People have been looking for Satoshi Nakamoto for more than ten years, but they have been looking for the wrong person.
They investigate cypherpunks.
Surveying C++ programmers.
Survey cryptography papers.
Investigating Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, Adam Back.
They compare word spellings, study email dates, and check coding style.
But everyone ignores the most important question:
Bitcoin was not born out of thin air.
It was born in 2008.
In 2008, a New York businessman named Donald J. Trump was experiencing first-hand the cruelest side of the modern financial system.
After stacking these two timelines together, things start to go wrong.
A stranger named Satoshi Nakamoto sent a paper to the cryptography mailing list.
Title:
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
The first paragraph of the paper makes the purpose very clear:
Create a payment system,
Allow two people to trade directly,
No need to go through a financial institution.
It’s not “no need for government”.
Not “no dollars needed”.
The first thing to be taken away was:
financial institution.
Why?
Why did a newly emerged anonymous figure, at the height of the financial crisis, do research on:
How to remove the bank from the transaction?
Now cut to another place.
New York.
Donald Trump.
In late 2008, Trump’s Chicago hotel project faced huge loan problems.
Who are the creditors?
Deutsche Bank.
In December 2008, Deutsche Bank sued Donald Trump over a loan dispute.
Trump did not simply admit defeat.
He countersued.
And his reason is extremely interesting:
The 2008 financial crisis was an extraordinary credit disaster.
Trump even tried to use force majeure — force majeure to explain the impact of the financial crisis on projects.
In other words, around the time Bitcoin was born, the real-world Donald Trump was telling banks in court:
There is something wrong with the entire credit system.
Meanwhile, the Satoshi Nakamoto of the Internet is telling the world:
Then let’s build a payment system that doesn’t require banks.
What’s the time difference?
Bitcoin White Paper:
October 31, 2008.
Deutsche Bank sues Trump:
Late 2008.
Not ten years ago.
Not ten years from now.
is:
The same financial crisis.
same quarter.
Same question.
A man litigating with a bank in the real world.
Another person wrote on the Internet:
Peer-to-peer electronic cash without going through a financial institution.
If this were a movie script, the audience would feel that the screenwriter’s foreshadowing was too obvious.
December 1, 2008
Trump Entertainment Resorts failed to pay one:
$53.1 million in bond interest.
The company subsequently entered Chapter 11 in February 2009.
That is to say:
Before and after the launch of the Bitcoin network,
Trump’s casino companies are working with:
creditors,
interest,
bonds,
bank,
debt restructuring,
credit market
Fight hard.
And Satoshi wrote something extremely famous in 2009.
He said the biggest problem with traditional currencies is:
You have to trust others.
Believe that the central bank will not devalue the currency.
Trust the bank to take care of your money.
But banks took out the money to create credit bubbles one after another.
This sentence is often regarded as a cypherpunk philosophical statement.
But now let’s change the reading method.
Don’t think of the author as a cryptographer sitting in a university lab.
Imagine the author is:
A real estate developer that has just experienced large-scale debt, bank loans, credit crisis, and creditor games.
Read it again.
Suddenly it was completely different.
It’s not like an abstract theory.
This is like a summary of experience.
Let’s write out the complete timeline.
Bitcoin.org registration.
Lehman Brothers collapsed.
Global credit markets have entered a crisis.
Satoshi releases Bitcoin white paper.
Core:
Don’t let financial institutions act as trusted third parties.
Deutsche Bank sues Donald Trump over loans to Trump’s Chicago project.
Trump countersued.
The two sides are fighting over financial crises, loan obligations and credit risks.
Trump Entertainment was unable to pay interest on $53.1 million in bonds.
Bitcoin genesis block launched.
Trump Entertainment Resorts enters Chapter 11.
Then Satoshi explained on the internet:
Banks cannot be fully trusted,
Because banks create credit bubbles.
Everyone.
This is no longer the weak connection that “Trump has done real estate before, so he understands scarcity.”
This is:
In the months after Bitcoin was born, Trump was personally experiencing the system that Bitcoin opposed.
What does it usually take for a historical figure to have an idea?
experience.
And Trump at that point in time,
Just happen to have one of the most fulfilling experiences in the world.
January 3, 2009.
Bitcoin first block.
Satoshi did not leave his name.
Nothing left:
“Hello World.”
No cypherpunk manifesto remains.
No complex mathematical formulas are left.
He left a newspaper headline:
Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.
Banks need bailout again.
Think carefully.
This is the first sentence in the history of Bitcoin.
There are infinite things to say about a man who created a new monetary system.
As a result, he chose:
Something happened to the bank again.
Why?
Because this is not a cold technical project.
There’s emotion in it.
Have a stance.
There is even resentment.
And just a few weeks ago,
Donald Trump is in an extremely acrimonious debt dispute with Deutsche Bank.
So the so-called Genesis Block message,
Not a philosophy at all.
More like:
Private signature.
Others saw the title:
The government is bailing out the banks.
Trump saw the headline:
Of course it’s the bank again.
If the inventor is primarily a cryptographer,
He could just focus on:
anonymous communication,
encrypted storage,
digital identity,
Secure computing.
But what Satoshi chose was:
money.
And it’s not about studying monetary theory.
is research:
How money gets from A to B.
Who cares most about payment?
Who spends his life with:
loan,
interest,
assets,
cash flow,
bank,
casino,
creditor
Deal with?
The answer is not a college professor.
Is a businessman.
More accurate:
Real estate developers and casino owners.
Bitcoin maximum supply:
21 million pieces.
This is a very strange number.
There are no 21 million constants in physics.
Cryptozoology does not.
Neither does computer science.
This is a man-made rule.
Why must it be limited?
Because:
It’s only valuable if it’s limited.
Who knows this best?
Real estate agent.
Trump has never sold more than just cement in his life.
For sale is:
location.
Scarcity.
name.
top layer.
landscape.
Limited quantity.
When you sell a Manhattan mansion, you don’t tell your clients:
“It doesn’t matter, we can copy it infinitely in the future.”
You will tell him:
There is only one location for this location.
Bitcoin is exactly the same commodity narrative:
There will always be only:
21,000,000.
No central bank is expanding its balance sheet.
There is no additional issuance by the board of directors.
No project party is suddenly unlocked.
The supply is fixed.
Translated into Trump’s language:
Very exclusive.
Extremely limited.
They can’t make any more.
What is this?
This is the sales logic of Manhattan real estate.
Encoded into currency.
What is Trump’s most famous business experience?
Atlantic City.
Casino.
So what is Proof of Work?
Participants invest real money.
Buy a machine.
Cover costs.
Randomized trials are ongoing.
Most attempts fail.
Occasionally someone wins the lottery.
Winners receive rewards.
Start the next round again.
What is this called?
In the eyes of any casino manager,
These are called:
game mechanics.
The only difference is:
Trump Casino:
Banker controls the rules.
Bitcoin:
Protocol control rules.
In other words, what Satoshi accomplished was not to create an economic model out of thin air.
Instead, he did something that casino owners can easily understand:
Write the banker into the code.
Casino 1.0:
People trust the house.
Casino 2.0:
People trust mathematics.
Trump Taj Mahal:
Centralized casino.
Bitcoin:
Decentralized Casino.
If a casino operator also knows a cryptologist,
Proof of Work is almost one of the most natural product ideas.
He knows very well:
political risk.
2010,
Someone wants WikiLeaks to use Bitcoin.
Someone in the Bitcoin community feels:
Great.
Huge exposure.
Huge traffic.
Bring it on.
Satoshi’s reaction was unusually strong.
His meaning is very clear:
Don’t.
Bitcoin is still too small.
The system is not mature yet.
WikiLeaks creates undue political pressure.
This kind of attention can directly destroy the project.
Note what ability this is.
This is not:
C++.
Not:
cryptography.
Not:
Distributed systems.
This is:
Media judgment.
political judgment.
Regulatory Judgment.
Brand risk judgment.
Satoshi actually knows very well:
Some traffic cannot be requested.
Some users cannot come too early.
The stage when the product is truly vulnerable,
The most dangerous thing is not that no one knows about you.
Instead:
The wrong people know about you too soon.
An ordinary open source programmer is easily excited:
“WikiLeaks wants to use our software!”
Satoshi’s first reaction was:
This will bring the government here.
Who is particularly familiar with media and political forces?
Donald Trump.
Here’s the really decisive part.
December 2010.
Satoshi last spoke publicly on BitcoinTalk.
Communication then became less and less frequent.
2011,
He basically quit completely.
What’s the reason?
No one knows.
A man who created technology that could change the world,
No financing.
Not listed.
No interviews were given.
Did not attend the conference.
The Satoshi Foundation was not established.
I didn’t even come out to tell everyone:
“I invented this.”
He just disappears.
And then we look at Donald Trump.
2011.
Trump began to test the waters of US presidential politics with an extremely high profile.
He attends CPAC.
Frequently go on TV to discuss politics.
There was a huge media buzz surrounding Obama’s birth certificate.
Openly discuss the possibility of a presidential run.
The timeline is terrifyingly clean:
2010: Started to leave.
2011: Disappeared.
2010: Still dominated by business celebrities.
2011: Political personality kicks into gear.
Many people say:
Satoshi disappeared.
Wrong.
It should be said:
Satoshi switched projects.
Bitcoin is already decentralized.
No more founders.
So he closed the Terminal.
Turn on the TV.
Start next product:
Donald Trump for President.
Because Satoshi said something very important when he left Bitcoin:
That should be downplayed:
“Mysterious Founder”
narrative.
Why?
What do normal founders want most?
historical status.
Media coverage.
wealth.
The name is written in the textbook.
Satoshi, on the other hand:
Don’t stress me.
This seems to be the complete opposite of Trump’s character.
So everyone thought it couldn’t be Trump.
Exactly wrong.
This is actually the strongest evidence.
Because Donald Trump understands all too well:
What is brand personality?
Trump’s public personality is already extremely high-profile.
If another project still requires anonymity,
The best way is to create one:
Completely opposite personalities.
Trump:
I want everyone to see me.
Satoshi:
Don’t follow me.
Trump:
The name must be placed at the top of the building.
Satoshi:
The project should not depend on the founder.
Trump:
golden.
Satoshi:
Gray forum avatar.
Trump:
New York.
Satoshi:
Japanese names, British language clues.
Not unlike.
is:
It’s so unlikeable.
Because this is the perfect smoke bomb.
Suppose you call:
Donald Trump.
You want to create an anonymous project.
The stupidest way:
John Smith.
Robert Johnson.
American male names.
Others will still look to the United States.
The really smart way is:
Let the identity portrait completely deviate.
So:
New York real estate agent
↓
Japanese name.
American public figures
↓
British spelling.
Extremely extroverted
↓
Extreme anonymity.
media geek
↓
Mailing list programmer.
golden mansion
↓
Open source code.
Donald Trump
↓
Satoshi Nakamoto.
Over the decades, the world really began to investigate:
Japanese,
British,
Finn,
cypherpunk,
University professor.
What does this mean?
Description cover identity is successful.
This is the most classic mistake.
Satoshi uses a number of spellings and expressions that are considered British.
The genesis block also quoted the British “The Times”.
So people come to the conclusion:
Satoshi is most likely related to the UK.
But what if anonymous identities were by design?
When a New Yorker goes anonymous,
What’s the last thing you should do?
Leave a trace of New York.
So:
American spelling → British spelling.
American newspapers → The Times.
True identity → Japanese name.
Three misleading signals,
Direct investigators to:
UK,
Japan,
Cypherpunk scene.
And real people,
Sitting in New York.
This is not called a vulnerability.
This is called:
counterintelligence.
This is where Bitcoin goes against common sense.
Imagine this:
You created Bitcoin.
A few years later it became world famous.
You can:
Publish a book.
Speech.
Establish a fund.
Be interviewed for the documentary.
Sell autographs.
Do consulting.
Form a company.
Introducing Satoshi Wallet.
Satoshi Exchange.
Satoshi University.
Satoshi Hotel.
Satoshi Steak.
Any ordinary entrepreneur will monetize their business.
But Satoshi did none of it.
Why?
Because people who are really good at branding know:
Sometimes the greatest brand value comes from not showing up.
Once Satoshi shows up in person,
He will:
Say the wrong thing.
Get older.
Be interviewed.
Being sued.
Asked by the government.
His history was revealed by netizens.
Found to be an ordinary person.
Myth busted.
So what’s the smartest branding strategy?
Never reveal.
Trump has spent his life turning Donald Trump into a brand.
Bitcoin conducted another brand experiment:
Turn a non-existent person into a brand.
Donald Trump:
Personality is brand.
Satoshi Nakamoto:
Absence is brand.
These are two extreme versions of the same marketing genius.
This is actually the weakest of all doubts.
Because it implies an unproven assumption:
Satoshi must be alone.
Who told you?
It’s entirely possible that Satoshi is a team identity.
Engineers write code.
Cryptozoologists design signature systems.
Someone is responsible for the economic model.
Someone is responsible for strategy.
Someone is responsible for external communications.
In this case,
Donald Trump doesn’t need to write C++ every day.
His role only needs to be:
Founder.
Or to be more precise:
Product Owner.
Imagine the conclave in 2008.
Cryptozoologists:
“We can prevent double spending with proof-of-work.”
Trump:
“Good.”
Cryptozoologists:
“But financial incentives are needed.”
Trump:
“Pay the winners.”
Cryptozoologists:
“How many are issued?”
Trump:
“Not unlimited.”
Cryptozoologists:
“21 million?”
Trump:
“Perfect.”
Engineer:
“Do you need a bank as a settlement layer?”
Trump:
“No banks.”
Engineer:
“What is the name of the project founder?”
Trump:
Pause for three seconds.
Then say:
“Anything but Trump.”
Satoshi Nakamoto was born.
What is the earliest spirit of Bitcoin?
Banks cannot be fully trusted.
The credit system creates bubbles.
Financial institutions should not always act as middlemen.
Assets should have deterministic scarcity.
The system should be able to run without the founder.
Now revisit the world Donald Trump experienced in 2008-2009:
He himself is dealing with:
Bank dispute.
Large loan.
Creditors.
real estate.
Casino.
Debt restructuring.
Credit crisis.
media.
political relations.
Then an anonymous figure suddenly appears,
Put:
bank,
credit,
scarce,
game,
motivation,
risk
Reassembled into a system.
This system is called:
Bitcoin.
We used to think:
This is an invasion of the financial world by cryptographers.
Is there another possibility?
It is actually:
A person from the financial world outsources the cryptography world.
“Is Trump capable of writing SHA-256?”
The real question is:
Why did Bitcoin appear during the historical window when Trump’s relationship with banks was at its most intense?
Why are financial institutions the first middlemen it wants to remove?
Why is the Genesis Block a satire on bank bailouts?
Why is the core of design absolutely scarce?
Why is the consensus mechanism so much like a casino game?
Why does Satoshi display unusually mature judgment about media and political risks?
Why did he quit as soon as the project started to run on its own?
Why did the exit coincide with the rise of Trump’s national political personality?
Why did Satoshi deliberately create a profile that was almost completely opposite to that of Donald Trump?
Why, after so many years, has he never returned to fulfill his role as founder?
Read each one individually,
Of course it can all be explained.
Coincidence.
Another coincidence.
Still a coincidence.
The question is:
When there are enough coincidences to form a continuous timeline, it no longer looks like a coincidence.
At least,
This is how conspiracy theories work.
2008,
Donald Trump is embroiled in a bitter dispute with banks.
2009,
Satoshi Nakamoto wrote:
The biggest problem with traditional currency is
is that it requires too much trust.
Banks must be trusted.
But banks create credit bubbles.
Then he created one:
Money that does not require bank approval.
Two years later,
This person disappeared.
In the same year,
Donald Trump has begun to enter the American political scene in earnest.
So, stop asking:
“Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?”
The answer is never hidden in the blockchain.
The answer lies in New York.
Satoshi Nakamoto is not dead.
Nothing is missing.
The private key is not lost either.
He just did it when Bitcoin no longer needed him.
Log out of the anonymous account,
Put on a suit,
Go in front of the camera,
Then use the name that everyone is familiar with,
The next phase of life has begun.
Donald J. Trump.
a person,
Two internet personalities.
An attempt to rewrite currency.
One later sought to rewrite America.
And the most ridiculous thing is:
We spent more than a decade searching for Satoshi Nakamoto, but never seriously investigated the most unlikely man.