* Both Le Roux and Satoshi did significant cryptography projects.
* Both Le Roux and Satoshi work in C++.
* Wright claimed in legal filings to have been involved with Le Roux.
* Allegedly, Wright and a friend have built a cluster of computers to crack secrets, which the theory presumes to be the password for a TrueCrypt volume with Le Roux's bitcoin key.
* Le Roux has an alias, "Solotshi", which sounds like Satoshi.
* Le Roux published a short manifesto, long before Bitcoin, that echoes some Bitcoin principles.
* Satoshi disappeared at about the same time Le Roux was really kicking his criminal conspiracy into gear.
* A forum post presaging Bitcoin was posted from the Netherlands, where Le Roux is from.
I mean, judge this stuff for yourself. Independently: a lot of people want this to be true.
Given his track record one can assume that Craig Wright is lying in just about everything he says. The rest is not evidence; looks more like a list of coincidences.
People have been desperate to find Satoshi. Like you said, a lot of people want this to be true.
> Both Le Roux and Satoshi did significant cryptography projects
The article says (emphasis mine):
"Le Roux is highly suspected to have been a part of a team of anonymous developers called the “TrueCrypt Team.”"
It also gives the fact that Le Roux has been in jail since 2012 as a possible explanation for why Satisfied
Satoshi's Bitcoin fortune has gone untouched, but doesn't attempt to reconcile that with why he was able to make a forum post two years later: https://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/07/real-bitcoin-creator-i-am-no...
I want this to be true so we can stop having stories written about it once and for all.
(I mean, why does it matter? Someone desires privacy, and we as a community are hellbent on depriving them of any... what does that say about our moral character?)
> Satoshi disappeared at about the same time Le Roux was really kicking his criminal conspiracy into gear.
Not only that but Le Roux has been in custody since 2012 which is the first credible theory at least I know of about why Satoshi never touched his treasure.
I don't think Le Roux ever lived in the Netherlands. He had or has children and an ex-wife who live there, though.
later edit: the word "bitcoin" appears only once in The Mastermind. Ratliff says he was emailed many times by people who believed Le Roux was Satoshi. He spent "countless hours" investigating the claim and found no evidence of any connection.
For the sheer amount of crazy stuff he was involved in all the same time, which he was able to manage quite effortlessly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was him. I would also add bitcoin would be perfect way to give him cover for many of the illegal activities he was involved in. It would give him a seamless way to move his money around without raising the eyebrows of authorities in a variety of countries.
Having said that, I can't give any credence to anything Wright says at this point. The amount of disinformation and his overt attempts to ride Satoshi's coattails to fame and fortune have discounted anything he has to say in regards to anything Bitcoin related.
"The newfound Satoshi candidate is Paul Solotshi Calder Le Roux, a 46-year old former cartel boss, drug smuggler, arms dealer, informant to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and genius programmer."
How do you run a drug cartel, be responsible for gun running, play undercover informant for the DEA and still have time to program in C++ AFTER thinking deeply about the best architecture for crypto-currency through trial and error prototypes and then also have the presence of mind to author a near perfect academic quality paper on the seminal algos?
Keyser Söze! The legend continues with new apocryphal evidence.
Some people are just orders of magnitude smarter than the rest of us. Look at Kim.com, how was this guy able to run a series of companies, become a multimillionaire and be the #1 rated Call of Duty player in the world? I can hardly manage holding down a job, and coaching my kid's soccer team!
"a near perfect academic quality paper on the seminal algos"
What paper are you referring to? The original Bitcoin whitepaper was poorly written, demonstrated limited background research (including a failure to cite the vast body of previous work on e-cash, which seems pretty obviously relevant), and probably would not have been accepted at even a third-tier conference.
Really, people idolize Satoshi to an absurd degree. There is no reason to think Bitcoin is anything more than a hobby project that, for a combination of reasons, happened to become something big enough for non-tech folks to care about.
Circumstantial evidence is often strong enough and compelling enough to determine court cases. Circumstantial evidence is often better than direct evidence.
Circumstantial evidence: Stuff like DNA, fingerprints
I was one of the first users of Bitcoin, and one of the earliest developers. I'd like to have a beer with Satoshi some day, so I took a brief look at this. But I'm unconvinced.
One key claim is "they both liked gambling, Bitcoin 0.1 had a poker client in it". Beyond the obvious problem that lots of people like poker, this claim is nonsense. None of the versions of Bitcoin I've ever seen had a poker client in them. It's not even clear what that would mean - you can't implement (mental) poker with Bitcoin Script. And I don't recall Satoshi ever commenting on gambling one way or another.
Another claim is that they both knew C++. Let's assume for a moment that TrueCrypt was written by Paul le Roux (I don't know the backstory). I downloaded the TrueCrypt code and had a look at it.
The TrueCrypt code doesn't share the same rather distinctive coding style Satoshi used. Bitcoin was rare for all kinds of reasons, but one rather obscure reason is that he used a simplified variant of Hungarian notation and only wrote code for Windows. The TrueCrypt code doesn't share this quirk, but it does have a different formatting quirk that I haven't seen before (there's always a space after a function name and the argument list in invocations). Satoshi didn't use that style either. Styles can be pretty distinctive, and I've never seen one that exactly matched Bitcoin's. So it looks to me like these codebases were written by different people.
The other bits of "evidence" are all circumstantial and frequently absurd. The entire thing traces back to Craig Wright, which isn't a good sign.
After 7 years in the crypto space, I'm still not convinced of any particular Satoshi theory. That being said, Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, and Paul Le Roux all have decent evidence pointing to them.
Hal was in the dorm room next to mine at Caltech. It's just like him to be Satoshi. Hal was a great guy, wicked smart even for Caltech, and his sense of humor fits right in with being the anonymous creator. I have no idea about the other two fellows, but my money's on Hal just because I want it to have been him!
I vaguely recall reading about Bitcoin development in ~darknet forums, during 2010-2012. But only vaguely, and I retained no logs. There were hints, I think, that developers were Australian.
Edit: OK, maybe it was earlier. I did say vaguely.
Is it possible the name Paul Le Roux was left unredacted intentionally? I'm not familiar with Wright's case or possible motives; this is just a public service announcement that you should always look with suspicion at all "leaks."
For some reason the idea that a piece of info came out inadvertently or accidentally is sufficiently distracting that few people will wonder whether that piece of info is true. Which means a viable strategy for anyone trying to make something look true, is to make it look like it was released accidentally.
Is it really possible to stay anonymous for this long? Nakamoto bought the bitcoin.org domain at one point - we know this for sure. Surely someone can track how this was paid for? Someone running the forum he posted on has IPs it came from. Even if it was through a VPN, that can be traced by going to the host provider, right?
This person left a long digital trail. How is this not traceable?
Maybe he used a prepaid card for the domain and a different one for the VPN (which doesn't log), or maybe he did everything through TOR. Not hard to be untraceable for someone capable of inventing Bitcoin.
Do registrars accept pre-paid Visa "gift cards" and the like? Those were much less restricted circa 2009, right? (I could be wrong, that's just my general impression)
It turns out that human beings absolutely depend on narrative stories to understand and relate to the things in their world.
Narratives, of course, have characters. Characters without identity are like an itch that must be scratched, because the narrative is central to integrating the thing the narrative is about (bitcoin) into a normal human being’s life. We are social animals and cannot truly consider the “what” independent of the “who”. (Even the “why” is related to the “who”, because it relates to the motivations of the character in the narrative).
The other bit of wisdom I was able to intuit out of this conclusion is that it is absolutely essential to make sure you are constantly crafting and promulgating your own narrative to everyone you know or who might know or know about you. Humans are so narrative-desperate that they will fill in and manufacture a narrative for you (which may or may not reflect any objective reality whatsoever) if they are not provided one in advance.
Tell your own story, loud and often, otherwise others will invent one and tell it for you.
He would reach mythical status if he were found to have upended both the cryptographic industry and financial industry as well as run a multi-continental crime empire.
> What is added to the social value of bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general?
Authoritative leadership. Nakamoto filled this role historically, and since becoming absent Bitcoin has faced a scalability crisis, and resulting loss of confidence leading to forks. Arguably this has prevented Bitcoin gaining greater use as a currency and payment system, rather than as an investment.
Founders often serve the role of a steward in open projects, and help give direction to development. Examples are Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall and Richard Stallman.
Cryptocurrencies in particular need a consensus on what is the canonical version of the software, so lack of authority is detrimental.
Well, if I were a movie producer I might consider trying to put that movie out immediately. Before we find out who the actual Satoshi is -- assuming we will ever find out.
Because it just sounds like the type of movie that Hollywood can sell. I mean Hollywood loves to glorify violence, and people already think that Bitcoin is mainly about criminal activity.
However I am hoping that La Roux is not Satoshi, or at least that it is never proven. Because the association with criminal activities detracts from the positive effects that cryptocurrency can have in terms of improving society.
If so that means the creator of the first true cryptocurrency is currently frozen in liquid nitrogen awaiting potential revival in the future, which is even more evidence that we are in fact living in a cyberpunk novel. All we need now is a Rastafarian operated space station at one of the Lagrange points.
my conspiratorial reaction to all these conspiracies about paul le roux is that this is propaganda to defame bitcoin by driving a narrative that bitcoin was created by a convicted vicious crime boss and informant. im not buyin
Isn't Satoshi Nakamoto supposed to control >5% of the total Bitcoin supply currently available? But they're inexplicably not tapping into the large amount of wealth that'd seem to be available to them?
It's a bit hard to believe that someone who'd go to such extremes for money as Le Roux would simply choose not to enjoy some payday from the Bitcoin hoard.
Interestingly, the photo of his Congo passport shows his date of birth as December 12, 1982. But, the article and Wikipedia states his date of birth as December 12, 1972.
[+] [-] tptacek|6 years ago|reply
* Both Le Roux and Satoshi did significant cryptography projects.
* Both Le Roux and Satoshi work in C++.
* Wright claimed in legal filings to have been involved with Le Roux.
* Allegedly, Wright and a friend have built a cluster of computers to crack secrets, which the theory presumes to be the password for a TrueCrypt volume with Le Roux's bitcoin key.
* Le Roux has an alias, "Solotshi", which sounds like Satoshi.
* Le Roux published a short manifesto, long before Bitcoin, that echoes some Bitcoin principles.
* Satoshi disappeared at about the same time Le Roux was really kicking his criminal conspiracy into gear.
* A forum post presaging Bitcoin was posted from the Netherlands, where Le Roux is from.
I mean, judge this stuff for yourself. Independently: a lot of people want this to be true.
[+] [-] antonios|6 years ago|reply
People have been desperate to find Satoshi. Like you said, a lot of people want this to be true.
[+] [-] tdcbfdct3|6 years ago|reply
The article says (emphasis mine):
"Le Roux is highly suspected to have been a part of a team of anonymous developers called the “TrueCrypt Team.”"
It also gives the fact that Le Roux has been in jail since 2012 as a possible explanation for why Satisfied Satoshi's Bitcoin fortune has gone untouched, but doesn't attempt to reconcile that with why he was able to make a forum post two years later: https://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/07/real-bitcoin-creator-i-am-no...
[+] [-] CiPHPerCoder|6 years ago|reply
(I mean, why does it matter? Someone desires privacy, and we as a community are hellbent on depriving them of any... what does that say about our moral character?)
[+] [-] chx|6 years ago|reply
Not only that but Le Roux has been in custody since 2012 which is the first credible theory at least I know of about why Satoshi never touched his treasure.
What I don't get why this article blew up now when a month ago https://news.bitcoin.com/satoshi-nakamoto-could-be-criminal-... it was already on bitcoin.com itself.
[+] [-] kevinmchugh|6 years ago|reply
later edit: the word "bitcoin" appears only once in The Mastermind. Ratliff says he was emailed many times by people who believed Le Roux was Satoshi. He spent "countless hours" investigating the claim and found no evidence of any connection.
[+] [-] at-fates-hands|6 years ago|reply
https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind
For the sheer amount of crazy stuff he was involved in all the same time, which he was able to manage quite effortlessly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was him. I would also add bitcoin would be perfect way to give him cover for many of the illegal activities he was involved in. It would give him a seamless way to move his money around without raising the eyebrows of authorities in a variety of countries.
Having said that, I can't give any credence to anything Wright says at this point. The amount of disinformation and his overt attempts to ride Satoshi's coattails to fame and fortune have discounted anything he has to say in regards to anything Bitcoin related.
[+] [-] ak39|6 years ago|reply
How do you run a drug cartel, be responsible for gun running, play undercover informant for the DEA and still have time to program in C++ AFTER thinking deeply about the best architecture for crypto-currency through trial and error prototypes and then also have the presence of mind to author a near perfect academic quality paper on the seminal algos?
Keyser Söze! The legend continues with new apocryphal evidence.
[+] [-] tribeofone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betterunix2|6 years ago|reply
What paper are you referring to? The original Bitcoin whitepaper was poorly written, demonstrated limited background research (including a failure to cite the vast body of previous work on e-cash, which seems pretty obviously relevant), and probably would not have been accepted at even a third-tier conference.
Really, people idolize Satoshi to an absurd degree. There is no reason to think Bitcoin is anything more than a hobby project that, for a combination of reasons, happened to become something big enough for non-tech folks to care about.
[+] [-] jiveturkey|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimbob45|6 years ago|reply
None of the evidence presented was compelling. It was circumstantial at best. Save yourself the five minutes it takes to read this article.
[+] [-] bena|6 years ago|reply
Circumstantial evidence is often strong enough and compelling enough to determine court cases. Circumstantial evidence is often better than direct evidence.
Circumstantial evidence: Stuff like DNA, fingerprints
Direct evidence: Bob's memory of the event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence
But please, continue using "the evidence is circumstantial" as if it means that it's not good enough.
[+] [-] the_watcher|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brokenkebab|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mike_hearn|6 years ago|reply
One key claim is "they both liked gambling, Bitcoin 0.1 had a poker client in it". Beyond the obvious problem that lots of people like poker, this claim is nonsense. None of the versions of Bitcoin I've ever seen had a poker client in them. It's not even clear what that would mean - you can't implement (mental) poker with Bitcoin Script. And I don't recall Satoshi ever commenting on gambling one way or another.
Another claim is that they both knew C++. Let's assume for a moment that TrueCrypt was written by Paul le Roux (I don't know the backstory). I downloaded the TrueCrypt code and had a look at it.
The TrueCrypt code doesn't share the same rather distinctive coding style Satoshi used. Bitcoin was rare for all kinds of reasons, but one rather obscure reason is that he used a simplified variant of Hungarian notation and only wrote code for Windows. The TrueCrypt code doesn't share this quirk, but it does have a different formatting quirk that I haven't seen before (there's always a space after a function name and the argument list in invocations). Satoshi didn't use that style either. Styles can be pretty distinctive, and I've never seen one that exactly matched Bitcoin's. So it looks to me like these codebases were written by different people.
The other bits of "evidence" are all circumstantial and frequently absurd. The entire thing traces back to Craig Wright, which isn't a good sign.
[+] [-] dwild|6 years ago|reply
I don't know if this is the right source code though.
[+] [-] Method-X|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] I_am_tiberius|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hartator|6 years ago|reply
His huge interest for gold, programming, encryption, and his global distrust of the state makes me believe he can also have created Bitcoin.
[+] [-] staplers|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] user17843|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|6 years ago|reply
Edit: OK, maybe it was earlier. I did say vaguely.
[+] [-] 0x4542|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdiddly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robotcookies|6 years ago|reply
This person left a long digital trail. How is this not traceable?
[+] [-] SkyMarshal|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exolymph|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avs733|6 years ago|reply
I'm not asking to just dismiss it...just why we are perpetually having/focusing on this discussion is intriguing to me
[+] [-] sneak|6 years ago|reply
It turns out that human beings absolutely depend on narrative stories to understand and relate to the things in their world.
Narratives, of course, have characters. Characters without identity are like an itch that must be scratched, because the narrative is central to integrating the thing the narrative is about (bitcoin) into a normal human being’s life. We are social animals and cannot truly consider the “what” independent of the “who”. (Even the “why” is related to the “who”, because it relates to the motivations of the character in the narrative).
The other bit of wisdom I was able to intuit out of this conclusion is that it is absolutely essential to make sure you are constantly crafting and promulgating your own narrative to everyone you know or who might know or know about you. Humans are so narrative-desperate that they will fill in and manufacture a narrative for you (which may or may not reflect any objective reality whatsoever) if they are not provided one in advance.
Tell your own story, loud and often, otherwise others will invent one and tell it for you.
[+] [-] jimbob45|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnode|6 years ago|reply
Authoritative leadership. Nakamoto filled this role historically, and since becoming absent Bitcoin has faced a scalability crisis, and resulting loss of confidence leading to forks. Arguably this has prevented Bitcoin gaining greater use as a currency and payment system, rather than as an investment.
Founders often serve the role of a steward in open projects, and help give direction to development. Examples are Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall and Richard Stallman.
Cryptocurrencies in particular need a consensus on what is the canonical version of the software, so lack of authority is detrimental.
[+] [-] gtirloni|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomVDB|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] low_roar1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilaksh|6 years ago|reply
Because it just sounds like the type of movie that Hollywood can sell. I mean Hollywood loves to glorify violence, and people already think that Bitcoin is mainly about criminal activity.
However I am hoping that La Roux is not Satoshi, or at least that it is never proven. Because the association with criminal activities detracts from the positive effects that cryptocurrency can have in terms of improving society.
[+] [-] wp381640|6 years ago|reply
His story is more than interesting enough for an entire film without the Satoshi connection
[0] https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-evan-ratliff-elaine-s...
[+] [-] gm3dmo|6 years ago|reply
The comments in the screenshot claimed to be from 2002 are from gmail.com addresses. Gmail was launched April 2004.
[+] [-] nostrademons|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sschellbach|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Nat_|6 years ago|reply
It's a bit hard to believe that someone who'd go to such extremes for money as Le Roux would simply choose not to enjoy some payday from the Bitcoin hoard.
[+] [-] gwbas1c|6 years ago|reply
That being said, as much merit as the theory has, there's far too much allusion to circumstance to believe this.
[+] [-] mirimir|6 years ago|reply
But I wonder if Craig Wright does in fact have a bunch of FDE drives that he's trying to crack.
And if they are Le Roux's drives, I wonder what will go down if he ever gets released.
[+] [-] virtuexru|6 years ago|reply
"Bitcoin’s initial code had a poker client included."
Does anyone have more information about this? I had no idea this was the case.
[+] [-] I_am_tiberius|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spookybones|6 years ago|reply