A follow up to https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/03/141011155/did-a-r...

Which was discussed in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3068991

Isn't Wei Dai more likely? Dai wrote the original paper on b-money, Satoshi's coding style is remarkably similar to Dai's, and bitcoin makes extensive use of Dai's Crypto++ library. Dai doesn't like attention.

Wei Dai said that Satoshi independently thought of and invent bitcoin without reading his b-money article until after the fact. At least that's what I remember

So either Wei Dai isn't Satoshi, or he doesn't want to admit it. That doesn't help because we already knew that whoever is Satoshi doesn't want to admit it.

Why does it matter who came up with the idea for bitcoin? The protocol and the code are freely available for anyone to review.

I don't understand why people are pursuing a guy who didn't do anything wrong and doesn't want to be found.

There is one reason: If you think bitcoin is some kind of pyramid like scam he is going to make a lot of money from it. As the creator he was able to accumulate many bitcoins while mining was still easy.

Isn't curiousity enough?

When people like a creation, people also want to know about its creator(s). See also: Steve Jobs.

"'I think he didn’t get my sense of humour there – maybe it was a little dry for him,' Clear says. Above all, though, he says, 'I have never been deeply interested in economics.'"

Wait, so it was just a big misunderstanding?

Ok, cue everyone with any background in crypto or P2P disclaiming they are Satoshi.

"I am not Spartacus."