violated. Newsweek had even
posted photos of the car in his
driveway, with the license
plates
visible.
It
was
particularly worrying because
previous
research
had
suggested that during the first
year Satoshi had stockpiled
Bitcoins that would now be
worth nearly $1 billion,
holdings that would make
Nakamoto a target of any
enterprising criminal. The
death threats from fans of
Satoshi started flowing into
Goodman’s inbox.
Eventually
Nakamoto
emerged from his house, and
before he could shut the door,
a crowd of reporters on his
front porch clamored to ask
him questions.
“Why did you create
Bitcoin, sir?” one reporter
shouted.
“OK, no questions right
now,” Nakamoto said, with a
Japanese accent.
Nakamoto didn’t want to
talk; he wanted someone to
take him to lunch. When
someone else stuck a recorder
in his face, he said: “Wait a
minute, I want free lunch
first. I’m going to go with this
guy,” pointing at a Japanese
reporter for the Associated
Press.
As he battled his way out
onto the sidewalk, Nakamoto
tried to shield his sleepy-
looking eyes, behind big
square glasses, from the sun.
His floppy hair and loose-
fitting
pants
and
jacket
suggested that he might not
have
spent
much
time
outside. Looking for the
reporter who had promised
him
lunch
and
clearly
confused, he finally answered
the question everyone was
asking: “I’m not in Bitcoin—
I don’t know anything about
it.”
This
was,
as
many
reporters quickly pointed out,
far from definitive proof that
Newsweek had gotten the
wrong guy. It is what many
people
assumed
Satoshi
would say if asked about his
involvement
in
Bitcoin.
Before the reporters could get
more out of Nakamoto, he
disappeared into the AP
reporter’s Toyota Prius and
drove off toward a sushi
restaurant.
The
other
reporters jumped into their
own
cars
and
followed
behind, rushing into Mako
Sushi after Nakamoto. As the
reporters barraged him with
more questions, he and the
AP
reporter
left
before
ordering and returned to the
car.
What
came
next
immediately entered the list
of great Los Angeles car
chases, this one narrated in
real time on Twitter by Los
Angeles Times editor Joe Bel Bruno:
There is a huge chase going on
behind #Nakamoto. Tons of
media. All heading west on the
10 freeway
We think #Nakamoto might be
heading toward downtown LA.
Great American #Bitcoin Chase
Traffic!!! Oh no #Nakamoto!
We are two cars behind
#Nakamoto, and it looks like the
@AP reporter is doing all the
talking. #Bitcoin
Hang on folks. . . . . There might
be some resolution here with
#Nakamoto in downtown LA.
#Bitcoinchase surrealer and
surrealer
So the Great #Bitcoinchase
seems to have found a
destination at the @AP bureau.
But the #Nakamoto story isn’t
over. Hordes of media here
waiting for him.
The reporters who had
been part of the chase quickly
parked and raced into the AP
building. A few managed to
squeeze onto the elevator
with Nakamoto and the AP
reporter. The reporters once
again asked Nakamoto if he
was the creator of Bitcoin and
he once again denied it before
disappearing into the AP
offices.
With
the
reporters
stationed outside the AP
office
waiting
for
Nakamoto’s next move, the
focus
turned
back
to
Goodman’s article, which
was now being looked at with
a
more
skeptical
eye.
Commentators on Reddit and
Twitter pointed out that
Goodman’s evidence was
almost
entirely
circumstantial, other than the
quote she got from him in his
driveway.
As
Gavin
Andresen wrote on Reddit, in
an angry open letter to
Goodman, what she reported
Nakamoto
saying
could
“simply be an old man saying
ANYTHING to get you to go
away and leave him alone.”
Several people were also
combing through examples of
Dorian Nakamoto’s writing
that had been found online.
While the Bitcoin creator’s
early writing had been crisp
and even elegant, Dorian
Nakamoto’s
reviews
on
Amazon and his letters to a
model-train
magazine
suggested a man with a
mediocre handle on the
English language. In an
Amazon review of Danish
butter cookies, he wrote:
it has lots of buttery
taste
the shipment went
well. i’ve had a nice
comment from my
kids. it’s a perfect
xmas and i would say,
for other occasions.
As the afternoon went on,
a growing number of people
concluded that Goodman’s
article
was
aggressive
journalism
gone
terribly
wrong. The AP’s story and
video from its interview with
Dorian Nakamoto did nothing
to improve Goodman’s case.
Dorian clearly and explicitly
denied that he had anything to
do with Bitcoin. He seemed
to have little familiarity with
the technology, calling it
“Bitcom” at several points,
and implying it was a
company at another point.
The final piece of bad news
for Goodman came that night,
on
the
P2P
Foundation
website, where the creator of
Bitcoin had posted a few
items about Bitcoin back in
2009. In the first post since
2009—and
the
first
communication from Satoshi
in any form since 2011—the
user Satoshi Nakamoto wrote
five words: “I am not Dorian
Nakamoto.”
None of this evidence, in
fact, proved that Dorian was
not Nakamoto. If Dorian was
Satoshi, he could have gone
home from the AP office,
logged into his P2P account,
and made the post. And if
Satoshi was as smart as some
people believed, he would
have known exactly what to
say to convince people he
wasn’t Satoshi (he would
have also had to be a very
good actor). But in either
case, the events of the day
underscored
just
how
committed Satoshi still was to
remaining anonymous. The
reexamination of the evidence
also pointed back to the hoard
of Bitcoins that Satoshi had
mined during the first year of
the
network’s
existence,
when his computers kept the