{"id":659137,"date":"2013-05-20T14:11:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T18:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=647288"},"modified":"2013-05-20T14:11:13","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T18:11:13","slug":"new-clues-about-the-bitcoin-founder-and-the-case-for-leaving-him-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/659137","title":{"rendered":"New \u201cclues\u201d about the Bitcoin founder \u2014 and the case for leaving him alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surging interest in Bitcoin,\u00a0the crypto-currency<\/a>\u00a0that is mined and distributed without a central bank, has brought a fresh wave of speculation about its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.<\/p>\n

The latest theory comes from IT pioneer Ted Nelson, who offers a\u00a0three-part hypothesis<\/a>\u00a0– based on the Bitcoin inventor’s intelligence, publishing methods and interests — to show that Satoshi can be none other than Japanese math professor\u00a0Shinichi Mochizuki.<\/p>\n

Nelson’s “deduction” (which Forbes and others have portrayed as\u00a0more crackpot<\/a>\u00a0than convincing) comes weeks after programmer Sergio Lerner published a\u00a0blog post<\/a>\u00a0that claims to show Satoshi has mined a fortune worth of Bitcoins, and that he has spent only a small fraction of it. A related\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by The Verge endorses Lerner’s account and says the financial trail provides new clues to help establish Satoshi’s identity.<\/p>\n

This “who made Bitcoin?” buzz is a fun parlor game, especially at a time when everyone from\u00a0serious investors<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Homeland Security<\/a>\u00a0are clamoring to get a piece of the new currency. But, while many of the guesses are as silly as saying\u00a0Lewis Carroll is Jack the Ripper<\/a>, the process also raises the question of whether Satoshi is entitled to be left in peace.<\/p>\n

Last week, someone who has corresponded with Satoshi told me he believes the Bitcoin inventor is one person, not three as some suggest, and that he is not Japanese (this is consistent with the Forbes writer’s\u00a0theory<\/a>\u00a0that the pseudonym is a tribute to 1980′s Tokyo cyber-punk culture). I asked him why Satoshi has decided to remain anonymous in the first source.<\/p>\n

According to the source,\u00a0who is a Bitcoin developer and did not want to be named for this story, Satoshi’s motives are not rooted in myth-making or anything sinister. Instead, they reflect a simple desire for privacy and are consistent with the ethos of open-source coders who work on a project out of altruism or interest and then pass it on to others when they want to move on.<\/p>\n

If this is the case, then Satoshi is part of a tradition of private people who eschew the spotlight and prefer to let their work speak for themselves. It’s easy to think of others such as\u00a0Groklaw<\/a>‘s Pamela Jones (who does heroic work opposing software patents), cartoonist\u00a0Bill Watterson<\/a>\u00a0and literary figures like Harper Lee and Emily Dickinson. Together, these quiet and relatively anonymous figures provide an inspiring counter-narrative to\u00a0suggestions by Google and Facebook\u00a0<\/a>that anonymity is somehow sinister and that our entire selves should be open for media merchandising.<\/p>\n

The point is that we may never know the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto — and that’s okay.<\/p>\n

(Image by\u00a0Shutterstock 69195535)<\/em><\/p>\n

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