I’m Satoshi Nakamoto, fools!!!
By Chongchen Saelee
Well, before this Bitcoin circus gets too out of hand, I thought I’d finally out myself as the inventor of the Bitcoin protocol. I know a lot of Bitcoin loyalists don’t personally like me, even though ironically they enjoy being the prom queen at my expense. The real story isn’t even that exciting, but let’s sober some of the hysterics up.
I wrote the original Bitcoin protocol back in high school while attending Harding University High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s a good 15 years ago. It was an assignment for Stefan Molyneaux’s World History class (familiar faces included Alex Jones, Max Keiser, and Russell Brand, all of which couldn’t care less about at the time, still don’t). Everyone had to come up with a decentralized system of currency and submit the paper anonymously. So, that debunks one of the myths that I wanted to remain anonymous. The reason that spread was because of the venture capitalists trying to market their “secret project” and trying to make a myth out of me.
I was just a kid, what, 14 or 15 years old. I didn’t care too much. But the grown-ups may have been a little too overzealous. I just didn’t understand what was so mindblowing about what I came up with. I wrote, I turned it in.
The next thing you know, the chancellor of the school starts treating me special and shit. And I get escorted out of class, like in the middle of class, they made a big scene about it and shit. He starts introducing me to all sorts of men. But I didn’t think I’d have to remember their names. Only now do I recall, they actually were Hal Finney and Gavin Andresen. And then there were my peers Jeff Garzik and Edward Snowden. Whodduh thunk things would have turned out the way they turned out.
I also don’t want to mention the Silk Road gang, mere acquaintences, classmates: Roger Ver, Mark Karpeles, Ross Ulbricht, and some other faces. Holy crap. The only reason I can recognize their faces so distinctly, now, even after 15 years, is because I still can’t wrap my head around the fact they got sold on my convoluted snake oil, so much so they utilized it to build their criminal empire. Holy shit.
And that’s pretty much how it turned out. When you’re a student, you just do what authorities tell you to do. So they told me to hand in the paper. So if you want to get really technical, I didn’t intend to give up my paper. I was told to hand it into Gavin. And there, in his office, were two white men in suits. At that point, I already suspected they were CIA or something. But, man, did I not give too many fucks.
And that’s how it went for the next couple of weeks. They pulled me out of class and introduce me to some new guy, some other new guy, blah blah blah.
But on my breaks between classes, I would write up the mock code. I don’t even remember what program, was it the early version of Qt? Man, that’s a long time ago. Anyway, I’d spend a lot of hours in the computer lab. We didn’t have a suitable computer at home, not even Internet. Anyway, I just did that to play around with the concept of what I called Bitcoin. It just had a nice ring to it.
Eventually, Snowden and Garzik introduced me to their tiny room in the back of the computer lab where they played rebel “hackers” of some sort. And that’s where Hal Finney also did his programming. There was another kid that looked like Patrick Swayze, but I don’t remember his name. Turns out, they had implemented the protocol on my behalf. I just didn’t understand the significance of it. Nor did I care. (The whitepaper that is released isn’t actually what I wrote. They polished and fleshed that beast out. My original paper was very informal and abstract. Obviously, I didn’t get it back, so you just have to take my word for it.)
And then we moved to Wisconsin. And that’s pretty much it. That’s probably why the loyalists thought I “disappeared”. So a handful of years later, those guys returned to meet me again while I was attending UW-Green Bay. I had tried to rewrite Bitcoin myself. But Hal Finney showed me his completed protoype. He had developed a wallet, amongst other things. Man, my memory isn’t that great. I really didn’t think those encounters were of any significance. LOL.
Well, I also met Fran, who explained to me just that. That I didn’t understand what was happening, but eventually I would. I just took their lead. Hal showed me his program and said something like, “It’s all yours anyway.” He told me to press enter, and that would be the first ever Bitcoin transaction. Man, I had no clue. But he shook my hand like it was monumentous. LOL. Who knew?
Anyway, that’s all I seem to remember. I guess I really didn’t think it was that significant. But, man, look at what Bitcoin has become. I suppose, I can’t distance myself, and I don’t outright disown it, but I can’t condone that criminal activity. I do hope that it succeeds.
And to clarify for the greedy who think I have access to the Bitcoins I’m entitled to, I don’t. I don’t have the keys.
Tags: bitcoin, real, reveal, satoshi nakamoto