Satoshi Nakamoto: Thief, Scoundrel, Lover, and Ghost

In June of 2007, I was invited to lecture at the University of Glasgow on an academic paper I had just submitted for peer review about how to deal with the Bearded Bouffanted Buffoon Problem, a concept in distributed computing that I introduced to the community that is built upon the Byzantine Generals Problem. Further, I introduced a digital coin I called Cocoin that ran on top of the consensus algorithm I created which was somewhat modeled after b-cash.

Ending my talk with future challenges, I iterated through several solutions I came up with to the somewhat asleep crowd. However, when I began mentioning my last item, I noticed a handsome Asian man’s face suddenly light up. What I proposed, I would come to find out roughly three years later, was the direct inspiration for Bitcoin.

I will only briefly mention my lecture here as I will upload my published academic paper on to Steemit in the near future. The basic notion was a consensus algorithm I called Proof of Powder (PoP) that would use a distributed network of commodity hardware to verify the validity of encrypted data and that would require a multisignature scheme in order to decrypt this data. It would reside in a blockchain of dynamically sized blocks depending on the difficulty target and activity in the system. Long story short, it is a subclass of gossip algorithms and combined Proof of Work (PoW)- and Proof of Stake (PoS)-like methodology into something similar to Proof of Activity (PoA).

I received a rather lackluster reception for my talk, which, to be fair, was the final talk of a full week of lecturers. Feeling rather disappointed in myself, I journeyed to a classroom where hors d'oeuvres and refreshments were provided for everyone involved. I grabbed some crab cakes and a glass of nice Argentinian Malbec and sulked by myself in the corner, for I was too disenfranchised with the reception of what I thought would be heralded quite differently.

The next moment I will vividly remember until nature decides to pipe me to /dev/null. I saw the Asian man steadfastly approach me, my heart dropping to the ground because of the butterflies he woke in my stomach.

With a perfect smile, revealing pearl white teeth, and warm eyes, he said to me, “I really enjoyed your talk. There were a few things that I didn’t quite understand. Would it be alright if I racked your brain for a few moments?”

“Th...th...th...thank you,” I stuttered, as impressed that someone actually did find my lecture interesting as I was with his grace. “Sure, which parts were you confused about?”

We talked back and forth for about fifteen minutes, my mood lifting drastically. The conversation flowed well and it was obvious that we were enjoying one another on an intellectual plane. Soon after, though, several chaps whom I had pegged as the “frat type,” interjected into our discussion with a barrage of small talk.

The man I was speaking with grew somewhat silent as the chaps turned the conversation to women. Desperately wanting to fit in socially with any group of humans, I began enumerating the names of women who these blokes might find attractive. Then, without thinking about what was going to come out of my mouth, I stated, “I really find Angela Merkel sexy. I think there is nothing hotter than a confident and powerful woman.”

One of the young men snickered and said, “Bro, you cannot be serious.”

No matter how sexy I found Angela, and still do, I knew this gaggle of ruffians would not appreciate her. So, wishing to dispel the notion that manifested in their minds that I’m weird, I attempted to use humour to back my side up.

“Dead serious, bro. I would love to transfer 20 TB of my organic data onto her Merkel bush.”

The nice Asian man, who before this point was visibly disinterested in the conversation, contorted his face expressing deep thought and an “AHA” moment when I mentioned this, whereas one of the chaps replied, “You go off about some weird stuff, mate,” and led his group away from us.

“I must go now,” said the Asian man, “but I would love to get with you where we can talk a little more privately.”

I agreed and remembered typing out the letters S-a-t-o-s-h-i N-a-k-a-m-o-t-o along with his number into my phone.

“Li, it was an honour to meet you.”

“Likewise, Satoshi. Cheers.”

As soon as I got back to my hotel, I received a call from Satoshi asking if he could come over. I said ‘yes’ and began cleaning myself up.

Satoshi and I met in the hotel restaurant, an Italian joint, and discussed my theories, our backgrounds, and just life in general. I asked him up to my room afterwards and he accepted the invite.

Upon opening the door, Satoshi and I were greeted with a bottle of champagne and glasses for two that I had the foresight of preparing. I poured us our drink and plopped next to him on the couch. Both of us were nervous so I decided to clear up any tension by asking him what his favourite distro of Linux is. We began talking openly again and I finally couldn’t bear it any longer, and said, “Satoshi, I want you to mount my /proc, if you catch my drift.”

I peered into his eyes as I awaited his answer. The look he gave me told all though. Sometimes, you do not actually need the verbal queues to acknowledge the magic in the air.

“Li, get into position and I will happily be your /proctologist.”

We started making out and I put my hand on his thigh, noticing the distortion in his khakis from his excitement. He then pushed me horizontal onto the couch, and, as I was clutching onto the couch cushions to somewhat steady me from his power, I realized that I was truly happy.

Afterwards, I drew us a bath and we continued our discussion until 4 AM, tenderly massaging one another as well. I felt as if Satoshi was a man who actually cared about me for who I am and not just to get his way with me. This was a feeling I had never experienced before or since.

At the conclusion of our night, Satoshi held me in his arms.

“Satoshi, assure me that I will see you again.”

“Li, I will never leave you. You are something so special in a world of dullness and I want to figure out a way to be with you. I am seriously considering moving from Japan to California just to make this work.”

Upon my return to San Francisco, I sent Satoshi several pictures of what our life in the USA would look like via MMS. I showed him the Golden Gate Bridge, my favourite pub, some surfers, and, of course, my home where we would reside together. I did not receive a response to these or my follow-up texts so I decided to call him.

“The number you have dialed is incorrect or is no longer in service.”

UNBELIEVABLE! This man who I was certain was different from the rest of the losers looking to get into my pants turned out exactly the same. It was a great disappointment but I was used to this already, having lived a long and painful life. I thought of him on and off throughout the years, yet continued to occupy my mental energy at my work at the University of California, San Francisco.

One day several years later, in November of 2010, I was invited to the house of my good friend Hal Finney (whom I had worked under during our days at the PGP Corporation) for a party touted as a “who’s who” in cryptography. I arrived with fruit salad and Hal’s favourite strain of marijuana, Durban Poison, and made the rounds greeting those I knew and didn’t.

Giving Wei Dai, who allowed me to make the first ever transaction on b-cash for a container of poppers in 1998, a big hug, and pounding fists with Nick Szabo, I made my way into the living room to find where Hal was hiding. I saw him huddled in a large group of people talking and laughing, and sneakily crept up behind him and put him in a choke hold.

“Come here, you big lug!”

Without even turning his neck, Hal exclaimed, “Li! You made it! Come and say ‘hi’ to the group.”

“Hi, I’m Dan Tafoya.”

I reached out to shake Dan’s hand and replied, “I’m Li Chang-Bang.”

Next in line was none other than Satoshi himself!

“I won’t need to introduce myself to you,” I told him.

He gave a confused look and asked, “What do you mean?”

“You’re joking, right? Glasgow? We had a wonderful night together and you said we would be together but you ignored all my calls and texts and changed your number on me. Ring a bell?”

“You must have me confused with someone else.”

“And you must have me confused with someone who would forget such a thing. You said that you and I would…”

Noticing the stunned look and killed vibe of the group, Hal cut me off.

“Li, it’s okay, bro. Check out this salsa I made,” and he guided me to the kitchen to cool off.

Hal, Wei, some of the other party-goers, and I went to the deck near his pool to blaze some weed. We loaded several bowls, telling stories about one another and laughing. Then, all of a sudden, Satoshi came outside with a woman and they forced their way into the smoke circle. I began to fume once more.

“You have some nerve, pal,” I told him.

“Listen, just pretend I’m not here. I don’t know you, I don’t want to know you, and I’d rather you didn’t speak to me at all.”

“Why are you pretending? You don’t want people to know about our night together. And who is she?” I made an emphasis on the last word and glanced snidely at the woman he brought in.

“You leave my girlfriend out of this.”

“Your girlfriend?! You have a girlfriend? How convenient!”

Always being the one to alleviate any hostilities and bring about peace, Hal began to say, “Calm down, Li. Let’s go into…”

I erupted, “I WILL NOT CALM DOWN. THIS LIAR GAVE ME THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE, PROMISED ME THE WORLD, AND NOW HE PRETENDS I AM NO ONE TO HIM!”

At this point, other people from within the house started to come outside to see what was going on.

“ARE YOU SO ASHAMED OF ME, SATOSHI, THAT YOU HAVE TO PRETEND YOU DON’T REMEMBER ME? WHAT ABOUT YOU WANTING TO MOVE TO CALIFORNIA FROM JAPAN JUST TO BE WITH ME?”

I heard some chuckles and saw a man whom I didn’t know turn to the person next to him, attempting to quietly say, “Wow! I never knew Li Chang-Bang was so, ugh, you know.”

I screamed back, “NO, I DON’T KNOW. TELL ME WHAT I AM, IDIOT. WHO THE F*** ARE YOU? TELL ME WHAT AM I!”

Just then, Fran, Hal’s wife, rushed at me and said that I am causing a disturbance and must go.

“SCREW OFF, FRAN. I’LL GO BUT NOT BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME. F*** ALL OF YOU HERE.” Turning to Satoshi, I yelled, “ENJOY YOUR GIRLFRIEND, YOU SCUMMY LOSER,” and left completely humiliated.

I went on with my life, trying to force this traumatic incident out of my mind for several weeks but I just couldn’t do it. There was no way I could just let Satoshi’s actions towards me slide again. I tried to find him on Facebook again; no success. I searched for him on LinkedIn; no success. A Google search brought up the Bitcoin white paper. I had heard about Bitcoin before but never really gave it much thought beforehand. My jaw dropped as I noticed whose name was listed as the author. I literally threw my coffee mug and smashed it against the wall when I read the contents.

This bastard had screwed me over again! He stole his ideas for Bitcoin directly from my lectures and paper and had the gall to not even cite me. I recalled how his eyes lit up when I mentioned a distributed system running the PoP consensus algorithm and when I mentioned the Merkel Bush, which I ended up officially naming the data structure I created to store transaction hashes in Cocoin block headers. Never before in my life had I felt this violated.

Several times I tried to reach out to Satoshi via the email address he used for Bitcoin communications, never receiving even a single response. I also reached out to Hal asking him to get me in touch with Satoshi. He told me he wasn’t able to get a hold of him at all and that I should calm down until after Christmas was over. Hal ultimately was never able to get in contact with him. Hal was a genuine and sincere man whom I can only speak the best of. He would never tell a lie or ever say anything out of anger or spite. I wish I could have told him how much he meant to me before it was too late and I currently do wish to apologize to Fran for yelling at her at that party. I dearly enjoyed both of their company.

Pursuing my investigation on Satoshi, I noticed that he started to go silent even on the Bitcointalk forum. A year passed and the community had not heard anything from him. Two years went by and still nothing. After the third year, I realized that Satoshi had done to the Bitcoin community what he did to me several years back in that hotel room in Glasgow. This was not the first time he manufactured our obsession with him by becoming a phantom. He gave us some of the best experiences of our lives, and, afterwards, walked out on us forever.

I love you, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Yours truly,

~Li Chang-Bang