[[{“value”:”That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: It also matters if Satoshi was a single person or a small team. If a single person, that might mean future innovations are more likely than generally thought: If Satoshi is a lone individual, then maybe there there are more unknown geniuses
The post Does it matter who Satoshi was? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
It also matters if Satoshi was a single person or a small team. If a single person, that might mean future innovations are more likely than generally thought: If Satoshi is a lone individual, then maybe there there are more unknown geniuses out there. On the other hand, the Satoshi-as-a-team theory would mean that secrets are easier to keep than people think. If that’s the case, then maybe conspiracy theories are more true than most of us would care to admit.
According to many speculations, Satoshi came out of a movement obsessed with e-cash and e-gold mechanisms, dating to the 1980s. People from those movements who have been identified as potential Satoshi candidates include Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Wei Dai, David Chaum and Douglas Jackson, among others. At the time, those movements were considered failures because their products did not prove sustainable. The lesson here would be that movements do not truly and permanently fail. It is worth experimenting in unusual directions because something useful might come out of those efforts.
If Peter Todd is Satoshi, then it’s appropriate to upgrade any estimates of the ability of very young people to get things done. Todd would have been working on Bitcoin and the associated white paper as a student in his early 20s. At the same time, if the more mainstream Adam Back is involved, then maybe the takeaway is that rebellious young people should seek out older mentors on matters of process and marketing.
I believe that in less than two years we will know who Satoshi is.
The post Does it matter who Satoshi was? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Current Affairs, History, Uncategorized, Web/Tech
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