In the course of a few days, the internet has found another claimant to the title of Satoshi, and quickly declared him a fraud. As first reported by CCN, a blockchain company called Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance Holdings has announced it will reveal the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, and nobody is impressed so far.
On the website they’ve created for this purpose, their Satoshi claimant suggests he will reveal his true identity and some of the mysteries surrounding Bitcoin in three steps. He revealed alleged mysteries surrounding the creation of Bitcoin on August 18, will talk about numerology and his stash of Bitcoin on August 19, and his true identity on August 20.
The August 18 dump of “secrets,” as told to Ivy McLemore, already has the crypto world left very unimpressed. He indicated he’s of Pakistani origin, currently live in the U.K, and discussed how he created Bitcoin with a lot of help from Hal Finney. He also says he came up with the name Bitcoin from picking letters from “Bank of Credit and Commerce International,” Pakistan’s national bank until it was forced to close in 1991.
There’s a real strong chance that this new attempt to claim the Satoshi name is a PR stunt, but a company that needs attention and investment to start their own project or token, as has been indicated by some of the press they’ve put out in this announcement. Or it’s someone with a limited understanding of Bitcoin, but a strong understanding of how to work the media to get his 15 minutes of fame.
So who’s behind this potentially criminal ploy to fraudulently claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto? The PR firm of Ivy McLemore was founded by Ivy McLemore himself, with a brand vision to “to sell products and build corporate brands, helping them capture a market niche.” He’s joined by Michael Jones, head of digital marketing and Vice President, Steven Gillen, Vice President of the firm and former big time crypto investor, and John Reilly, a 35-year veteran of public relations and journalism.
Why are they trying to pull this stunt off? It’s quite possible they’ve been hired to put out a story to counter Dr. Craig Wright’s. An attempt at a new narrative, before Dr. Wright has shown all his proof that he was the real Satoshi Nakamoto, and continues to be.
But as Dr. Wright has told CoinGeek, and as the rest of the world is quickly realizing, this is a laughable attempt to fool the world. Simple facts are easily proven wrong. “At its conception, Bitcoin was worth mere cents,” the claimant writes, where Dr. Wright correctly asserts that Bitcoin was worth nothing at conception. He also notes the domain register details they share to “prove” they registered the “bitcoin.org” domain are provably wrong, and taken from a point after the domain left the control of Satoshi Nakamoto in any case.
More information will be coming shortly, from the claimant and surely from the real Satoshi, to show how laughable this story is. In the meantime, the rest of the crypto community is also laughing it up. Charlie Lee, fresh off of his own scandals, is still asking to see someone use the Genesis key, and CCN, who have not indicated they believe Dr. Wright is Satoshi, noted in in their follow up coverage:
This Satoshi’s outlandish yarn makes the other self-proclaimed Nakamoto — Craig Wright — sound super-credible by comparison.
Time will tell exactly why this PR firm and their fake Satoshi have created this story. Based on the PR firm’s history, and the nature of everyone’s 15 minutes of fame, they are guaranteed to be looking to make a quick buck out of it. The question is ultimately, how do they plan to do that, and will they be able to trick anyone before they get into some serious trouble for the ploy.
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