I've been trying to answer the question, "Did Satoshi write these emails?" Now, I feel like I'm getting some answers.
Quick background of how I got to this point:
Post 1: The canon of Satoshi - Sept. 19, 2024 -#691013
tldr; Since I'm currently finalizing edition three of "Kicking the Hornet's Nest", I wanted to include all of Satoshi's writings. Three "Satoshi" emails were in question. Two were to Wei Dai (the first was a month before the bitcoin whitepaper, the second was a week after the Genesis block). The other email was to Jon Matonis. The reason for questioning them was because they are currently excluded from NakamotoInstitute.org. So, my question was, "Are these emails from Satoshi?"
Post 2: Satoshi emails, part 2 - Sept. 21, 2024 - #694651
tldr; If a personal email somehow got into the public's eye (on the internet), one of the two parties must have released it at some point. I ruled out Satoshi releasing them. So, I reached out to Dai, Matonis, and NakamotoInstitute.org. Researching, I learned that WeiDai.com points to an AMA on LessWrong.com where things can be asked. On LessWrong, gwern had asked in 2016 if he could place Wei Dai's emails on the gwern.net site. The dots seemed to connect on this. I concluded the Satoshi-to-Wei Dai emails were legit. The Jon Matonis email was still unclear. His presence online seems a bit muddled currently, as far as I can tell.
The day of post 2, I put out a note on Nostr (see my npub) which auto-posted to X as below.
Link to the X post:
I use X mostly only for reading. As generally a content consumer with little creation or interaction on X, I resultantly get very few notifications there. Last night, I saw that I had two notifications: one was from Elon Musk, surprise, but the other...
I truly didn't see that coming.
Here's the full, untruncated link to the note on Nostr, by the way.
Wei Dai liked my post. Hmmph. "Which post did he like?", I wondered. Tapping the notification, it went to the X post and my phone showed five whopping views and the one like.
Being cautious and skeptical, I naturally wondered, "Is this the real Wei Dai?" I looked at the @weidai11 profile on X and everything checked out: bluecheck, the info seemed to make sense, as did the X posts and comments, the people following the account, the links to https://weidai.com and https://lesswrong.com/users/wei-dai.
I conclude that @weidai11 on X is the real Wei Dai.
No word yet
Regarding the Matonis email, I have not heard back from Jon Matonis. If you see this, Jon, I can be reached in several ways. I'd love to hear how/when/where your March 4, 2010 "Satoshi email" got "into the wild" and onto the Internet.
And also...
As well as reaching out to Dai and Matonis, I contacted the NakamotoInstitute.org by email effectively asking, "Why are the Dai or Matonis emails not included?"
A person from NakamotoInstitute kindly emailed me back on Sept. 24, 2024. They said the decision was made in 2014 to not include personal emails. The reasons were possible security threats or possible doxing. I can respect that.
The person did mention that they were reconsidering this policy. Reasons given were that 10 years have passed and many of these emails are now in public court documents anyway. I hope they decide to include them. I feel even inclusion with an asterisk explaining the context would be worthwhile. Then, armed with information, people can draw conclusions.
What was not mentioned in the reply email was also important, I think. The NakamotoInstitute person did not say the emails were excluded because of any BTC v. BCH feud or due to any identity-of-Satoshi theories. That's good. Personally, I'm uninterested in such battles, but am solely interested in answering, "Did Satoshi write these emails?" To me, that's where the importance and historical significance lies.
That said, the reasons given above seem legitimate for excluding the emails at the time. And, again, they're reconsidering the policy.
As an aside, it's interesting to look at NakamotoInstitute.org back in 2014.
And so to sum...
I'd written about the question, "Did Satoshi write these emails?" and had concluded that the Wei Dai emails from 2008 and 2009 were indeed legit.
My conclusion was based on the leapfrogging logic...
- gwern.net is one of the sites housing the Wei Dai emails
- weidai.com points to lesswrong.com
- lesswrong.com has a 2016 conversation between Wei Dai and gwern
- gwern then asked for permission to place Wei Dai emails on his site gwern.net
- Wei Dai gave the okay and the emails appeared on gwern.net
- I write about this in 2024 and conclude Wei Dai's emails are legit
Then, Wei Dai gave a like to my conclusion.
I'm taking that as confirmation. ✅