Early meeting of E-Gold founders may hold clue to Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity — Peter Thiel

Published at: Oct. 21, 2021

PayPal co-founder and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel believes he may hold a clue on how to find Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s (BTC) pseudonymous creator who disappeared two years after mining the cryptocurrency’s genesis block in January 2009. 

His theory stems from an early meeting of E-Gold founders in February 2000, where roughly 200 people coalesced around a beach in Anguilla to devise a strategy for promoting a new currency system that could challenge central banks. E-Gold was a digital gold currency that folded in 2007 after its founders were indicted by the United States Justice Department.

“I met them on the beach in Anguilla in February of 2000,” Thiel told a cryptocurrency conference in Miami on Wednesday, referring to the E-Gold founders. “My sort of theory on Satoshi’s identity was that Satoshi was on that beach in Anguilla.” He further explained:

“We were beginning the revolution against the central banks on the beach in Anguilla. We were going to make PayPal interoperable with E-Gold and blow up all the central banks.”

E-Gold’s failure may have given Satoshi the foresight to remain anonymous when building its successor. “Bitcoin was the answer to E-Gold, and Satoshi learned that you had to be anonymous and you had to not have a company,” Thiel said.

Related: Satoshi Nakamoto statue goes up in Budapest

Not everyone is convinced that Nakamoto was behind earlier e-cash protocols. Dustin D. Trammell, one of the first cypherpunks to mine Bitcoin, told Cointelegraph Brasil in March that Nakamoto lacked bias in implementing new technology, which implies they were approaching the project with a fresh perspective.

Nakamoto’s 2008 white paper has spawned a multi-trillion-dollar crypto industry, with tens of thousands of digital assets vying for a piece of the pie. Bitcoin is in the midst of a historic week, having shattered new all-time highs above $67,000 on Wednesday.

Tags
Related Posts
Redditor Creates BTC-Themed Game as Holiday Gift for Crypto Community
A Redditor has introduced a new Bitcoin (BTC) video game as a holiday gift to the crypto community. Shared on Dec. 24 on Reddit, the new “Satoshi vs. the Shills” Bitcoin game is a survival shooter game featuring Bitcoin’s anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto as the main character. The arcade game is available on the Google Play store for Android. Big Hands, the developer of the game, has not yet specified to Cointelegraph whether its team is planning to roll out the game on iOS or other platforms as of press time. This article will be updated if new comments come …
Bitcoin / Dec. 24, 2019
William Shatner Doubts Craig Wright’s Claims of Inventing Bitcoin
Captain Kirk seems unconvinced that the Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is the inventor of Bitcoin (BTC). William Shatner, the Canadian actor that played Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series, suggested that Wright is not behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto — the seminal cryptocurrency’s creator. In a tweet on Feb. 11, Shatner said: “Ask yourself why would someone claim to be Satoshi and offer zero proof? Either put up or shut up, right?” The discussion started after a Twitter user answered Shatner's announcement of having been at a cryptocurrency event by expressing the hope that “fake Satoshi wasn’t …
Bitcoin / Feb. 11, 2020
Co-founder of LinkedIn Presents Crypto Rap Video: Hamilton vs. Satoshi
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, decided to let Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the United States, face-off against Bitcoin (BTC) creator Satoshi Nakamoto in an epic crypto-rap-battle video. Cryptocurrency debate between actor-rappers playing Hamilton and Satoshi On Sept. 5, Hoffman released a new hip-hop rap battle video which shows Alexander Hamilton, the founder of the United States financial system and central bank, fighting in rap-battle-style for the merits of centralized currencies against the mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoffman said that he was inspired by watching the musical “Hamilton” and that he was particularly struck by the …
Bitcoin / Sept. 5, 2019
Bitcoin Turns Ten on Anniversary of Genesis Block
Today, Jan. 3, marks ten years since the creation of the very first block on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. Known in more technical parlance as a “genesis block,” the first block on a blockchain is unique in that it — logically — contains no reference to any previous blocks, and is always hard-coded into the network’s software, establishing all of the necessary variables required to create the ensuing blockchain. Whereas Bitcoin’s theoretical foundations were laid with the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper on Oct. 31, 2008, Jan. 3, 2009 heralds the first practical implementation of the world’s first cryptocurrency — …
Blockchain / Jan. 3, 2019
Three reasons why PlanB’s stock-to-flow model is not reliable
In the last couple of years, the stock-to-flow model proposed by PlanB has become very famous. A quantitative study published on the site planbtc.com shows the model and the prediction that Bitcoin (BTC) could reach the capitalization of $100 trillion. Obviously, the crypto industry, including myself, was fascinated by the logic of the model and even more so by the idea that it could reach and exceed $100,000 as early as 2021. In fact, the stock-to-flow model assumes that there is a relationship between the amount of a precious metal that is mined each year (flow) and the amount already …
Bitcoin / Jan. 2, 2022