Satoshi Nakamoto Breaks Silence To Dispute Newsweek Article

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After Newsweek dropped a bombshell, claiming to have uncovered Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, now going by the name Dorian S. Nakamoto, the P2P Foundation account where the actual inventor publicized his new protocol in 2009 broke two years of silence to post a single comment.

“I am not Dorian Nakamoto.”

Dorian Nakamoto agrees, saying that his earlier statement was out of context, and that when he said, “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it,” he thought Goodman was asking him about the classified engineering projects that he had worked on in the past, reports Ryan Nakashima for AP. That he did classified work for the military was confirmed in the Newsweek article, although the exact nature of it is unclear (as you might expect).

He also told Nakashima that he had never heard of Bitcoin until Goodman started contacting him a few weeks ago.

‘There was no confusion’: Goodman

“I stand completely by my exchange with Mr. Nakamoto. There was no confusion whatsoever about the context of our conversation —and his acknowledgment of his involvement in bitcoin,” Goodman said in reply.

The similarities between what we know of Bitcoin’s founder and Dorian Nakamoto are striking, and he certainly fits the profile that most of us would have imagined, but they are also circumstantial. Finding someone with the same name, an anti-government bent (Nakashima found out that Dorian Nakamoto had been laid off by the Federal Aviation Administration after 9/11), and a technical bent is persuasive, but certainly not proof.

Of course, even if Dorian Nakamoto is the real deal, after years of silence a denial both from him and from the P2P Foundation account is exactly what you would expect.

Media frenzy results in a car chase

Dorian Nakamoto agreed to give an exclusive interview to AP to give his side of the story, but he found reporters waiting for him outside of his California home who chased him when he tried to drive away, reports Jose Pagliery for CNN.

Los Angeles Times deputy business editor Joe Bel Bruno, tweeted “This is the OJ Simpson-esque chase of #Nakamoto! YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP,” apparently forgetting that Simpson had been pursued by police looking for a suspect, as opposed to a throng of journalists looking for an interview.

Whatever else Dorian Nakamoto may be, it’s clear that he’s a very private person who has suddenly been exposed.

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