Photo: Jonathan Waller
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At first glance, Newsweek's story was compelling and convincing. Between Dorian Nakamoto's background, source testimonies, and "forensic analysis," a lot seemed to line up. As the day and the internet ran its course—and as a bemused model train collector explained this was all a misunderstanding—the story's logic began to wear thin. Even the "real" Satoshi appeared on a message board to deny it. Of course Satoshi would deny being Satoshi. But would Satoshi have used his (former) real name while trying to remain anonymous? Would he have a grasp of English and cryptography far weaker than his original bitcoin white paper would suggest?Newsweek’s story and the explosive reaction it inspired told a very interesting story about Bitcoin, just not the story that Newsweek had intended.
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The story of Bitcoin has always also been about the stories surrounding Bitcoin: the head-spinning hype borne out of Silicon Valley startup culture, a common confusion about what Bitcoin actually is, and the kind of belief that it inspires. Some Bitcoiners, focused as they may be on the code and the technology, argue that the mythologizing is just distraction, and they're mostly right. Even the real Satoshi protested the myth-making in an email to Gavin Andresen, who became Bitcoin's lead developer (and who, for the record, has denied to Motherboard that he is himself Satoshi). “I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure," Satoshi wrote. "The press just turns that into a pirate currency angle. Maybe instead make it about the open source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them.”But while some Bitcoiners bill the currency as open-source and transparent and self-evident, its mechanism remains obscure to most people. This is perhaps why, as I've heard Bitcoiners lament, the media doesn't get Bitcoin. The geeky libertarian culture surrounding it and the murky companies that have tainted its reputation don't exactly lend themselves to comprehension. It can be a mind-twister to write about (much less to make a documentary about, which we're working on), and to write about in a way that might lead to productive conversations about the future of money.reporter bangs on satoshi's door. "I WANT TO ASK YOU ABOUT BITCOIN" "ok what do you want to know" "…WHAT IS BITCOIN"
— Dan Nosowitz (@dannosowitz) March 6, 2014
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Photo: Via Newsweek, edit by Digital Trends
In that sense, the story of Bitcoin is a cipher for a lot of weird, important stories we tell about the future, whose signals are hard to hear amidst all the noise. The supposed unmasking of Satoshi lands amidst a stream of other big Bitcoin headlines that only add to the confusion; in just the past few weeks, hacks, arrests, regulators, bankruptcies, and massive losses have shaken the market. All of this has left many puzzling over Bitcoin's future, even as it's emboldened the believers. (In the slipstream of nebulous, fleeting facts, belief can be tested but it can also become very reassuring.)Some believe in the political and social promise of a decentralized currency; some believe in the power of the technology to revolutionize how we transact digitally, making micropayments and charity easier. (I really like this idea.) Some just believe in the mathematical beauty of decentralized trust. Again, this is perhaps the most oft-cited point of Bitcoin: you don’t have to rely on a central financial institution to broker trust because the math will do it for you.The story of Bitcoin is a cipher for a lot of weird, important stories we tell about the future, whose signals are hard to hear amidst all the noise.
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Bitcoin rests on code, yes, but it’s always also rested on a sort of science fiction storyline too, on an uncanny reality where time runs together, full of rabbit holes and glitches and the kind of randomness that rules the web. Bitcoin was built by a mysterious genius, it has been used to make drug dealing digital, and has made people unimaginably wealthy using computer power (until they've been hacked); it has been used to send donations to Ukrainian activists, to power an assassination market, to buy things at big online stores; soon it will help propel the Winkelvoss twins into orbit. To make things more head-spinning, other cryptocurrencies have gained real world value too; one of the most popular, Dogecoin, was inspired by an ironic Internet meme involving a dog.Here's another #Nakamoto photo from outside his house. Check out the insane media presence. pic.twitter.com/WkUqVry2qi
— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014
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