Ethereum Founder Confronts Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Creator Craig Wright, Calls Him a Fraud (businessinsider.com) 54
The dispute between Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and self-proclaimed "Bitcoin creator" Craig Wright is far from over. At the 2018 Deconomy conference, Buterin asked, "Given that he makes so many non sequiturs and mistakes, why is this fraud allowed to speak at this conference?" From the report: Audience members applauded him. The confrontation (video) happened during a question-and-answer session after a panel called "Bitcoin, Controversy over Principle" featuring Roger Ver and Samson Mow; Wright gave a talk just before the panel.
[...] Wright first shot to fame when stories from Gizmodo and Wired both identified him as the likely inventor of bitcoin. In May 2016, Wright published a blog post and spearheaded a media push in news outlets including the BBC, The Economist, and GQ in which he said he was, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto. But the evidence in Wright's blog post made little sense on a technical, cryptographic level. Cryptography experts said at the time that it was nearly nonsensical.
[...] Wright first shot to fame when stories from Gizmodo and Wired both identified him as the likely inventor of bitcoin. In May 2016, Wright published a blog post and spearheaded a media push in news outlets including the BBC, The Economist, and GQ in which he said he was, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto. But the evidence in Wright's blog post made little sense on a technical, cryptographic level. Cryptography experts said at the time that it was nearly nonsensical.
Media Reports Muddled (Score:3)
The media as usual muddled his story. He didn't create Bitcoin. He invented email.
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cstacy:
The media as usual muddled his story. He didn't create Bitcoin. He invented email.
AC:
Uh, wrong. That was Christine Peterson
No, I believe it was Christine Peterson who invented "Open Email", one of the most common operations done on computers! She did that back in 1998, while email itself was invented in 1978 (and trademarked in 1982). During the years from 1978-1998 email was not used very much, as there was no way to open it.
I know, it's hard to keep all these things straight...
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Funny, but PLATO was delivering email, blogs, chat rooms, and instant messaging in the mid 70s. Don Bitzer built a lot of this, long with flat panel displays and touchscreens in the 60s. People like Ray Ozzie saw the system and came away inspired. Some of the people who attended UIUC include Marc Andreessen, Thomas Siebel, that Ozzie guy, Peng T. Ong, Steve Dorner, Brendan Eich, almost a who's who of the computer industry. Lots of innovation there.
And yes, shamefully, I still play Avatar on Cyber1. I don;t
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I was using email in the early 70s and it was old hat by then. In the mid-70s someone in my high school had implemented a fully fleshed out recognizable system (with CC, BCC, forwarding, marking, admins, ... all the "traditional" features) in BASIC on the schools HP 2000 Time Sharing system. He copied the functionality of existing systems that we knew about from "big computers". I had for years been using email on mainframes (such as APL*PLUS) so it was familiar to me. That's email "as we know it today"
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Make sure you're talking about the right brother, not the wrong one.
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I thought nobody knew who Bitcoin's creator was. They figured it out since then?
Yeah it was all over NEWSWEEK almost exactly 4 years ago, try to keep up!
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Actually, the inventor of Bitcoin was Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2006.
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Can you prove it by signing a message with Satoshi's key? If not, bugger off.
You seriously did not detect that this was a joke? Fucking hell man. Sort your life out.
Where is this? Can someone provide better links? (Score:2)
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I don't think many people here use Edge...
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Obvious Bitcoin is a Chinese Invention (Score:2)
Just wait, China will claim it invented Bitcoin soon enough.
The irony is richer than a serving of panna cotta (Score:2, Insightful)
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I don't own or use cryptocurrency. I sort of wish it would die so I could buy a better video card.
But I still find your criticism completely stupid and asinine because I'm capable of fucking nuanced thought. You should try it sometime.
2nd comment was better (Score:5, Informative)
"I wrote the Lightning Network paper. I straight up don't understand your presentation. I'm sure the rest of the audience does not as well."
Craig Wright is a fraud. The conference organizers should be embarrassed to include him.
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is a fraud.
This was at a crypto-currency conference. They are all frauds. They're probably about to be sued by Baskin-Robbins, because of the 31 flavors of fraud.
I don't like cryptocurrency, and despite that, everything you say makes me cringe like fuck.
Isn't it easy to verify Bitcoin ownership? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Isn't it easy to verify Bitcoin ownership? (Score:2)
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Why would he want to do that though? He would rather bask in the ambiguity of the situation than prove his identity and make himself the target of thieves and governments.
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Why would thieves and governments wait for proof rather than simply taking him at his own word?
"I'd totally kidnap him, but I can't be positive that he actually holds millions upon millions worth of bitcoin, and because of that the risk is too much..."
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Because thieves don't believe him any more than you do.
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That's not ambiguity then, is it?
Re: Isn't it easy to verify Bitcoin ownership? (Score:2)
Other than the fact that Wright has already claimed he was Nakimoto on many occasions. Also reading more about the situation, to prove that he was Nakimoto, Wright submitted a key signature. The problem was that the key signature provided was identical to one Nakimoto used in a 2009 forum posting. When asked to provide a unique key signature, Wright then refused to provide any more evidence.
According to a Bitcoin developer, Wright signed another message in his presence with what appears to be a private Nak
Re: Isn't it easy to verify Bitcoin ownership? (Score:2)
Yet the Aussies raided him within a few days on "unrelated matters". Sure they did.
Whether he had the keys or not it was obviously a stupid move in today's world. It's more important to see if he's contributing today or not. His talk on miner incentives and double-spend security seemed spot-on. I haven't seen the LN talk but if it's complete nonsense (I would not believe its primary advocate's protests) then he could be completely misunderstanding LN and still not be wrong about Bitcoin economics.
The se
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Yet the Aussies raided him within a few days on "unrelated matters". Sure they did.
Well let's review the facts [theguardian.com] regarding the raid: Wright told his landlord he was leaving for Australia by December for London but extended his lease to January. He had apparently already began the moving process. So Australia waiting to raid his home and offices any later would have been foolish if they wanted any evidence.
Also The ATO ruled in December 2014 (a year prior to the raid) that cryptocurrency would be treated as an asset for capital gains: "The treatment of bitcoin for tax purposes in Australia h
slightly off-topic (Score:1)
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Better yet, we should start referring to it as 'virtual lottery tickets.'