A Letter From Satoshi

Have you ever wondered what you’d do if you were Satoshi Nakamoto?

Obviously, I have no idea who Satoshi is, or if he’s even alive anymore, but I thought it would be fun to imagine what I would do in his shoes. What would I do if I controlled the private keys to Satoshi’s giant stash and could speak with his authority?

I decided I would start with the following assumptions:

1. I am financially independent without the need to sell any of the coins that have been identified as Satoshi’s coins.
2. I have no intention of revealing my identity or doing anything to risk the preservation of the Satoshi myth.
3. My desire is to see the creation of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that removes the need for trusted financial intermediaries, especially central banks.

So given these assumptions, what’s the best course of action?

One of Satoshi’s greatest strengths is his invisibility, and the mystery of Satoshi is part of Bitcoin’s power: it has no leader, no CEO, no face to target. I believe Satoshi would never reveal his identity, because doing so would risk centralizing the system around him and painting a target on his back.

This is why I would act through cryptographic proofs and anonymous communications. Signing messages with the private keys to the earliest blocks would be enough to prove authenticity without compromising identity. I would also consider providing some explanations to early design decisions that only Satoshi would know to remove any doubt that the author of these new messages isn’t someone who just got access to Satoshi’s keys.

I believe that after more than a decade of silence, a carefully crafted statement that reminded the community of the original mission of Bitcoin as peer-to-peer electronic cash would cut through the noise. It could galvanize the community to return to fighting for the original mission as laid out in the Bitcoin white paper.

But what would that statement say? Pay 1000 XEC to read one person’s imagining of what Satoshi might say.