Is GWU Econ Prof. Nick Szabo Satoshi Nakamoto? 120
Pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto (whether that name represents one person or several) is believed to hold many millions of dollars in Bitcoin. Various attempts have been made to pin down Nakamoto's identity; the IB Times reports today that a (sadly anonymous) analysis points to George Washington University economics professor Nick Szabo, based on textual analysis and some other clues, such as Szabo's expertise in digital currency and his role as founder of GoldCoin. Szabo's blog Unenumerated is fascinating reading, whether or not this analysis is right.
proof in the coin (Score:4, Interesting)
We'll find out who he is when the original bitcoins are used. In the meantime, an anonymous blogger making speculative claims is not really news.
Don't even try (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If I had to guess who the founder of bitcoin wa (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, I had my comment moderated as funny, which it is, but I'm serious about this guy if I had to pick someone I've met in my life it would be him (and I know a guy who has the Nobel Prize in Economics). But there are a few street people who are maybe so smart they get hay-wired.
This guy used to stand in alley with his eyes rolled up, between the bookstore and the music shop chanting "Help me gus! Save us gus!" I used to think he was saying God, not gus, but I asked him about it. I actually didn't know he could talk at all, but I worked at the music store, and he came in, and I thought I was going to have to call the police. Then he talked normally and spoke well, and I asked him about what he was doing. He clarified his chant, sort of, at least as far as what he was saying. He wanted to buy something for his recording studio, which was a tape 4 track and other stuff that was in his shopping cart, which he showed me. I was in high school then, and I dealt with him a few times, and I think he told me about his education because I complimented his intelligence (I don't normally do that, but relative to homeless people I knew, he was smart, just crazy) and maybe I just probed people better then. Anyhow, he told me about his thesis, which me talking about is almost like the tenacious D song where it's a tribute to the greatest song in the world. I didn't really have the capacity to understand it all then (I was in H.S. talking to a mad partial PHD) so I can't spit it out verbatim, but he had me convinced at the conclusion, even perhaps the state of his condition, by virtue of his passion and reasoning despite the general premise behind his hypothesis seemed flawed to me then, and it had driven him in to exile, and he chose to go to Palo Alto for whatever reason. I don't know if he knows how to program. Maybe he learned on the mean streets.