called "Electronic Cash Without a Trusted Third Party" that Wright expects to release in 2009.

'I did my best to try and hide the fact that I've been running bitcoin since 2009. By the end of this I think half the world is going to bloody know.'

Craig Steven Wright

Another leaked email from Wright to computer forensics analyst David Kleiman, a close friend and confidant, just before bitcoins January 2009 launch discusses a paper theyd been working on together. Wright talks about taking a buyout from his job and investing in hundreds of computer processors to "get [his] idea going." Theres also a PDF authored by Kleiman, who died in April of 2013, in which he agrees to take control of a trust fund, codenamed the "Tulip Trust," containing 1.1 million bitcoins. The PDF is signed with Kleimans PGP signature, a cryptographic technique that ensures it couldnt have been altered post-signature.

That million-coin troveThe Tulip Trustis the same size as a mysterious bitcoin fortune thats long been visible on bitcoins blockchain and widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. No one but Nakamoto is known to have assembled such a massive hoard of the cryptocurrency, and only Nakamoto could have generated so many bitcoins so early in its evolution, when a bitcoin could be mined with relatively small amounts of processing power. Only one such bitcoin megapile exists, and the closely-watched coins havent moved in bitcoins entire history.

Another clue as to Wrights bitcoin fortune wasnt leaked to WIRED but instead remains hosted on the website of the corporate advisory firm McGrathNicol: a liquidation report on one of several companies Wright founded known as Hotwire, an attempt to create a bitcoin-based bank. It shows that the startup was backed in June 2013 by $23 million in bitcoins owned by Wright. That sum would be worth more than $60 million today. At the time of the companys incorporation, Wrights investment in that one firm alone represented more than 1.5 percent of all existing bitcoins, a strangely large stash for an unknown player in the bitcoin world.

The giveaways go on: Theres a leaked email from Wright to an associate in January 2014 about a tax dispute with the Australian government. In it, he seems to consider using Nakamotos name to wield influence with New South Wales Senator Arthur Sinodinos "Would our Japanese friend have weight coming out of retirement?" Wright asks. It includes a draft email to the senator signed "Satoshi Nakamoto." And a leaked transcript of Wrights meeting with attorneys and tax officials in February 2014 quotes him in a moment of exasperation: "I did my best to try and hide the fact that I've been running bitcoin since 2009," Wright says. "By the end of this I think half the world is going to bloody know."

On December 1st, WIRED sent an encrypted email to Wright suggesting that we knew his secret and asking for a meeting. A few hours later, we received a wary response from the address Tessier-Ashpool@AnonymousSpeech.com, a cyberpunk reference to a rich and powerful corporate dynasty in William Gibsons Sprawl trilogy. Wright had referenced the same fictional family in the bio of his private twitter profile. The emails IP showed that it came from an IP address in Panama controlled by Vistomail, the same service that Satoshi Nakamoto had used to send his emails introducing bitcoin and to run Bitcoin.org. This is a throw away account. There are ways even with [the anonymity software] Tor, but the people in Panama are exteremly [sic] good and do not violate people's desired privacy, the email read. You are digging, the question is how deep are you? The message ended, Regards, the Director of Tessier-Ashpool

After WIRED sent an encrypted email to Wright suggesting that we knew his secret, we received a perplexing message: 'You seem to know a few things. More than you should.'

A few hours later, we received another, even more perplexing message from the same account. The nature of this moniker is selected for a purpose. I now have resources. This makes me a we now. I am still within that early phase of learning just what my capabilities happen to be. So, even now with resources I remain vulnerable, it read. You seem to know a few things. More than you should.

When we responded by describing the three blog posts that showed Wrights clear connection to bitcoins creation and asking again for a meeting, he gave a revealing answer. Although we all desire some level of credit, I have moved past many of these things, read his response from the same Tessier-Ashpool account. Too many already know secrets, the world does not need to know. There are other means to lead change than to be a dictator.

After our second followup message asking for a chance to talk, Wright responded that he would consider our request. Then he stopped responding altogether.

Despite that overwhelming collection of clues, none of it fully proves that Wright is Nakamoto. All of it could be an elaborate hoaxperhaps orchestrated by Wright himself. The unverified leaked documents could be faked in whole or in part. And most inexplicably of all, comparisons of different archived versions of the three smoking gun posts from Wrights blog show that he did edit all threeto insert evidence of his bitcoin history. The PGP key associated with Nakamotos email address and references to an upcoming "cryptocurrency paper" and "triple entry accounting" were added sometime after 2013. Even the post noting bitcoins beta launch is questionable. While it was ostensibly posted in January 2009, it later seems to have been deleted and then undeletedor possibly even written for the first timesometime between October 2013 and June of 2014.

Wrights blog, his public records, and his verified writings on mail lists and Twitter sketch a man who matches with Satoshi Nakamoto's known characteristics well enough to place him leagues above other candidates.

Why those breadcrumbs were dropped remains a mystery. Is Wright trying to falsely steal Nakamotos glory (or money)? Is he quietly revealing himself as bitcoins creator?

But this much is clear: If Wright is seeking to fake his Nakamoto connection, his hoax would be practically as ambitious as bitcoin itself. Some of the clues added to his blog were made more than 20 months agoa very patient deception if it were one. His references to Griggs "triple entry accounting" paper would represent an uncannily inventive lie, representing a new and obscure possible inspiration for bitcoin. And theres little doubt Wright is a certified bitcoin mogul. Even the $60 million portion of his cryptocurrency stash thats verifiable in McGrathNicols public audit record is suspiciously large.

More circumstantially, Wrights blog, his public records, and his verified writings on mail lists and Twitter sketch a man who matches with Satoshi Nakamotos known characteristics well enough to place him leagues above other candidates. Hes a former subscriber to the 1990s "cypherpunks" mailing list devoted to anti-authoritarianism and encryption, an advocate of gold as a financial tool, an accomplished C++ coder, a security professional plausibly capable of writing a tough-to-hack protocol like bitcoin, a libertarian who battled with tax authorities, and a fan of Japanese culture.

He is alsoparallels to Nakamoto asidea strange and remarkable person: an almost obsessive autodidact and double-PhD who once boasted of obtaining new graduate degrees at a rate of about one a year. Hes a climate-change denier, a serial entrepreneur who started companies ranging from security consultancies to a bitcoin bank, and an eccentric who wrote on his blog that he once accepted a challenge to create a pencil from scratch and spent years on the problem, going so far as to make his own bricks to build his own kiln in which to mix the pencils graphite.

Wrights blogging and leaked emails describe a man so committed to an unproven cryptocurrency idea that he mortgaged three properties and invested more than $1 million in computers, power, and connectivityeven going so far as to lay fiberoptic cables to his remote rural home in eastern Australia to mine the first bitcoins. His company, Tulip Trading, built two supercomputers that have officially ranked among the top 500 in the world, both seemingly related to his cryptocurrency projects. (Wright seems to enjoy tulip references, a likely taunt at those who have compared bitcoin to the Netherlands 17th century "tulip bubble.") The first of those supercomputers he named Sukuriputo OkaneJapanese for "script money." Another, named Co1n, holds the title of the worlds most powerful privately owned supercomputer. As Wright told the Bitcoin Investors conference, hes applying that second machine towards the mysterious task of "modeling Bitcoins scalability," and meanwhile building an even more powerful supercomputing cluster in Iceland because of its cheap geothermal power.

Bitcoin watchers have long wondered why the giant cache of coins they attribute to Satoshi Nakamoto never moved on the bitcoins publicly visible blockchain. Wrights "Tulip" trust fund of 1.1 million bitcoins may hold the key to that mystery. The trust fund PDF signed by Wrights late friend David Kleiman keeps those coins locked in place until 2020, yet gives Wright the freedom to borrow them for applications including "research into peer-to-peer systems" and "commercial activities that enhance the value and position of bitcoin."

Despite those exceptions to the trusts rules, the million-coin hoard has yet to budge, even after Kleimans death in 2013. That may be because Wright could be keeping the coins in place as an investment. He could be leveraging the trust in less visible ways, like legally transferring ownership of money to fund his companies while still leaving it at the same bitcoin address. Or he might still be waiting for January 1st, 2020, a countdown to a date that could take the lid off the biggest cryptocurrency fortune in history.

In spite of all the clues as to Wrights possible secret lifesome that he apparently placed himselfWright has demonstrated such a talent for obfuscation and a love of privacy that hes never even raised the suspicions of most Nakamoto-worshipping bitcoiners. "If we don't want to go out there and say Im a billionaire, or Im running XYZ, or this is my life, I shouldn't have to tell people that," Wright told the Las Vegas crowd in October when an audience member asked his thoughts about what bitcoin means for property rights. "We should be able to choose how we live."

In the leaked emails, Wright seems to bristle at the few times anyone has attempted to out bitcoins creator. "I am not from the bloody USA! Nor am I called Dorien [sic]," reads a message from Wright to a colleague dated March 6, 2014. Thats the same day as Newsweeks largely discredited story claimed the inventor of bitcoin to be the American Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto.

If Wright is bitcoin's creator, the revelation of his work carries more importance than merely sating the curiosity of a few million geeks.

Wright seemed to take personal offense at the Newsweek story. "I do not want to be your posterboy. I am not found and I do not want to be," he writes in another message the same day. The email, addressed to a colleague and titled "please leak," may have been an early draft of the Nakamotos posted denial of Newsweeks story. That public denial, a rare message from Nakamoto posted from his account on the P2P Foundation forum, simply read I am not Dorian Nakamoto. But Wrights private response was far angrier. "Stop looking... Do you know what privacy means? A gift freely given is just that and no more!"

At times, however, Wright has seemed practically envious of Nakamoto. "People love my secret identity and hate me," he complained to Kleiman in a leaked email from 2011. "I have hundreds of papers. Satoshi has one. Nothing, just one bloody paper and I [cant] associate myself with ME!"

If Wright is bitcoins creator, the revelation of his work carries more importance than merely sating the curiosity of a few million geeks. The bitcoin economy would need to consider that if his million-bitcoin trust unlocks in 2020, Wright and those to whom he may have assigned hundreds of thousands of bitcoins would be free to sell them on the open market, potentially tanking the cryptocurrencys price; debates within the bitcoin community like the current fracas over bitcoins "block size may look to long-lost Nakamoto for guidance; the world would have to grapple with the full scope of Wright's vision when he unleashes the result of his companies' post-bitcoin research. The other suspected Satoshis may finally get a reprieve from nosey reporters like us. And the intellectual history of cryptocurrencies would be forever rewritten.

Wright himself, despite his hostile response to Satoshi-seekers, has lately seemed to be dropping clues of a double life. In the last two years hes started to write more frequently about bitcoin on his blog; hes even peppered Twitter with hints (Though he also deleted many of those earlier this month and made his tweets private.)

"'Identity' is not your name. Where people go wrong is that they do not see it to be the set of shared experiences with other individuals," he wrote in one tweet in October.

When a UCLA professor nominated Satoshi Nakamoto for a Nobel Prize earlier this monthand he was declared ineligible due to the mystery of his identityWright lashed out. "If Satoshi-chan was made for an ACM turing price [sic] or an Alfred Nobel in Economics he would let you bloody know that," he wrote on twitter, using the Japanese "chan" suffix that indicates familiarity or a nickname.

"I never desired to be a leader but the choice is not mine," reads a third recent tweet from Wright. "We are a product of the things we create. They change us."

In one cryptic and meandering blog post in September in which Wright takes stock of his long career, he even seems to concede that no one can build and wield the wealth that Satoshi Nakamoto has amassed and remain hidden indefinitely. "There is a certain power and mystery in secrets," Wright mused.

"Am slowly coming to the realisation and acceptance," he added, "No secret remains forever."

Update 12/14/2015 2:40pm: New clues following the publication of this story have shown inconsistencies in Wright's academic and supercomputing claims that may point to the second, strange possibility we noted: an elaborate, long-planned hoax.

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Bitcoin's Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown ...

Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin, still remains a myth to everyone. Will we ever know his true identity?

More than often, people who are newly introduced to Bitcoin have no idea that the currency is already several years old. The idea of Bitcoin was first introduced in 2008, when a man named Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper on The Cryptography Mailing list at metzdowd.com. This paper was called Bitcoin: a peer to peer electronic cash system and is still a classic among the old school Bitcoin fans. Not that much later, in 2009, he released the first Bitcoin software that enabled the world to start using Bitcoin.

[divider]CCN[/divider]

So who is Satoshi Nakamoto? This is a question that still raises eyebrows all over the cryptocurrency world. There are plenty of suggested identities, which we will tackle later in this guide. Lets take a look first at what we know about Nakamoto. The first certainty we have is that he did not work alone. He held close contact with other developers through forums and e-mails. He kept improving the source-code whilst taking advice from several other people. This continued until contacts between him and his team gradually began to fade. In the year 2010, he handed over control of the source code repository and alert key functions of the software to Gavin Andresen, another prominent figure in the Bitcoin universe. With the source code, he also gave away the Bitcoin.org domain and several other domains. After doing this, Nakamoto began to communicate less until he completely disappeared.

Nakamoto himself claims to be a 37-year old male who lives in Japan. A false statement according to many people. His use of the English language is near perfect, and the Bitcoin software was never documented in Japanese. A strange behavior for someone who claims to have lived in Japan for his entire life.

By now, you must have come to the conclusion that there is a lot of mystery surrounding Bitcoins inventor. If there is one thing the Internet likes, its mystery (or rather solving it). This led Stefan Thomas, a Swiss coder and active community member, to a great idea. He decided to look into the timestamps of Nakamotos forum posts. With over 500 posts, it had to be possible to find a pattern in it. His investigation resulted in a chart that showed a steep decline to almost no posts between the hours of 5 am, and 11 am GMT. It is very probable that Nakamoto was asleep at this time. When looking at the different time zones in the world, Nakamoto probably lives in the parts of North America that fall within the Eastern Time Zone and Central Time Zone. Parts of Central America, the Caribbean and South America are possibilities as well.

Its great to know where Nakamoto probably lives, but it still brings us nowhere closer to his real identity. Are we even talking about a single person? Some people consider him to be a team of people. A lot of prominent coders think the Bitcoin code was too well designed for one person. Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who read the code, said that Nakamoto could either be a team of people or a pure genius.

That said, many identities have been pinned on the Bitcoin developer over the years.

Also read: Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Has Email Account Hacked

Satoshi Nakamotos broke a three year long silence, telling the world he is not Dorian Nakamoto (photo). Every post he made can be found in the database of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute.

But the most well-known speculation to date came in March 2014. An article in the magazine Newsweek, written by journalist Leah McGrath Goodman, identified Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. As a Japanese American living in California, he fits the bill for Newsweek. Unfortunately, Dorian Nakamoto immediately responded by denying everything. I did not create, invent or otherwise work on Bitcoin. I unconditionally deny the Newsweek report. He even filed a lawsuit against Newsweek as he had journalists camping out in front of his house and chasing him by car whenever he left. The Bitcoin community, led by Andreas Antonopoulos started a fundraising campaign to support Dorian Nakamoto.

The Newsweek report led to a worldwide interest in Satoshi Nakamotos identity. Maybe the greatest thing about this was that it made the real Nakamoto break his long silence. At the p2pfoundation website, Satoshi Nakamoto replied to his latest thread with the following words: I am not Dorian Nakamoto.

So if there is one thing we can be sure of, its the fact that we have no clue whatsoever as to who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. Is he a genius who is singlehandedly responsible for developing a revolutionary protocol? Or is Satoshi Nakamoto a pseudonym for a team of people? Nakamoto is believed to be in possession of roughly one million bitcoins. His identity remains one of the webs most questioned mysteries.

Also read: You Can Not Kill Bitcoins Founding Myth: Satoshi Nakamoto

Images from Shutterstock.

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? - CCN

With so limited identified about the person or community within the wait on of the mysterious pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, its sophisticated to judge the motivation within the wait on of designing and creating the first-ever peer-to-peer digital money machine with Bitcoin.

One design used to be particular: make a decentralized cryptocurrency that can no longer be managed by governments. To perform that, Nakamoto built particularly fail-safes into Bitcoins blueprint, including cryptography, decentralization, a proof of labor consensus, a onerous-capped provide and further. And according to speculation over what Satoshi supposed in a quote being shared spherical social media would possibly well per chance additionally indicate that he or she used to be occupied with concepts to render Bitcoin ineffective if it had been stolen.

Ten years within the past, following the wake of the 2008 economic disaster, Satoshi Nakamoto designed whats the closest ingredient to a finest currency the area has ever viewed. Its deflationary, decentralized money, protected by cryptography and consensus, in explain to forestall governments from ever seizing defend an eye on over an individuals funds.

Connected Reading | Fundamentals Grow Whereas Bitcoin Tag Stagnates, The assign Does BTC Scurry From Right here?

As long as an individual retains their non-public keys, no one else can defend an eye on their Bitcoin. In the rare case if any individual did make defend an eye on over any individual elses Bitcoin, maybe by the technique of theft, Satoshi would possibly well per chance additionally have been researching a formulation to render that Bitcoin ineffective. And if the one that rightfully owned the Bitcoin ever regained defend an eye on of it, the Bitcoin would be restored to its gentle price and use.

What used to be Satoshi making an are trying to bid here regarding $BTC? https://t.co/is6oDXFDl3

Popepe (@BTCDJS) March 18, 2019

A tweet from a Twitter legend dedicated to Satoshi Nakamoto quotes has crypto Twitter stirring at the unique time, as top crypto speculators discuss about what the mysterious entity had supposed when the belief used to be shared.

Factor in if gold turned to steer when stolen. If the thief presents it wait on, it turns to gold but again, the quote reads.

This Satoshi quote is terribly moving to me.

How perform you guys elaborate it? https://t.co/9Y6063pTEq

AwyeeBitcoin (@DeaterBob) March 18, 2019

Satoshi appears to be like to be using gold as an illustration for what would be doable with Bitcoin.

Connected Reading | Treasured Metals Agency Drops Crypto: Is the Bitcoin Digital Gold Anecdote In Danger?

The quote used to be taken from a 2010 BitcoinTalk discussion board submit about transferring funds into escrow in explain to whole transactions where every parties are elated. In the submit, Satoshi sheds extra gentle into his pondering direction of.

Factor in any individual stole one thing from you. That you cant salvage it wait on, but whereas you happen to would possibly well per chance additionally, if it had a murder change that would be distant induced, would you perform it? Would it no longer be a lawful ingredient for thieves to know that every little thing you delight in has a murder change and if they absorb it, itll be ineffective to them, despite the indisputable truth that you just aloof lose it too? If they give it wait on, you might per chance maybe additionally re-activate it, Satoshi acknowledged.

In the months following the comment, Satoshi vanished from the Internet and ceased all conversation with the public and any individual alive to with Bitcoin. Given Satoshis ability to make world-altering technology, its fabulous to cease and imagine licensed how powerful further their construction toughen and leadership would possibly well per chance additionally have taken Bitcoin. Even with out him or her, its come thus a long way in barely fast ten years.

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Satoshi Nakamoto May Have Considered a Bitcoin Kill Switch ...

One of the most innovative and shadowy figures of our lifetime has to be BTC creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Very little is known about Satoshi, and theories range widely regarding his identity. This individual, group of individuals, or AI program brought the world their first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. Much has transpired over the last nine years since BTCs introduction to the world. Today, Mr. Nakamoto is sitting on a BTC fortune in the Genesis block, the first address on the blockchain. Lets take a deeper look at how much Satoshi is really worth.

This question has beendebated probably as much as Satoshis true identity. There have been extensivestudies conducted on this topic, and no consistent answer has been concluded. Arguably the most accuratestudy conducted so far concluded that Satoshi has around one million BTC. The researcher,Sergio Demian Lerner, utilized an extraNonce field increment technique to deduce his findings.

Chart Showing Profitability of Early BTC Mining Via Bitcointalk

Lerner was able to deduce that one computer was responsible for the majority of the first BTC mined. By tracking the Coinbase transaction, which was the creation of the new BTC, Lerner was able to show that from the Genesis block to block 36288 there was one significant miner in operation. These findings match previous research that placed the number of coins mined at 1,148,800.

Adding up Satoshis wealth is an interesting task because no one knows for sure which addresses belong to Satoshi. For the sake of argument, lets say Satoshi has the originally mined 1,148,800 BTC plus 16.7 BTC in tips. This gives us a total of 1,148,816.7 BTC ($8,807,977,638.9). Add in Satoshis BCH and you have $10,112,428,550.90. This excludes all of the hard forks which have occurred.

You must also consider all of the hard forks that have occurred when adding up Satoshis true wealth. Satoshi would have around $1,304,450,912 worth of BCH using the market value at the time of writing which is $1,135.49 per BCH. Once you start piling on the plethora of new hard forks such as Bitcoin Gold ($51,765,680.502), Bitcoin Diamond ($3,320,080.263), Bitcoin God ($26,181,532.593), Super Bitcoin, Bitcoin Platinum, etc., it only takes a quick glimpse at the market to see the profits start to get mind-blowing.

Chart Showing 2017 BTC Forks via Anton Bukov

Whats even crazier is the fact that the hard fork trend is just getting started. There are already close to 20 hard forksscheduled for this year. Now imagine in ten years. Hard forking is becoming a career for many Bitcoin enthusiasts, and Satoshi is positioned to reap the benefits.

You are probably curious what Satoshis wealth was measured at in December 2017, when the cryptomarket was showing all-time highs. Lets see what Satoshi was worth when BTC was at its all-time high of $19,783.06 so we can really grasp his potential earnings. Do the math and you will get $22,726,779,328. Not bad at all Mr. Nakamoto.

BTC would need to hit a market value of $60,000 per coin to make Nakamoto the richest man in the world. Currently, he doesnt even rank in the top 1000 richest people according to Forbes Richest People rankings.

20 Richest Billionaires via Google

Nobody knows what Satoshi will do with his prized BTCs. The only thing that anyone really knows is that these BTC have never moved. The sheer size of the holdings has many people worried about what effects these 1 million BTC could have on the market if, for example, Satoshi decided to sell them all one day.

Satoshis fortune is so large that he would tank the price of BTC if he decided to release his coins into the market. John Hopkins University cryptocurrency professor,Matt Green, has written extensively about the effects such actions would have on the market value of BTC. In his works, he expresses real concerns over the fact that Satoshis influence has not been felt in the market since his departure.

Ironically, Satoshis BTCwallet continues to grow. For some unknown reason, people keep sending Satoshi BTC. In one particularly notable incident, Mt. Gox sent Satoshi 1.23 BTC. In total, Satoshi has received an additional 16.7 BTC in tips to the Genesis address.

Due to the way that BTC is coded, these funds are unable to be spent as the Genesis block was never added to the blockchain. Consequently, this is why this block is also calledblock 0. Everyone that has sent Satoshi BTC, sent their funds into what is essentially blockchain limbo. Its the thought that counts though, right?

Whoever Satoshi really is, and wherever he or she is right now (maybe reading this?), deserves a standing ovation. The entire world is curious as to who owns the BTC fortune. Governments have even researched Satoshi. Reports vary on the results of these endeavors, with some claiming that they were able to identifyhim, but, as it stands today, no one has come forward and been able to prove that they are the true owner of the BTC fortune.

Blockchain technology is transforming the global economy by providing a secure and efficient means in which to conduct business. Its hard to say if this technology, or the price of BTC, would have developed at the same pace had Satoshi revealed his or her identity from the start. The only thing you can be absolutely sure of is that the day one of those BTC moves from Satoshis wallet, the entire world will be watching.

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How Rich is Satoshi Nakamoto Today? - coincentral.com

Ten years ago, on Jan. 3, 2009, the Bitcoin (BTC) network was created as Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block, also known as block number zero.

However, the identity behind the Bitcoin creator has remained one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto community since the original white paper was published by Satoshi in October 2008.

Various journalistic investigations have attempted to unveil the person or group of individuals responsible for creating the top digital currency, but Satoshis real identity remains unknown to date. On his P2P Foundation profile which went inactive in late 2010 Nakamoto identifies as a 43-year-old male who lives in Japan, but he almost never posted on the Bitcoin forum during local daytime. Other clues, like the British spelling of words like colour and optimise, suggest he was of Commonwealth origin.

So far, the media and community have come up with numerous results of who might be the real Satoshi, none of which have been confirmed. On June 14, 2018 the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of Nakamoto after a Motherboard journalist requested information on his identity through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Heres the (incomplete) list of potential candidates.

Suspect credentials: a 38 year-old Finnish professor at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

Source: Joshua Davis, The New Yorker

One of the first attempts to reveal Satoshis identity dates back to October 2011, when journalist Joshua Davis wrote a piece for the New Yorker. During his quest to identify the Bitcoin creator, Davis found Michael Clear, a young graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College in Dublin, who had worked at Allied Irish Banks to improve its currency-trading software and co-authored an academic paper on peer-to-peer technology. Clear denied he was Satoshi, but offered the journalist the name of a solid fit for Nakamoto a thirty-one-year-old Finnish researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology named Vili Lehdonvirta, who used to be a video game programmer and studied virtual currencies.

However, after being contacted by Davis, Lehdonvirta also claimed he was not Satoshi. You need to be a crypto expert to build something as sophisticated as bitcoin, he said. There arent many of those people, and Im definitely not one of them.

Suspect credentials: a 49 year-old Japanese mathematician at Kyoto University

Source: Ted Nelson

On May 17, 2013, American IT pioneer, sociologist and philosopher Ted Nelson suggested that Nakamoto could be Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, who worked mostly in number theory and geometry. Nelsons evidence was largely circumstantial, however, as it mostly rested on how Mochizuki released his solution to the ABC Conjecture, one of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics.

A few days later, Nelson told Quartz that he would donate to charity if Mochizuki denied being Satoshi Nakamoto:

If that person denies being Satoshi, I will humbly give one bitcoin (at this instant worth about $123) to any charity he selects. If he is Satoshi and denies it, at least he will feel guilty. (One month time limit on denial bitcoins are going UP.)

In July 2013, The Age reported that Mochizuki denied Nelsons claims, but did not specify the source.

Suspect credentials: a 68-year-old Japanese American man who has done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military

Source: Leah McGrath Goodman, Newsweek

On March 6, 2014, Newsweek published a lengthy article written by journalist Leah McGrath Goodman, who identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American male living in California as the original Bitcoin creator.

Goodman learned that Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. Nakamoto reportedly turned libertarian after being laid off from his job twice in the early 1990s.

There were other clues besides his birth name. Goodman argues that Nakamoto confirmed his identity as the Bitcoin founder after she asked him about the cryptocurrency during a face-to-face interview. "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it, he allegedly replied. It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."

However, in a following full-length interview with The Associated Press, Dorian Nakamoto denied all connection to Bitcoin. He said that he had never heard of it before, and that he thought that Goodman was asking about his previous work for military contractors, which was largely classified. Interestingly, in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" interview, he stated he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as being related to his work for Citibank. Later on the same day, the Nakamoto's P2P Foundation account posted its first message in several years, stating: "I am not Dorian Nakamoto."

Suspect credentials: (supposedly) a 55 year-old American man of Hungarian descent and creator of BitGold, a predecessor of Bitcoin

Sources: Skye Grey, researcher; Dominic Frisby, financial writer

In December 2013, researcher Skye Grey published results of his stylometric analysis, which indicated that the person behind Satoshi Nakamoto was a computer scientist and cryptographer named Nick Szabo.

Essentially, Grey searched for unusual turns of phrase and vocabulary patterns in particular places which you would expect a cryptography researcher to contribute to, and then evaluated the fitness of each match found by running textual similarity metrics on several pages of their writing.

Szabo is a decentralized currency enthusiast who developed the concept of "BitGold," a pre-Bitcoin, privacy-focused digital currency, back in 1998. In his May 2011 article on Bitcoin, Szabo wrote:

"Myself, Wei Dai, and Hal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai's case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai)."

Additional research carried out by financial author Dominic Frisby, which he describes in his 2014 book titled Bitcoin: The Future of Money? also suggests that Nick Szabo is the real Satoshi. In an interview on Russia Today, Frisby said: "I've concluded there is only one person in the whole world that has the sheer breadth but also the specificity of knowledge and it is this chap [Nick Szabo]."

Nevertheless, Szabo has denied being Satoshi. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he reportedly stated:

Thanks for letting me know. I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it.

Suspect credentials: an American cryptographic pioneer who died in 2014 at the age of 58

Source: Andy Greenberg, Forbes (who eventually denied his own assumption)

On March 25, 2014, Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg published an article on Dorian Nakamotos alleged neighbor, a pre-Bitcoin cryptographic pioneer named Hal Finney, who received the very first BTC transaction from Nakamoto.

Interestingly, Greenberg reached out to the writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates and asked them to compare a sample of Finney's writing to that of Satoshi Nakamoto. Reportedly, they found that it was the closest resemblance they had yet come across including the other candidates suggested by Newsweek, Fast Company and New Yorker journalists, along with Ted Nelson and Skye Grey. However, the company established that Nakamoto's emails to Finney more closely resemble the style that the original white paper was written in when compared to Finney's emails.

Greenberg suggested that Finney may have been a ghostwriter for Nakamoto, or that he used his neighbor Dorian's identity as cover. Finney denied he was Satoshi. Greenberg, after meeting Finney in person, seeing the email exchanges between him and Nakamoto, and his Bitcoin wallet's history, concluded that Finney was telling the truth.

On Aug. 28, 2014, Hal Finney died at his home in Phoenix at the age of 58 after five years of battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Suspect credentials: a 48 year-old Australian computer scientist and businessman

Sources: Andy Greenberg, Gwern Branwen, Wired; Craig Wright (himself)

On Dec. 8, 2015, Wired published an article written by Andy Greenberg and Gwern Branwen that argued an Australian academic named Craig Steven Wright "either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did."

On the same day, Gizmodo ran a story that featured documents allegedly obtained by a hacker who broke into Wright's email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Craig Steven Wright and his friend, computer forensics analyst and cyber-security expert David Kleiman, who died in 2013.

Wright promptly took down his online accounts and disappeared for several months until May 2, 2016, when he publicly declared that he is the creator of Bitcoin. Later on the same month, Wright published an apology along with a refusal to publish the proof of access to one of the earliest Bitcoin keys. Cointelegraph has published several articles on why Wright is most likely not Satoshi. Nevertheless, Wright continues to claim that he is Satoshi to this day.

In February 2018, the estate of Dave Kleiman filed a lawsuit against Wright over the rights to $5 billion worth of BTC, claiming that Wright defrauded Kleiman of virtual currency and intellectual property rights.

Suspects credentials: U.S. and German residents, occupancy and age unknown

Source: Adam Penenberg, Fast Company

In October 2013, journalist Adam Penenberg penned an article for Fast Company, where he cited circumstantial evidence suggesting that Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto. King and Bry reportedly live in Germany while Oksman was claimed to be based in the U.S.

Penenbergs theory revolves around the claim that King, Oksman and Bry jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase "computationally impractical to reverse" in August 2008, which was also used in the white paper published by Nakamoto in October that year. Moreover, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed.

All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.

Suspect credentials: a 47 year-old American technology entrepreneur

Source: Sahil Gupta, SpaceX intern

In what seems as one of the most absurd Nakamoto theories to date, Sahil Gupta, who claims to be a former intern at SpaceX, wrote a Hacker Noon post speculating that Elon Musk was probably Satoshi Nakamoto. Gupta emphasized Elon Musk's background in economics, experience in production-level software and history of innovation to speculate that Musk could have invented Bitcoin.

The post was published in November 2017 and was soon disproved by Musk himself, who tweeted that Guptas suggestion is not true.

While there is no actual evidence that Nakamoto is a government agency, it makes for a great conspiracy theory that contains a vast amount of reasons as to why the U.S. (or any other state) would want to create Bitcoin. For instance, a 2013 Motherboard article theorized: Bitcoin could be used as a weapon against the US dollar. It could be used to fund black ops.

It then suggested a theory that Bitcoin is actually an Orwellian vehicle that would allow governments to monitor all financial transactions.

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From Dorian Nakamoto to Elon Musk: The Incomplete List of ...