Back in March, after Newsweek reporter Leah Goodman published an article claiming to have identified Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, I defended Newsweek and her from many scurrilous arguments that she was either wrong about Nakamoto or wrong to out him publicly.
Now Nakamoto is raising money from the public, ostensibly to sue Newsweek.
He has not, however, to the best of my knowledge, actually filed suit against Newsweek or Leah Goodman.
His extremely frail and minimal response to the Newsweek article should be taken as further evidence that he is, in fact, the man who created Bitcoin. If he was not the right man at all – if Goodman was 100% wrong and if Newsweek had published an article that was simply untrue – he would easily have a case against them for libel, not to mention intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress. If he genuinely had nothing to do with Bitcoin, he’d easily be able to find an attorney to represent him pro bono. In court, I would expect him to account for his time during the years when he wasn’t working and Bitcoin was being worked out and launched.
But he’s acting exactly like someone who knows he’s been caught doing something that (probably) isn’t a crime but who doesn’t want to take responsibility for it publicly.
To review: the person who started the Bitcoin project used the name Satoshi Nakamoto. That must either be the person’s real name or, a fake name with some meaning, or a fake name with no meaning at all…
…If it’s the person’s real name, we can be sure that Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto is the Satoshi Nakamoto who created Bitcoin, because there are only a few other Satoshi Nakamotos in the world, and none of them is a libertarian engineer with a known interest in currencies (the detective work leading to this information is Goodman’s contribution).
…If it’s a completely fake name with no meaning at all, then why and how would someone randomly have chosen these two words, Satoshi and Nakamoto, that together form the name of a libertarian engineer with a known interest in currencies?
…If it’s a fake name with some meaning, the meaning has got to be that Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto has been framed. But framed by whom? For what purpose? None of his defenders will say why someone would create Bitcoin and then use Nakamoto’s name for it.