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Post by Admin on Mar 8, 2014 7:53:11 GMT
Satoshi Nakamoto stands at the end of his sunbaked driveway looking timorous. And annoyed. He's wearing a rumpled T-shirt, old blue jeans and white gym socks, without shoes, like he has left the house in a hurry. His hair is unkempt, and he has the thousand-mile stare of someone who has gone weeks without sleep. He stands not with defiance, but with the slackness of a person who has waged battle for a long time and now faces a grave loss. Two police officers from the Temple City, Calif., sheriff's department flank him, looking puzzled. "So, what is it you want to ask this man about?" one of them asks me. "He thinks if he talks to you he's going to get into trouble." "I don't think he's in any trouble," I say. "I would like to ask him about Bitcoin. This man is Satoshi Nakamoto." "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." I'd come here to try to find out more about Nakamoto and his humble life. It seemed ludicrous that the man credited with inventing Bitcoin - the world's most wildly successful digital currency, with transactions of nearly $500 million a day at its peak - would retreat to Los Angeles's San Gabriel foothills, hole up in the family home and leave his estimated $400 million of Bitcoin riches untouched. It seemed similarly implausible that Nakamoto's first response to my knocking at his door would be to call the cops. Now face to face, with two police officers as witnesses, Nakamoto's responses to my questions about Bitcoin were careful but revealing. Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions. "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection." Nakamoto refused to say any more, and the police made it clear our conversation was over. But a two-month investigation and interviews with those closest to Nakamoto and the developers who worked most frequently with him on the out-of-nowhere global phenomenon that is Bitcoin reveal the myths surrounding the world's most famous crypto-currency are largely just that - myths - and the facts are much stranger than the well-established fiction. Bitcoin is a currency that lives in the world of computer code and can be sent anywhere in the world without racking up bank or exchange fees, and is then stored on a cellphone or hard drive until used again. Because the currency resides in code, it can also be lost when a hard drive crashes, or stolen if someone else accesses the keys to the code. "The whole reason geeks get excited about Bitcoin is that it is the most efficient way to do financial transactions," says Bitcoin's chief scientist, Gavin Andresen, 47. He acknowledges that Bitcoin's ease of use can also lead to easy theft and that it is safest when stored in a safe-deposit box or on a hard drive that's not connected to the Internet. "For anyone who's tried to wire money overseas, you can see how much easier an international Bitcoin transaction is. It's just as easy as sending an email." Even so, Bitcoin is vulnerable to massive theft, fraud and scandal, which has seen the price of Bitcoins whipsaw from more than $1,200 each last year to as little as $130 in late February. The currency has attracted the attention of the U.S. Senate, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Reserve, the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which in October shuttered the online black market Silk Road and seized its $3.5 million cache of Bitcoin. "The FBI is now one of the largest holders of Bitcoin in the world," Andresen says.
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Post by Admin on May 3, 2016 19:01:30 GMT
An Australian man named Craig Wright told the world today he is "Satoshi Nakamoto," the man who created Bitcoin. Yet despite Wright's stunning declaration and the fact that it's backed by some of the most famous names in Bitcoin, others continue to cry foul. Wright gave interviews and demonstrations to the BBC, GQ magazine, and The Economist, and he published his own blog post claiming the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. He has convinced Gavin Andresen, former lead Bitcoin developer, as well as former Bitcoin Foundation Director Jon Matonis. "Either Wright invented Bitcoin, or he’s a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did," concluded Wired's Andy Greenberg. Three days after the evidence was published, Greenberg and others were leaning toward the "hoax" conclusion.
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Post by Admin on May 5, 2016 18:55:54 GMT
Craig Wright's spokesman told the BBC that the Australian would "move a coin from an early block" known to belong to the crypto-currency's inventor "in the coming days". The entrepreneur announced he was behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto on Monday. Critics have said that the evidence produced to date is unconvincing. In a new blog - published after I first wrote this article - Dr Wright said it was right that the public was sceptical about his claims, but added that he would soon present "extraordinary" evidence to support his case. "I will be posting a series of pieces that will lay the foundations for this extraordinary claim, which will include posting independently-verifiable documents and evidence addressing some of the false allegations that have been levelled, and transferring bitcoin from an early block," he wrote. "For some there is no burden of proof high enough, no evidence that cannot be dismissed as fabrication or manipulation. This is the nature of belief and swimming against this current would be futile. "I will present what I believe to be 'extraordinary proof' and ask only that it be independently validated. Ultimately, I can do no more than that."
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Post by Admin on May 12, 2016 19:00:29 GMT
The man who claimed to be the BitCoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto has apparently gone back on his promise to provide proof in a bizarre post on his website. Dr Craig Wright shocked the world when he said that he was the mysterious person behind the online currency. But a new post appears to suggest that he isn’t. Though none of the message explicitly says that Dr Wright isn’t who he had claimed, it says that he will no longer provide the proof he had promised. Dr Wright had shown a range of news organisations apparent proof that he created Bitcoin – but he was later called out on that evidence on sites including Reddit, where users said that they didn't show that Dr Wright was the man behind "Satoshi Nakamoto". “I’m sorry,” Dr Wright’s website, where he had previously posted the claims, now reads. “I believe that I could do this. I believe that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot. When the rumours began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this.”
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Post by Admin on Jul 17, 2019 17:41:56 GMT
US President Donald Trump’s tweet attacking bitcoin (BTC-USD) highlights his increasing interest in controlling global currency markets — an interest that could create a “new world order” in foreign exchange. Trump last Thursday attacked cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Facebook’s (FB) Libra, saying in a tweet that they are “highly volatile and based on thin air.” While the global press immediately jumped on Trump’s first public mention of cryptocurrencies, what went largely unnoticed was a follow-up tweet. “We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable,” the President tweeted. “It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World, and it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!”
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