Comment by gyomu
7 days ago
Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”?
Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that.
Do they just not care about the ethical implications?
And really, for what? What is gained by “unmasking” Satoshi other than satisfying one’s curiosity? There is no argument to be made there for the greater public good or anything like that.
The NYTimes infamously doxxed Slate Star Codex[1], despite him basically begging them not to because it would upend his psychiatry practice, back in 2020 for no reason other than because they could.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23610416
One of their journalists also doxxed Naomi Wu, intruding on her personal life, making her lose her income, and possibly getting her in trouble with Chinese authorities: https://x.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1209815150376574976
The journalist themselves is a real piece of work: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/463503-sarah-jeong-out-at...
Kinda goes to show you the kind of people who write these stories. Ethics haven't been on their mind for a long time, and them preaching to anyone about ethics is rank hypocrisy.
> A third tweet posted by Jeong in 2014 said, “Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.”
It's not like she's any browner..
13 replies →
for a good counterbalance to those just finding out the nyt is a state dept mouthpiece at best, read about real journalists and why there seem to be so few of them, read Pegasus by laurent richard. Spoiler alert, real journalists who expose powerful peoples' wrongdoings simply get killed.
7 replies →
when journalism is a business, stuff like this happens...
6 replies →
Btw I don't know how closely you follow Naomi Wu, but take that with grain of salt. (def. not defending bad journalists)
Naomi has huge youtube and she is very public figure in Shenzhen.
She has very weird opinion on Chinese government, she acts to like it but on the other hand with her sexual orientation (which was public knowledge, plastered all over reddit, twitter etc. way before any articles) and her admitting to bypass Chinese firewall etc. which is illegal.
Kinda weird, to do this, when you're public person.
And weirdest of all, she has/had Uyghur girlfriend and she basically said, that because of us (US/EU people) boycotting China for Xinjiang concentration camps for Uyghurs, nobody in Shenzen wants to hire Uyghur people, so WE are to blame.
I don't know if she really meant it, or she'd post it to twitter to suck Chinese government, you know what.
Imho, with grain of salt too, I think she was partially managed by Chinese agency way before any articles, and they got angry because she was unable to steer the article to "China great, West is bad".
Because I have experience what Chinese agencies are willing to pay for mediocre influencers in my small EU country (10mil. people) just to visit China and make videos how they're "great". And they have 1/10 following of what Naomi has.
I am not sure this is that clear cut. Naomi Wu agreed to interview then didn't want to answer some of the questions - instead of just saying no… she wrote social media threads and blogposts about how she can't talk about this because it's big bad china and all these western journalists are unprofessional not knowing her risk. For some reason then she tried to actually dox one of the journalists in her video.
Unfortunately looking back it seems pretty plausible that chinese gov censored her exactly because of her blogposts about how she is in danger in china.
6 replies →
> “Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men,” Jeong said in one tweet from 2014 that has since been deleted.
You weren't messing, she seems lovely.. /s
8 replies →
Are you able to explain in 1 short sentence what Vice did wrong to her? Because I can't. I remember reading Wu's explanation and couldn't find anything in there, like at all. It was filled with prejudice.
1 reply →
> Kinda goes to show you the kind of people who write these stories.
People can opt to not read and pay such people.
1 reply →
It's the use of the word "quest" here that really bothers me. It seems ignoble.
Much like the "unmasking" of Banksy or Belle de Jour. Why do it other than nosiness?
Is the person committing a crime? No? Then leave them in peace.
This is just a journalist using the resources of NYTimes to show off that they can exert control over someone else.
I had a good chuckle going from Banksy on one line to whether the person is committing a crime on the other - that it's a crime was key to how the article claimed to find Banksy's identity and mentioned as one of the likely factors in why Banksy chose to be anonymous early on :D.
I get you mean whether they are causing any actual harm though (and agree for many such unmaskings), it was just an amusing juxtaposition of literal statements.
Although people repeatedly say this, NYT did not in fact dox Slate Star Codex. He revealed his own information because he said they were going to reveal his name based on a draft of the article he says he saw. The verge apparently reported that no draft had been written and the NYT was still in news gathering stage. Who knows what the truth of that is, but factually he released the information.
> The New York Times published an article about the blog in February 2021, three weeks after Alexander had publicly revealed his name.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#The_New_York_...
Funnily enough, in the blog post you linked Scott Alexander also ruminates about how he never previously questioned journalistic attempts to dox Satoshi Nakamoto.
I always found that case a bit odd. For one he was blogging under his real name and had made his medical practice known, so you could just google him.
It was upending his psychiatry practice because he blogged, albeit in anonymized fashion, about his patients without disclosing it to them which I'd say is unethical but at the very least in the interest of his patients to be made known to them. I would be pretty pissed if I recognized something I told my psychiatrist on an internet blog. Frankly given how strongly one has to consent to even legally process clinical data I've never been sure if that was at all legal.
When someone's identity is in the public interest an investigative journalist isn't doxxing anyone, they're doing their job. Both true for Nakamoto and arguably Scott
He was not blogging under his real name. Scott Alexander is not his real name.
11 replies →
> I always found that case a bit odd. For one he was blogging under his real name and had made his medical practice known, so you could just google him.
Cade Metz wrote the article under his real name, and his home address is public information, but presumably he wouldn't appreciate it being published on the internet. Why is that any different?
It’s legal to publish anonymous patient data, doctors do it frequently e.g. in “case studies”. As long as it can’t be traced back to the patient I don’t see why they should care (I wouldn’t). And since it increases public knowledge (e.g. how to treat future patients) I think it’s not only ethical, but should be encouraged.
Doxxing also increases public knowledge, but knowing who’s behind some online pseudonym is much less useful than patient anecdotes (what would you do with the former? Satisfy your interest (or what else do you mean by “public interest”)?). Moreover, unlike anonymous patient data, it has a serious downside: risking someone’s job, relationships, or even life.
7 replies →
The NYT has no authority to dox people. If they or anyone believed that SSC was acting unethically or illegally, that should be processed through proper legal or ethical channels, which exist for a reason. The solution is not that NYT should abuse their power to skip those channels.
[dead]
[dead]
[flagged]
I think you have that backwards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#Anti-reaction...
3 replies →
Could you share a link to where he promotes race science?
6 replies →
You can't doxx someone who already publicly identified themselves.
This is a journalistic publication with a foundational value of transparency. If you study the history of institutions that favor transparency, they rarely ever need to further justify efforts of transparency beyond that underlying value. Transparency needs no further analysis of second order effects.
“What is gained…?” is simply not a question asked, for the same reason that advocates for privacy rarely if ever circumstantially ask the same question.
It’s all about balance.
No one defending privacy is claiming situation like a pedophile keeping a slave children in their basement should be undetectable because privacy should be an absolute barrier that let people whatever atrocities they want within private doors.
On the other hand, those who seriously care about privacy won’t believe it’s fine to have some laws supposedly enacted to protect the children but actually just implement general presumption of guilt and everyone being spied permanently.
As someone currently working there (in tech, not the newsroom), this is partially correct.
Second order effects can become a consideration, but the bar is high. Usually “will this place someone in immediate, specific danger of harm” vs potential risks.
As a recent example, journalists covering Iran in the past week had sources confirming the downed airman was located, but that the extraction planes had been unable to take off, and held off on publication. Same for advance knowledge of the Maduro raid. Both examples have been confirmed publicly by those journalists.
Not defending this particular decision at the moment, but someone who potentially controls Satoshi’s wallet has much more ability to protect themselves, and their desire to remain anonymous wouldn’t factor in.
My mind goes to the science fiction novel Footfall by Larry Nivel and Jerry Pournell, in which Earth is attacked by aliens and, at one point, a journalist figures out about a secret project to carry out a counter-offensive and is going to run a story on it, obviously against the wishes of those involved with the project.
Another character drowns the journalist in a toilet.
I get that, but it's difficult to reconcile this with media's second principle of protecting/anonymizing sources. I don't think it's reasonable for them to have it both ways, especially when exposing an anonymous subject could result in physical danger.
> Transparency needs no further analysis of second order effects.
Everything needs analysis of second order effects. Otherwise you wreck lives without even realizing that's what you're doing. It's the negligence of a drunk driver.
On the other hand, this also applies to Bitcoin. Satoshi, if he is real and alive and in control of his wallet, is a billionaire. Billionaires need to be kept under careful watch unless they, too, wreck lives without realizing.
> Transparency needs no further analysis of second order effects.
By that logic we don't need judges.
Just read what the resp. law says and 'apply' it.
Bizarre.
[dead]
At least Adam Back is already publicly known to be worth at least tens of millions anywyas. Many of those dozens/hundreds of other guesses are not so lucky.
If the private key still exists, the BTC would be worth more like 10s of billions though. I choose to believe the key is long gone from this world though, whoever originally had it.
Long gone until quantum computers crack all the legacy wallets
At which point the bitcoin in legacy wallets is clearly worthless
7 replies →
I think the wallets go well beyond "hundreds of millions". Aren't there like a million Bitcoin in dormant wallets associated with Satoshi? Personally, I'd assumed that whoever the person or persons were, they're dead because nobody can resist the pull of tens of billions of dollars regardless of their ideological position on cryptocurrencies. But that's just a guess.
There's absolutely a public interest in this. Sorry. This is a trillion dollar market now. Was this a state actor? If so, why? what was the plan here exactly? I see absolutely no reason to respect anonymity here. You don't get to sit on $50 billion and have people respect your desire to remain hidden.
More likely they were playing with the system when they were the system in the early days, and just didn't keep those keys (IMO). Remember, even into the GPU era people were still giving bitcoin away; those wallets weren't worth anything.
An estimated 22,000 addresses, 1.1 million Bitcoin. Present value $78 billion. That would make him the 23rd richest person in the world. Bill Gates by comparison is 'only' worth $102 billion these days.
If you priced Gates backwards in gold, his $102 billion is about $13 billion two decades ago. He hasn't kept ahead of the destruction of the dollar very well.
> He hasn't kept ahead of the destruction of the dollar very well.
That hasn't been his goal. For the last two decades he's been running a huge charitable foundation...
12 replies →
1.1m Bitcoin is currently $77B not $7B.
Gold is a weird one. It’s has a hell of a run over the last decade. I’m not sure it looked so rosy in 2015. I kinda feel like betting on gold is betting on the end of civilization. I don’t really want to be right.
2 replies →
> He hasn't kept ahead of the destruction of the dollar very well.
The dollar is trading pretty much at 30-year historic highs relative to all other currencies. You have to go back to ~2000 to find a stronger era, and then the 1980s before that.
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy
5 replies →
> He hasn't kept ahead of the destruction of the dollar very well.
You can't price dollars in gold to measure value. Gold doesn't measure value better than the dollar at any point in time, let alone over time. Just use the price index for one currency, or the relative price indexes across currencies.
1 reply →
If any of those addresses sold a single sat the price would crash hard.
6 replies →
If you were to attempt to transfer money out if those wallets it would have a knock on effect on the price.
Which is why fining the owners of the wallets should be a huge deal: they can crash bitcoin whenever is most convenient for them.
It always baffles me that people have near religious faith in a Holy Satoshi that walks away from billions of dollars “for the sake of the game”.
If he’s really so unconcerned with money or fame, it would be far more interesting for him to build it up precisely to blow it down. That’s some cosmic coyote kind of behavior and that I will always get behind.
2 replies →
Couldn't agree more. If you don't want to be famous in today's day and age, don't do infamous shit.
It's not even hundreds of millions. It's tens of billions of dollars if we suppose someone actually have access to these wallets.
Bitcoins across old unused wallets worth $30B to $80B depend of how you count it.
> Bitcoins across old unused wallets worth $30B to $80B depend of how you count it.
It's worth considerably less if you make any attempt to count it accurately. The market capitalization reflects the fact that old unused wallets are unused. If they stopped being unused, market capitalization would drop.
In some sense they are even completely worthless - just tokens in a wealth redistribution scheme not connected to notable real value production.
If the system does crash, nothing of value would be lost. And we would be rid of ransomware.
1 reply →
I always assumed these wallets were never meant to be withdrawn. In the case of satoshi’s - it’s public proof that the Bitcoin network is still secure.
You mean, why is it worth noting that someone who frequently speaks at conferences about Bitcoin, has businesses that utilise Bitcoin and is influential in the Bitcoin community is - the inventor of Bitcoin?
And the "evidence" they presented includes things like, body language.
> I presented my evidence piece by piece. In his soft British lilt, Mr. Back insisted he wasn’t Satoshi and chalked it all up to a series of coincidences. But at times, his body language told a different story. His face reddened and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat when confronted with things that were harder to explain away.
Yes, they unironically wrote this.
Everyone knows that if you already believe someone is lying, you'll see all the signs that he's lying. It's confirmation bias 101, and this is unashamedly published on a so-called credible journalism outlet.
I think if something bad happens to Mr. Back (I hope not), the NYTimes is at least morally responsible.
> this is unashamedly published on a so-called credible journalism outlet
There may be credible journalists at some major print newspapers, but I don’t think there are many people who actually believe that any major US-based journalism outlet defaults to credible any more.
Like most efforts to unmaks satoshi, the whole piece is a long exercise in confirmation bias. He pours over posts to find specific shared writing tics, then feeds those specific tics into an LLM to 'eliminate' other suspects? All because more unbiased approaches carried out by the academic were inconclusive.
I think what makes this a little murkier is that this Beck guy appears to be already a well known figure in crypto circles. (I don't really follow the space). It feels more like uncovering the secret director of a film to be an established film producer.
For the last point, I agree there's a sort of "who cares" aspect to the piece. There is no artistic intent to interpret. The product speaks for itself making BTC the default crypto coin instead of any of the other millions of coins. The wealth from the founder, from what I can tell, has not been instrumentalized in any significant way.
> I agree there's a sort of "who cares" aspect to the piece
Sure, rationally I agree, but clearly a lot of people do care. It may not matter in any substantive way who Satoshi is but people still care.
> There is no artistic intent to interpret
Is that the case? Obviously there is no artistic intent as bitcoin is not art, but it's not clear to me why the intent of an artist is important but the intent of a technologist is not.
If I say that I think you are Satoshi, what are the ethical implications of that? Should I not speak or write opinions that you find annoying or inconvenient? How does that scale to everyone?
This is why the first item in the U.S. Bill of Rights is freedom of speech and of the press. Who knows what objections anyone will have to any given statement, and forcing everyone to accommodate everyone leads to a claustrophobic dystopia.
The fact that this guy is trying to IPO a crypto company right now is a fantastic reason to present whatever evidence there is that he may be Satoshi.
The difference is that you aren't beholden to a level of professional ethics (although the "respected publications" all have seemingly given that up as well so maybe this is a moot point).
There's a difference between what you're legally allowed to say and what is ethical/professional to say, as well as what you might end up being sued for in civil court.
> What is gained by “unmasking” Satoshi other than satisfying one’s curiosity?
Those sweet, sweet clicks, and the eyeballs they bring along with them, of course
It's one of those topics that's evergreen for a perennial article. If there's a slow month of ad revenue, just write up a "Who is Satoshi" article, end it with "we may never know" and collect the paycheck. Honestly, I expected better from the NYT.
I mean, yeah? We can wag our fingers about what people find interesting but it is what it is. Bitcoin is an important technology in the world, and people are interested in who the inventor is. You may think it doesn't matter, but clearly a lot of people disagree.
This one is challenging I think because the article itself is so thin. The evidence seems really shaky.
That said, clearly a lot of people really do seem to care who Satoshi is, so it doesn't seem like its out of the question for a newspaper to print an article claiming to answer that question.
> Do they just not care about the ethical implications?
Did Satoshi not care about the ethical implications of creating bitcoin? Mr Back may not be Satoshi, but he's also made a career driving the adoption of bitcoin and bitcoin itself has enabled many, many terrible crimes. It seems like special pleading to argue that Mr Back is not responsible for any of the consequence of bitcoin in the world, and also that the NY Times is morally responsible if someone harms Mr Back because they think he is Satoshi. Either we have an ethical responsibility to consider the consequences of our actions or we don't.
> Did Satoshi not care about the ethical implications of creating bitcoin? Mr Back may not be Satoshi, but he's also made a career driving the adoption of bitcoin and bitcoin itself has enabled many, many terrible crimes.
Nobody seems to be angry at the inventor of coins and bills, though.
While in general you are right, there is a reason why developed countries are usually publicizing information about government officials and private entrepreneurs. This creates sense of accountability and allows for proper oversight by the journalists and law. And among those are plenty of rich or very rich people and no one is kidnapping or shooting them in the streets despite knowing exactly where they live or work.
Arguably a person who can at whim with a single click destabilize half the world economy (simply by moving a single sat from the creator wallet to another, among other things) necessitates such oversight too and can't claim to be a private insignificant individual who is abused by transparency.
PS: even though I'm a lowly QA on a relatively small salary, as an entrepreneur my private info like contact, full address, tax returns and other is completely and legally public for anyone in the world to see on my government portal. And it is a good thing.
> hundreds of millions
More in the range of 100 billion
I was thinking along the same lines. Isn't it just doxxing? Going deep into someone's online history and making hypothesis about who they are in real life, then publishing their name and what they do?
I fail to understand "why". There is this awesome band, Angine de Poitrine, that makes being anonymous a big part of the fun. Some people are trying hard to dox them, and I heard that someone already did it. What if they decide to quit, now that the fun is over if they are not anonymous anymore? Congrats, you fucked up the party and nothing was gained.
Let's keep in mind that doxxing is not a universal concept nor are its mechanisms universally perceived as negative/frowned upon outside of specific online areas.
I don't know of any law against it except for specific populations like law enforcement and even those usually have exceptions for journalism.
Yeah, as a Scandinavian it is often hard to understand how people can feel that their existence is a secret. We've had public and fairly rich (family relations, profession) census data for hundreds of years. Tax records, school grades, property ownership. All of it public information available to and for everyone.
The right to privacy here never meant "noone may know that I exist".
Australia has a law against "menacing or harassing" doxxing.
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....
(nice permalink URL guys.)
1 reply →
I believe it widely understood to be what most people call "a douche move".
2 replies →
Indeed, unless they're already a public person (such as celebrity or public figure of note).
Mini-celebrities are probably far more likely to attract attention than a lot of “rich people.”
Adam Back is already a high profile target. Unmasking him as Satoshi doesn't really change that for the guy that founded that company that leads bitcoin core development.
Hundreds of billions, not millions.
Naah, the moment the first million of those is sold -- the price crashes.
In other words, imagine some investor had those billions, and could buy the key. Should they? A thing is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it.
They might crash the price if they sold the whole stake in one go, sure.
But I predict that modest selling would increase the bitcoin price. Just imagine the hype from the Second Coming of Satoshi. Bitcoin would be front page news in mainstream newspapers for that week.
At least until they actually tried selling them
They could be valuable in the sense that the owner can destroy bitcoin at will. Just having that leverage could be useful.
Yes, this seems like one of those cases where "the public is curious" and "the public has a right to know" are being blurred together
So you are suggesting the super rich get some extra layer of kid glove treatment, simply because they have more money?
I think of journalism like any other job where there's an expectation to produce results, where the main objective here is to write an article that lots of people read. It's a topic that catches a lot of people's attention, so in a sense they've succeeded by getting a lot of people to read and talk about it.
It’s like saying chirurgeon job is like any other job, and the most people operated in a minimum amount of time is all that matter to optimize. But even in the most cynical Machiavelli™ hospital, reputation and actual operational results have to be taken into account if the institution want to continue to be frequented.
Exactly right. Unfortunately, this is likely a reporter who is just looking for something that will get attention. I remember a time when reporters wrote things based on importance, not chasing clickbait like everyone on social media. Whoever Satoshi is/was, they wanted privacy. Let them have it and move on.
You do realize the author is the one that exposed the Theranos fraud ?
By definition, if they’re not concerned about the ethics, they are not journalists and their occupation is not journalism. Nor does your employer’s reputation[1] allow them to claim such titles simple because they sign your pay cheque. You can’t inherit the title like that.
Journalist/journalism is like leader/leadership… too often used inappropriately, too often used to mislead, too often used inappropriately. Words such as reporter, hack, or NYT agent are more appropriate and more accurate.
Put another way, if your pet barks, would you still call it a cat? Of course not! If these people and entities aren’t fulfilling the baseline of the definition why do we continue to call them something they are not?
Journalist is a verb. It’s the decisions made and the actions taken. We’d be doing the collective a favor if we stopped giving credit where credit is NOT due.
[1] editorial: Most of us would agree that the NYT has lost its way. That it’s getting by on the fumes of integrity long gone.
Only True Scotsmen can be journalists?
No. But people without ethics, transparency, etc can not be. Again, for all intents and purposes it’s a verb. It’s the actions you take. This thread is filled with references to actions that DQ the person from being a journalist. Continuing to get them the title / reward only encourages bad behavior.
2 replies →
Easy - they don't care. Major institutional publications have lacked journalistic integrity for a very long time now. I can't really think of any exceptions there anymore.
>> And really, for what? What is gained by “unmasking” Satoshi other than satisfying one’s curiosity? There is no argument to be made there for the greater public good or anything like that.
Sure there is. A whole system of unregulated finance has been setup and it's very useful for criminality. How is not in the public interest to know who set it up and for what purpose? If it turned out Satoshi was actually a nation state and this was done for some nefarious purpose you think that's not in the public interest?
Well given they have hunreds of millions of dollars to protect themselves with, it seems like it would be a good time to start using it.
Satoshi cannot spend his fortune. If he did, it would be visible on the blockchain and bitcoin's price would collapse.
their wealth is not in a single wallet, but rather in 20k wallets. So instead transferring bitcoin, they could just hand out access those wallets.
2 replies →
That’s not how you use that kind of wealth. You take loans with the fortune as collateral… come on that’s pretty basic stuff
3 replies →
Imagine mafia knocking on your door and putting a gun to your head because some journalist figured out you are secret billionare.
Not cool?
How is it different from all the non-secret billionaires to say nothing of all the people with 100s of millions?
6 replies →
They have Elon money, let’s stop pretending they are some precious little sweetheart.
Never get between a journalist and their scoop.
Are you implying there is an inherent right for public figures to hide their wealth, “for security reasons”? WTF?
Most people think that, otherwise tax filings would be public (like they are in some places iirc).
Most people… never a good sign when you have to bring out these two words
7 replies →
Why should journalism engage in the implied pro-active censorship here?
With that reasoning you could censor everything, including the Epstein files. You only need to find some "critical reason", usually being safety concern or "but but but the children". So I disagree with that rationale.
How far would you want censorship to go?
Having said that, I am not particularly interested in the "who is mystery man" debate situation.
> There is no argument to be made there for the greater public good
That's an opinion. While I personally don't care, others may, so your statement here is also just an opinion. Trump also said the Epstein files are not relevant - I and many others think differently. I wonder how deep the Epstein kompromat situation is, it would be an ideal blackmail situation. Any democracy can be factually undermined that way.
> Why should journalism engage in the implied pro-active censorship here?
Because in this particular case it endangers subject's life.
> Because in this particular case it endangers subject's life.
This seems like a stretch. Mr Back is already a well-known wealthy person who (presumably) owns lots of crypto. I think it's a stretch to think this article significantly increase the danger to his life.
Lol you guys are really in a cult aren’t you? You’re implying that journalists should never out people that are too wealthy? Do you not see the massive red flag here?
5 replies →
invention of bitcoin is significant enough that world needs to know who really did it. Why is the person hiding is the real question.
> And really, for what?
Readership, clicks and views
I was just wondering the same thing.
Exposing the wealthy is pretty standard journalism
And if this guy isn't Satoshi?
And if he comes to harm as a result of someone believing the NYT?
15 replies →
It's pretty standard left wing activism. Rags like the NYT pretending there's no difference, doesn't mean there is no difference.
HN now has a massive boner for billionaires, everybody imagining they’ll become one someday. It’s pretty sad
He is a billionaire who should pay taxes.
Depends on jurisdiction.
[dead]
[dead]
> There is no argument to be made there for the greater public good or anything like that.
Here is an argument for the greater public good.
Transparency. Bitcoin acts as an alternative global monetary system. It’s not centralized but whales can control the game. Acquisition of bitcoins are asymmetrical, meaning first adopters gained an enormous wealth and became whales virtually for free. So we can say it’s a rigged game. It becomes important to know who are all those people that can control a global monetary system. If Satoshi is an individual it may not matter. But what if it’s an organization, like CIA or o group of bankers. What if it was Epstein or Elon Musk, unlikely but viable candidates but the implications are huge.
Also we assume Bitcoin is for good and maker of a good thing can be anonymous. What if it is a harmful thing, like a Ponzi scheme to grab people’s money. Then Satoshi becomes a criminal rather than a hero, and public must know the name.
Journalists largely have no morals or ethics these days. Literal scum of the earth, anything to make a name for themselves or to push their ideological agendas.
The NYTimes is basically a mouthpiece for US government interests. The US government has an interest in outing cryptocurrency actors of all kinds.
I would assume that they don't care about the unmasking, because the whole thing is a just a misleading show, intended to misdirect you from the reality. I don't know the reality, but perhaps if the USG was behind the creation of BTC, that would explain it.
NYT just doesn't care about the consequences of what they publish. A few years ago they put out a piece about how a big group of people were constantly raping another big group of people, that had significant geopolitical implications, it turned out to be entirely made up and they never apologised.
I can't work out whether this is supposed to be talking about trans panic, the 80s satanic panic, the Epstein files, Rotherham, or something else.
>Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that.
So if Forbes publishes a list of the richest people in the world, it makes them targets?
No, because those people are already public figures. They own companies that are publicly known (i don't mean publicly traded), and thus by proxy, are public face of those companies.
Or they appear(ed) in public to make something of being in public (such as lobbying, or civic activities, or philanthropy etc). This makes any article about them not a doxx - they already revealed themselves publicly. You cannot segregate public affairs of the person with private affairs.
Mr Back is already a very public figure in the bitcoin/crypto community who is the face of a public company. This isn't some rando who nobody has ever heard of before.
1 reply →
The Forbes 30-under-30 is I believe pay to play. It's also a surprisingly reliable predictor of arrest.
Those people are on alert and already protected. Satoshi is probably a regular guy without any other security other than being anonymous. We are also assuming that they are doxing the real guy, and not some bystander that now have to deal with all the consequences without having the resources to protect himself. Lets suppose they are wrong, they dox the wrong person, "opsies, let us add a footnote to the text saying we were wrong, and let us forget this happened" (RE: reddit played detective a couple times and botched normal people lives).
And if you do have a big pile of money but are flying under the radar so far you sadly should have some investments in security. I thought people around here didn’t really believe in security through obscurity.
2 replies →
When you are not actually rich, it matters.
This. Imagine being targeted by actual government agencies of russia, north korea and iran who wouldn't mind to take some of your bitcoins.
Sadly it does. Most of those people have to spend a lot of money on security. But usually it's not the Forbes list that specifically outs them as being wealthy. You can't really build a billion dollar company under the radar.
This is just a strange situation where someone has made billions without their identity being known, without being a criminal.
If Forbes misidentifies the wrong person as a billionaire, then yes, it is a problem.
a killer from Moscow used to cost $5000
After events of last 4 years in Russia you can probably be killed there for $100 or for a wrong look. Lots of trigger happy ex-convict veterans with PTSD are around.
For now they are busy killing their wives and relatives, but eventually they will run out of money for alcohol and will have to find a "job".
2 replies →
do you need the forbes list of billionaires to know who is bezos, gates or musk?
There's 3428 on that list, I don't think it's feasible for any random person to know about more than 5% of them.