The Rise of a New Faketoshi? Caantoshi Enters the Scene
Being real Satoshi Nakamoto – or being believed to be the real creator of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin – is no joke, as, among other things, billions of dollars are on the line, and even a possible influence on the market. Numerous people have saught cheap attention with claims that they are the mysterious Satoshi over the years for various reasons, some gaining a certain amount of support in the community. Most famous case is that of Craig Wright, also known as ‘Faketoshi’.
Yet another person came out with a series of long and detailed blog posts claiming to be the Bitcoin creator, revealing his identity in a three-part event. In his first post, which starts with “I am Satoshi Nakamoto,” he doesn’t give much about his identity, but claims his “closest ally and mentor” was computer scientist Hal Finney to whom he “ow[s] a lot,” that he wanted to create history, that Bitcoin is “hijacked by greed” now, and that he created Bitcoin as “the people’s money,” to empower the underprivileged individuals across the word.
In the combined parts two and three of the reveal, the author states that he is Bilal Khalid, who changed his name to James Caan, and that he lost private keys after giving his laptop to be repaired in an electronics shop. “Here I was, the founder of Bitcoin, with the 980,000 bitcoins to my name lost in the ether world.” He also promised to soon deliver his information on a project called ‘Tabula Rasa’ – his “clean-slate vision for Bitcoin.”
Meanwhile, Bloomberg writes that Jeff Garzik, the CEO of blockchain startup Bloq, who used to exchange emails with Nakamoto before he vanished, doesn’t believe this person is the real Satoshi, based on his writing style, which, as Garzik says, “does not strike me as the same.” Additionally, the information shared in the first post are publicly available, said Garzik, adding that “I actually get this every couple of months — a new fraud every couple of months. […] Usually it’s either information, or it’s a common scam: ‘All my Bitcoins are locked up, send me some of yours.’”
Garzik said that there is an easy way for anybody to prove they are the real Satoshi Nakamoto – the litmus test: use a digital signature only real Nakamoto knows.
Similarly, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee tweeted that Nakamoto “brought to the world an open-source, decentralized, trustless, censorship-resistant currency based on math and cryptography. If Satoshi wanted to reveal himself, he would sign a message with the genesis key. Anything short of that is most likely fraudulent.”
Cryptoverse says no
Cryptoverse does not believe Caan, to put it mildly. Most people are either openly antagonistic towards this new revelation, likely fed up with repeated and proven scams, or they have grown disinterested in the dramatic revelations of “real Satoshis”, or they believe this is nothing more than a PR stunt.
Many people online do not believe that a person can create the system but not have any cryptographic proof that they’re the creator, and say they’ll believe it only if the money is moved out of Satoshi’s wallet or a genesis block is signed. Reddit user PCwhatyoudidthere points out that “the whole idea of coming back to “better Bitcoin” when if that was the reason it could be done without revealing yourself as Satoshi, and for someone who doesn’t want a centralized leadership like the real Satoshi stands for, he would return as a regular member of the community with no more say power than anyone else.” User MilitantWorkingBoy24, referring to the way Caan described he lost his BTC, said: “Yeah and my dog ate the homework. He’s either insane or a scammer. We’ll see.”
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Meanwhile, Jameson Lopp, Bitcoin veteran and Chief Technology Officer of crypto startup Casa, tweeted his own theory: “the longer we go without the real Satoshi being revealed, the bolder the Faketoshis will become since they won’t fear being cryptographically disproved.”
People have called for a new nickname to differentiate between the people claiming to be Satoshi.
Many others too have found humor in this new episode of Satoshi reveal and the way in which Caan allegedly came up with BTC name.
Whether Caan is Satoshi Nakamoto remains to be seen as he will have to prove his claimed identity to the Cryptoverse over, likely, a long period of time.