Mystery creator of Bitcoin identified, new HBO documentary claims
politico.eu
politico.eu
Edit: found some sources on this and it seems like no one knows anything
At least that's a shortened summary of the most credible chain I've seen.
Q never used any real security like a PGP key, so there's really no way to know how many Qs there were or how many times the ARG was ARG-jacked.
I do think the move to 8chan probably coincided with at least one ARG-jacking. The 4chan "trip code" thing Q was using on 4chan is a joke security-wise but the move to 8chan had no hand-off at all. There was no way to have any assurance it was the same person. (Again not that 4chan is secure.)
A real "high-level informant" with "Q clearance" would have used a f'ing PGP signature or a signed message in a Bitcoin transaction or something cryptographically verifiable.
Edit: the white-hat coup narrative goes back really far in conspiranoid and new-age literature. It goes back at least to the I AM movement, which had a narrative that sounded a lot like Q plus some ascended master woo woo. I AM was a totalitarian cult with fascist-adjacent leanings that was at one point trying to organize a march on Washington, but it never happened for some reason. I think the cult leader died or something if I remember correctly.
There's a tiny bit of evidence for a direct link. There was a video making the rounds a while back of Michael Flynn at some Q event saying a prayer that turned out to be straight out of one of the I AM offshoots. Seems a bit of a stretch though to imagine some old cult trying to launch their revolution a second time. It's more likely that grifters are just pulling bullshit from places like I AM to develop their own grifts.
Anybody who's actually looked into this topic beyond reading someone else's theories and nodding in agreement knows the answer to this question. If the documentary is worth it's salt that will be it's answer as well. No other person who would've been connected to cypherpunk and cryptography groups at that time fits the bill better, and he fits it basically perfectly. I'm sure other early contributors also knew this, which is why https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/black-ops-of-tcpip-2011...
A: Back is Satoshi, mimics X (who has many other reasons to be Satoshi) for hundreds of emails.
B: Back isn't Satoshi, X's stylometry matches Satoshi.
Clearly 'Satoshi' intended from the outset to obfuscate their identity.
Given that axiom many behaviours become probable, including referencing a true identity (or three*) in the paper.
* Satoshi could, of course, be Yet Another Nicolas Bourbaki with a shared voting key of sorts; that's an easy explanation for relative silence over the years if a group cannot or will not reach consensus on action.
And to me, the whole Halfin-key signed message thing that Shkreli posted kind of seemed to point away from LeRoux due to the suspicious circumstances.
1) Sit in a prison in NJ until he is 70+ years old.
2) When he is released, immediately be deported to the Philippines where he will face another trial, and get thrown in jail for the rest of his life.
If he had $50B+ in BTC, why wouldn't he break out of the not super secure prison in New Jersey, and go live like a king in Indonesia or something?
To the general public who’s never interacted with open source communities before I’m sure this is very exciting and so it’ll definitely impact Bitcoin’s value (maybe that’s why those early wallets were drained?) but I can’t see it actually impacting the future of Bitcoin or any other coin.
I wish they’d respect Satoshi’s privacy, but I’m also super curious to know who it is.