Satoshi, So What: Why is Everyone Interested in Knowing Who Created a Virtual Currency Hardly Anyone Uses?

Now clogging up my high tech industry newsfeed is the apparent self-revelation of Bitcoin's mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto [Or not -- see Update]:

Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has publicly identified himself as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto... Mr Wright has revealed his identity to three media organizations - the BBC, the Economist and GQ. At the meeting with the BBC, Mr Wright digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of Bitcoin's development. The keys are inextricably linked to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created or "mined" by Satoshi Nakamoto.

Someone can finally ask Satoshi/Wright what it feels like to have created a virtual currency that everyone in tech seems to be talking about but hardly anyone actually uses:

With daily transactions consistently under 300,000 a day in the last twelve months, Bitcoin is still used less than Linden Dollars, the virtual currency traded by some 600,000 regular users of a relatively niche virtual world. But now that we do know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, it does bring up a related point:

We know who created Linden Dollars: Philip Rosedale, Cory Ondrejka, and their staff. For that matter, we know who created US Dollars: He even has a hit Broadway musical. The fact that Bitcoin's creator has been such a mystery for so long is one of many reasons it's failed to go mass market. Money, fundamentally being a social contract, depends on transparency and trust, and a virtual currency with shadowy architects is destined for obscurity. Except, of course, as yet another case study in Silicon Valley's strange fascination with cyberpunk-tinged libertarian fantasies.

Update, 2:30pm: The shadows are even shadowier than they seem: Some experts believe this new Satoshi revelation is a hoax.

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Comments

[sirhc deSantis]

Why do people want to know? Best I can think of is to pull a Nelson if spotted on the street. (Points)Haw Haw.

[D Crystal]

It's not clear at this stage if Craig Wright's claims are true or a hoax, but it's kind of beside the point.

The central innovation of Bitcoin is that there's no need to trust any issuing individual or group - as the open-source code and maths behind it can be 100% audited and confirmed by anyone.

Indeed, just knowing who issued a currency is no reason to trust it at all.

I was glad to see Valve Corporation's Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/) is now accepting Bitcoin, but you didn't report it? I thought that would be of more interest to your readers.

[Wagner James Au]

I would if anyone actually used Bitcoin, almost all of my readers are too busy blowing they Lindens. :)

[zz bottom]

:) Still i must say that the loss of faith on bitcoin by James is a lack of vision of what the future will all be about in virtual worlds.

[Estelle]

A loss of faith is a lack of vision. That sounds so deep it made my day!