Ted Nelson, coiner of the term 'hypertext', Outs Bitcoin Creator | Hacker News Reader

Ted Nelson, coiner of the term 'hypertext', Outs Bitcoin Creator

theregister.co.uk

36 pointszachlatta17 comments

Pretty sure the headline should be:

> Ted Nelson, coiner of the term 'hypertext', speculates about Bitcoin creator's identity

I'm not sure what constitutes an outing, but I'm pretty sure this isn't it:

“I cannot say QED to that because I have not proven it,” he adds. However, he says his theory is “consistent, plausible, and I believe, compelling.”

The discussion and the original video from a few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5729703

This seem completely ridiculous. Each of the 3 prongs outlined in the article seems weak and even when considered together there is little chance that they narrow down the search to a single individual. I would expect there are quite a few that match this description. Am I missing something?

I have another theory, in that Satoshi is actually Ted Nelson, based on the fact that only the real Satoshi would be the first to oust someone else as Satoshi.

Without more evidence, some of the other theories are more convincing.

It's so unconvincing I have to wonder if he's intentionally muddying the waters.

/conspiracy

Has anyone just asked Shinichi Mochizuki if he had anything to do with bitcoin?

I assume he would be honest and deny it if he had no involvement. (but still would be cool to get this amazing guy's opinion about bitcoin tech)

If he was involved with bitcoin, I doubt he would lie about it. Instead he would simply not respond, and thus confirming he really might be "Satoshi".

Given his reputation it's not inconceivable. Excellent article on Mochizuki that was recently published: http://projectwordsworth.com/the-paradox-of-the-proof/

Yet extremely unlikely.

Is this a big deal? Are there possible repercussions (positive or negative) for the author of Bitcoin? Are there possible repercussions for Bitcoin itself?

Apparently this guy has almost a million bitcoins [1]. Since there will apparently only ever be 21 million (and that by 2040), he has a disproportionate amount of the currency that will ever exist. Not everybody wants to be outed as having over $100million, but that probably pales in comparison to what could hypothetically happen if somebody/an organisation wanted to destroy the currency. He could probably single handedly do it and would be a very obvious target.

[1]http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/6/4295028/report-satoshi-naka...

EDIT: Added the source I forgot. And whoever downvoted this, could you explain why? I think it's reasonable to assume that certain people may dislike Bitcoin, and that the guy holding 5% of the lifetime supply is an obvious target.

That is sort of sad, really.

Isn't satoshi's Bitcoin collection valued at 10 million USD+?

I thought it was 100mill

Even more reason to keep your identity under wraps.

tldr: Some guy says that he think who the creator of Bitcoin is.

Flag and downvote guys.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com