On 22/10/2023 01:38, pro2rat@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Lopp does us a favor and rules out HALfin as Satoshi. This opens up a possibility Nakamoto was a libertarian. Since Hal definitely wasn't!
Evidence for this theory includes avoidance of cypherpunks list.
I don't think he totally avoided the list, but posted here (and possibly still posts elsewhere) under a different nym. I don't think I would call him a libertarian though (whatever that means; in UK usage the word usually means someone who believes in the least practicable amount of Government). Hmmm, perhaps. A supposition: suppose Satoshi (who was or is English) worked for, I don't know, say GCHQ. Around the time that Bitcoin was introduced the patents on Chaumian eCash were running out (Chaum never implemented eCash properly), and if others then built on Chaum a real untraceable ecurrency might result - something GCHQ would dislike intensely. So in order to discourage that they introduce a blockchain-based "ecurrency" [1] which is fairly easily traceable - plus they don't even have to search the internet for the raw data, it is all in the blockchain and immediately and publicly available. They (Satoshi plus GCHQ colleagues) also write one of the best-written and most secure pieces of software ever, the Bitcoin Reference Implementation. Ne lesser entity could write something similar for Chaumian eCash which could compete with the Reference Implementation in terms of quality, reliability, security and usability. Satoshi and NSA got there "firstest with the mostest" - and so the battle was won. And so an easily-traceable blockchain-based "ecurrency" was widely adopted instead of a real untraceable ecurrency, perhaps based on Chaum or developments, or something else. It is interesting to compare this supposition with the history of TOR... [1] I put blockchain-based "ecurrencies" in quotes because they could never be widely used as actual ecurrencies, the technology doesn't scale. Peter Fairbrother