LOS ANGELES (AP) — Who is bitcoin’s real creator? The
bitcoin community is reacting to that burning question with a collective
ho-hum.
Developers and bitcoin enthusiasts from Finland to Texas
are downplaying the media frenzy that occurred Thursday after Newsweek
identified the digital currency’s creator as a Japanese American living
in Southern California, only to have the man vehemently deny it to The
Associated Press.
The furor, they say, means little to bitcoin’s future as a viable form of money.
The
computer code that underpins bitcoin has changed dramatically since its
inception in 2009, spawning a generation of entrepreneurs seeking to
ride its growing popularity to newfound wealth, outside of government
controls.
And while most bitcoin users and investors maintain a
healthy interest in learning the true identity of the person known for
years only as "Satoshi Nakamoto," they say the financial platform’s
maintenance and growth depends on the many creators who are working on
it now.
"From an engineering perspective, Satoshi gave up control
on Jan. 5, 2009 when he birthed the first bitcoin transaction," said
Jeff Garzik, a member of the seven member Bitcoin Core Development Team
that controls what happens to the currency’s central code today. "He
created an organism and he gave it life and he released it into the wild
for it to do as it does."
Garzik says he doesn’t believe Dorian
Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto —the man who denied the Newsweek story — is
the same Satoshi Nakamoto who posted the original written bitcoin
proposal in 2008 and followed it up with computer code that made it
possible the following year.
Gregory Maxwell, another bitcoin core
developer based in Mountain View, Calif., said he has "immense respect"
for the bitcoin creator, but doesn’t care who it is, or what the
person’s motivation was. The genius of bitcoin is it doesn’t require
trusting anyone at all, he said.
"If the creator of bitcoin mattered to our ability to use it, then bitcoin has failed in its
technological goals," he said.
At
the Texas Bitcoin Conference in Austin, Texas, with around 1,000
attendees, almost no panelists were talking about the founding father of
the currency on Thursday, despite the disputed story breaking that
morning.
"Everybody was talking about what’s next, not what was or
who’s behind it," said Bruce Fenton, a founding member of the Bitcoin
Financial Association, an advocacy group that promotes its spread.
Ultimately,
die-hard bitcoin developers won’t be convinced of the creator’s
identity until the proof is embedded in code. That can be done by
transferring bitcoins from an account linked to the Satoshi Nakamoto who
uploaded the original code. Another way would be to send an encrypted
message using the so-called "PGP" key that is publicly listed on The
Bitcoin Foundation website and is linked to a private key that only the
real Satoshi Nakamoto knows.
"If he wanted to identify himself, he would do so in a manner that would end speculation,"
Garzik said.
Still,
some people in the bitcoin community jumped into action at the prospect
that the father (or mother) of the currency might finally come out of
hiding.
David Mondrus, another founding member of the Bitcoin
Financial Association, contacted the AP to pass on the message that if
the purported creator needed to escape the media whirlwind outside his
home, a private plane could be readied within hours to whisk him and his
family to a secret location.
"For me, Satoshi Nakamoto represents
the crossroads of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington," Mondrus
said. "My first concern was for his safety."
Following Dorian
Nakamoto’s denial, and hours after he left the AP’s downtown Los Angeles
headquarters, an attention-grabbing post was sent from a Satoshi
Nakamoto account that had been dormant for three years, stating "I am
not Dorian Nakamoto."
The posting only fueled further speculation,
because it was not verifiable, despite the website founder confirming
that the account was linked to [email protected], the email address
printed on the original bitcoin proposal from 2008.
Bitcoin
developer Shawn Wilkinson, 22, of Atlanta said that unless the addresses
for Satoshi Nakamoto’s bitcoins move or he’s able to produce some kind
of cryptographic signature proving his identity, there’s no way to be
sure.
But in the grand scheme of things, Wilkinson said, it doesn’t really matter.
"It’s not so much about the person, it’s about the technology," he said.
Some
bitcoin supporters were upset by the quest to identify the currency’s
creator. They said the sleuthing represented a blatant invasion into the
privacy of the person, or group, who clearly wants to remain anonymous.
"They
always intended bitcoin to be something that transcended them," said
Will Yager, 18, a bitcoin developer who attends the University of Texas
in Austin. "I think a lot of people are miffed about it because we are
sort of violating this person’s wishes."
Others gave into curiosity.
Bitcoin
developer Janne Pulkkinen, who lives in Finland, said she’d be very
interested to learn the identity of the man behind bitcoin, especially
since he tried so hard to conceal it.
"He used an anonymous email
provider, used (privacy software) Tor to hide his tracks, digitally
signed most of his messages to prevent anyone from impersonating him and
basically used every trick in the book to keep his identity a secret,"
she said. "If he were to make a reappearance, it would be easily the
most notable thing to happen to bitcoin since its inception."
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Fowler reported from New York. Technology writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this report from San
Francisco.
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