Len is a good candidate, but here's one problem: Satoshi spoke up in 2014 on a long-dormant account[1] to say "I am not Dorian Nakamoto." This was a response to a Newsweek article that claimed to have found his identity.

So maybe someone hacked that account-- but then, why didn't we get any more Satoshi activity? Or maybe Len (who took his own life in 2011) isn't Satoshi after all!

[1] http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topic/listForContributor...

Satoshi's email was hacked and that wasn't signed with PGP

I think the consensus is that the statement wasn't real

Satoshi never signed mailing list posts, forum posts, any private emails that we have access to or even the early Bitcoin code releases

I don't know how this became the burden to prove that writing is from Satoshi since none of the well-known Satoshi writing meets it

Yes, 2014 in fact is when Hal Finney died, a few months after that post. He is perhaps the strongest candidate for Satoshi, and if so we'll probably never know.

It's also possible Satoshi gave Finney access to that email and more just in case there's something important enough, I guess.

Maybe if the cryonics thing works out, but that's a long shot.

Thats a serious sci-fi plot right there. Man cryonically freezes himself after inventing a cryptocurrency, wakes up in the far future the richest man in the world.

Interesting to wonder if he simply memorized the keys before being frozen, hoping that he could remember them if he were ever resuscitated.

Guessing you haven't seen Futurama. Not the same exact plot of course, but I immediately thought of it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fishful_of_Dollars

Yes I've seen that episode. The crypto/most wealthy man in the world thing would be a variation of that.

They'd also be the typical Human Popsicle tropes about how horrified he'd be by how his creation was used.

Bitcoin is already pretty freaking sci-fi-plottish.

The whole Satoshi mythology is to me one of the greatest modern mysteries.

Satoshi's silence period began at the same time that Gavin Andressen went to the CIA (at the CIA's invitation) to present about Bitcoin. It is widely assumed that it was caused by Andressen's decision to accept the invite.

Just because Satoshi went silent for a while doesn't mean that he/they are dead.

If it was Gavin Andressen then why the hell did he support the claims that Craig Wright is Satoshi initially?

If it was Andressen, why wouldn't he support the claim that Satoshi is someone besides himself?

Why would he even have met with him?

It's worth mentioning that those 10s of billions have never been touched.

This is a very strong case for Len to be Satoshi.

No, it's not.

I've never bought the argument about kidnappings etc, with billions of dollars you can hire people with lots of guns

I think the problem is that if you are born into a family of billionaires, it comes with connections and you probably just kinda had people with guns since generations so you just keep it up

But when you suddenly become a billionaire, what do you do? Ring up some private security company? You would need to trust them not to screw you over. It's kinda boils down to you not being able to trust anyone, not even governments that might consider you a criminal.

There are plenty of publicly traded large security companies. They may not be the absolute best, but they're not going to screw you over.

I would feel pretty comfortable calling G4S, Securitas, GardaWorld, DynCorp, Brinks, Control Risks, etc.

Alternative, you call the whitest of white shoe law firms and retain them to find a good security firm for you.

> It‘s a pretty strong case for Len to be Satoshi, admittedly. And it would explain the mysterious silence from Satoshi Nakamoto - he's dead.

I think it's pretty likely that the person (or people) who went by Satoshi is dead, and probably died before their Bitcoin hoard was worth much.

If not, you'd have to explain why someone is giving up the opportunity to never have to work for someone else to support themselves ever again. And those are less believable to me: e.g. 1) already having so much FU money they're secure in their lifestyle w/o the Bitcoin, 2) being either extremely ascetic or happy to work for someone else to support themselves, 3) deliberately choosing to destroy it for some reason, 4) losing the all keys in an accident (more understandable for a rando playing around than the creator), etc.

I mean they probably mined other Bitcoin along the way. I’m pretty sure they could have cashed in at points without touching those earlier addresses.