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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

Why would he deny it if it wasn't true though? He's officially come out and said[0] that it wasn't him when the public pressured him into commenting on it, and there is no evidence besides a few coincidences that you documented that he would otherwise be Satoshi. Equally likely is that Pamela Anderson designed the Bitcoin protocol. You're latched onto a theory that not only has no hard evidence to support it, but also has been denied by all parties and relies purely on serendipity to argue.

If Elon Musk was Satoshi, we would know. It's a silly thought experiment, but compared to the other candidates, Occam's razor tears your theory to shreds. Craig Wright, a complete and total fraud, is more likely to be Satoshi than Musk is.

[0] https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/other-tech-new...

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Musk might deny it for basically every year from 2008 up to when Bitcoin reached some level of success, for the integrity of the currency, and to avoid entanglement with aggressive regulators who don't understand the possibilities for good (see the fate of the E-gold founder) (luckily the atmosphere has changed with Vitalik Buterin publicly inventing Ethereum and Billy Markus publicly inventing Dogecoin). Let's say that from 2008-2013 (2013 is the release date of Dogecoin) there was sufficient reason to deny.

Then onwards, Musk might continue denying because priorities are SpaceX and Tesla. This reason might essentially continue on to the present. So this explains the range 2013-2022.

Now in the present, what can change the situation is sufficient public knowledge that Musk invented Bitcoin and sufficient public will that asks Musk to take credit, with the understanding that taking credit for Bitcoin will unify the positive perception of Satoshi with Musk, and accelerate time to civ on Mars.

The evidence is now beyond reasonable doubt that Musk invented Bitcoin. Capability. Motivation. Linguistics. Plus the extraordinarily specific commonalities. C++ proficiency. Location in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. Fulfilling the Exact Paypal Dream.

For a quick rebuttal of the other candidates, Nick Szabo doesn't seem to code in C++, Len Sassaman was sincerely dismissive of Bitcoin, Hal Finney was not playing games emailing himself, and Craig Wright is what you say he is.

> The evidence is now beyond reasonable doubt that Musk invented Bitcoin.

That's an awfully large bite to take out of a nothingburger, but I wish you luck? Moreover, I mostly hope you don't have any money riding on this guess...

The meta-talk is not how to make progress. Engage with the actual points. The actual points in the Medium post and the Google Doc.

You have no actual points. Everything that you have listed so far is pure conjecture, not hard evidence.

False! C++ proficiency. Location in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. Are hard evidence.

Hacker News crowd, get smarter!

You guys are like clueless about so much of life!

Change this by taking the perspective of people who simultaneously build things and coordinate people!

There are hundreds of people who know C++, live on the west coast and talk like a pompous idiot. Elon Musk is one candidate of hundreds.

You should do some statistics research and realize that just because one celebrity matches your description doesn't mean that they're the sole candidate for your search. I'd argue that you're acting pretty clueless here, especially since Elon himself has denied creation of the spec. Without any further evidence, you'd need something utterly damning to make people believe you. There are real ways that you can prove that you built Bitcoin; you can step forward with keys to the wallet with the genesis block or you can render passwords to any of the accounts Satoshi used online. Not only has Elon Musk done neither of those things, he's outright told people that he didn't build it when there was every incentive in the world to acknowledge himself as Satoshi.

If anything, I can see why all these Bitcoin accusers never got anywhere as SpaceX employees. Rocket science doesn't make progress with guesswork...

There was little incentive to take credit when he's juggling SpaceX and Tesla.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30131095

This might change when there is sufficient public will asking him to take credit.

There is no reason for him to deny it. Your first reason (some nebulous government regulation point) is completely null and void because there are no modern example of cryptocurrency founders being arrested or anything for simply writing and distributing a codebase like that. In the case of E-gold, the founders explicitly set aside a fund that allowed them to encourage the currency's use for illicit activities, which lead them to being tried on criminal charges. Bitcoin has never had that, much less a centralized ownership scheme in the first place. If Elon Musk admitted to writing the Bitcoin code, even in 2012, there would be no basis for legal consequence.

Your second point, that SpaceX and Tesla are priorities for him, also makes no sense. Bitcoin is entirely autonomous, if he announced and proved that he designed the Bitcoin protocol, very little would change vis-a-vis his own responsibilities. In fact, if he was able to prove that he was Satoshi, he almost certainly would have done so before selling billions of dollars in his own stocks last November. To insist otherwise would be to accuse Musk of pissing his own corporate value down the drain, which everyone knows is the last thing he'd do.

Furthermore, I don't even know what you mean by "sufficient public will" here. If Musk wanted the public to universally acknowledge him as Satoshi, as I stated, there are several ways that he could prove his unequivocal authorship of the Bitcoin code. Your "extraordinarily specific commonalities" are that he knows one of the most popular programming languages in the world and lives on the west coast. That's not extraordinary or specific at all. You're basing your entire argument off of a few coincidences that could apply to hundreds if not thousands of people, and you're simply choosing the most popular person who fits the description.

Elon Musk had every opportunity to step forward, and he still admits that he had nothing to do with the creation of Bitcoin. Insisting otherwise is a waste of time and credibility, as I'm sure other people will remind you of if you continue to espouse this theory that is undeniably deranged.

For newcomers to this thread, reread my posts, and if you have open-ended questions, I'd be willing to answer.

That's a strange way to concede but I'll take it.

I don't think his point is to argue what's true. More like that he wants exposure for this idea that Elon is Satoshi. I'm still struggling to understand why this is a thing right now.

That would indeed seem to be the case, judging by his submission history.

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