Bitcoin world shrugs off creator report
Who is bitcoin’s real creator?
The bitcoin community is reacting to that burning question with a collective ho-hum.
Developers and bitcoin enthusiasts from Finland to Texas are downplaying the media frenzy that occurred Thursday after Newsweek identified the digital currency’s creator as a Japanese American living in Southern California, only to have the man deny it to The Associated Press.
The furor, they say, means very little to bitcoin’s future and whether it becomes officially recognized by govern- ments and the financial community as a viable form of currency.
The written computer code that underpins bitcoin has changed dramatically since its inception in 2009, spawning a generation of entrepreneurs seeking to ride its growing popularity to newfound wealth.
Newsweek published a 4,500-word cover story reporting that Dorian Prentice Coming Sunday Is Bitcoin a risky proposition for investors, or a breakthrough that can change the financial system? Or is it both? AmericanStatesman reporter Dan Zehr examines those questions with in-depth interviews with a pair of experts. In Sunday’s Business section.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the person who wrote the computer code underpinnings of bitcoin.
In an exclusive twohour interview with The Associated Press, Nakamoto, 64, denied he had anything to do with it and said he had never heard of bitcoin until his son told him he had been contacted by a Newsweek reporter three weeks ago.
Nakamoto acknowledged that many of the details in Newsweek’s report are correct, including that he once worked for a defense contractor, and that his given name at birth was Satoshi. But he strongly disputed the magazine’s assertion that he is “the face behind bitcoin.”
“I got nothing to do with it,” he said, repeatedly.
He also said a key portion of the piece — where he is quoted telling the reporter on his doorstep before two police officers, “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it” — was misunderstood.
Nakamoto said he is a native of Beppu, Japan, who came to the U.S. as a child in 1959. He speaks both English and Japanese, but his English isn’t flawless. Asked during the interview, which was conducted entirely in En- glish, if he said the quote, Nakamoto responded, “No.”
“I’m saying I’m no longer in engineering. That’s it,” he said of the exchange.
“And even if I was, when we get hired, you have to sign this document, contract saying you will not reveal anything we divulge during and after employment. So that’s what I implied.”
“It sounded like I was involved before with bitcoin and looked like I’m not involved now. That’s not what I meant. I want to clarify that,” he said.
Newsweek writer Leah McGrath Goodman, who spent two months researching the story, told the AP: “I stand completely by my exchange with Mr. Nakamoto. There was no confusion whatsoever about the context of our conversation — and his acknowledgment of his involvement in bitcoin.”
While most bitcoin users and investors maintain a healthy interest in learning the true identity of the person behind the cryptocurrency, they say the financial platform’s maintenance and growth depends on the many creators who are working on it now.
“From an engineering perspective, Satoshi gave up control on Jan. 5, 2009, when he birthed the first bitcoin transaction,” says Jeff Gar- zik, a member of the seven member Bitcoin Core Development Team that controls what happens to the currency’s central code today. “He created an organism and he gave it life and he released it into the wild for it to do as it does.”
Garzik said he doesn’t believe Nakamoto is the same “Satoshi Nakamoto” who posted the original written bitcoin pro- posal in 2008 and followed it up with code the following year.
Gregory Maxwell, another bitcoin core developer based in Mountain View, Calif., said he has “immense respect” for the bitcoin creator, but doesn’t care who it is, or what the person’s motivation was.
The genius of bitcoin is it doesn’t require trusting anyone at all.
“If the creator of bitcoin mattered to our ability to use it, then bitcoin has failed in its technological goals,” Maxwell said.
Some bitcoin supporters are upset by the quest to identify the currency’s T creator because they say the sleuthing and stalking represents a blatant invasion into the privacy of a person or group that clearly wants to remain anonymous.
“Whoever created bitcoin sent it out into the wild and dropped off the face of the earth,” said Will Yager, 18, a bitcoin developer who attends the University of Texas in Austin. “They always intended bitcoin to be something that transcended them. Bitcoin’s function as a system does not depend on its creator’s function as a person.”
Another bitcoin developer, Thomas Grainger of London, says he is curious about who really created the currency, although he concedes that knowledge won’t affect how the system works.
“It won’t help remove some of the mythology, though,” said Grainger, 23.
he publicity surrounding whether the Nakamoto living in Southern California created the currency also is likely to help raise awareness about bitcoin and prod more people to take the time to learn how the it works, Grainger said. “It’s nice that a mathematical curiosity makes international news,” he says.
Yager also sees some potential advantages in the media’s fascination with bitcoin, though he worries things are starting to spiral out of control.
“It’s a good thing that people are learning about bitcoin, but I don’t want bitcoin to become known for the zany actions surrounding it,” Yager said.