By Solomon OdunayoAdam Back, the CEO of Blockstream has averred that a new post he recently discovered was possibly written by the anonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC), Satoshi Nakamoto.
The obscurity over the true identity of the brain behind a technology that has been causing overhauling in the financial world, might not be undone anytime soon.
Many cryptocurrency pundits even prefer he keeps his identity unknown forever, for a reason best known to them. However, some are still digging dip to unveil his real identity.
Adam Back’s Opinion over a Newly Discovered Post
The popular cryptographer, Adam Back, is of the opinion that a post from 1999, 10 years before the emergence of Bitcoin (BTC), seems to bear the hallmarks of Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC).
Adam Back, whose work is cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper, is a longtime member of the movement and inventor of a proof-of-work (PoW) system, Hashcash, which later became a cornerstone for Bitcoin (BTC).
He was part of the discussion regarding the personality and the works of Satoshi Nakamoto, in a thread of tweets a couple of days ago.
In the discussion, he hinted at a post he recently unearthed from early days, which featured an anonymous author who held forth some ideas related to Bitcoin (BTC), coupled with how to secure a virtual currency in a decentralized way.
Back wrote:
“I liked this 1999 anon post in reply to my post in an ecash discussion thread wrestling with the limits of then protocols even sounds a bit like.”
I liked this 1999 anon post in reply to my post in an ecash discussion thread wrestling with the limits of then protocols https://t.co/8DeAhFLP4M even sounds a bit like. pic.twitter.com/iH9qiDYndl
— Adam Back (@adam3us) April 17, 2020
The unearthed post reads thus:
“I wouldn’t say ecash has to use blinding, but I would argue it would be a misuse of the word “ecash”, if something which was recoverable were dubbed ecash.
With the definition, it is not technically possible to implement electronic cash at all without tamper resistant hardware, because reliance on a mint, or double spend database means your “cash” can become worthless over night if someone (say a government) decides to switch off a computer (the one holding the double spending database).
There are some alternatives which would come closer to this definition.
One possibility is to make the double-spending database public. Whenever someone receives a coin they broadcast its value. The [database] operates in parallel across a large number of servers so it is intractable to shut it down.
The greater danger is that the mint would be taken over and forced to behave badly, say by issuing too many coins. This would degrade the money and make it worthless.
Another possible form of ecash could be based on wei Dai’s b-money. This is like hashcash, something which represents a measurable amount of computational work to produce. It therefore can’t be forged. This could be a very robust payment system and is worth pursuing further.”
Howbeit, Adam Back pointed at a particular error made by the author in the post, he said it’s possibly a mistake, as “Satoshi had basically zero spelling nor grammatical errors.”
Meanwhile, many people in the crypto ecosystem had once believed that Adam Back is the creator of Bitcoin (BTC), Satoshi Nakamoto. But had since disclaimed such a notion.
He said:
“A number of crypto people have asked me seriously over time if I was Satoshi, and I am not, and don’t want to be mistaken to be because he has $100mil bitcoin shaped reasons to guard the physical security of his coins. (And I don’t even have coins which could be mistaken for really well-hidden coins).”