Not disappointed, disappointed

Keeping up with developments in the world of bitcoin fraud.

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(1) Not disappointed in Judge Kaplan:

Via Arstechnica, Sammy Bankman filed an appeal for a new trial, and Judge Kaplan sternly refused.

Before he was busted, Sammy was feeding both political pigs, following the standard billionaire script at the time. Feed the Dem pigs publicly and proudly because journalists are Democrats. Feed the Repooflican pigs the same ration quietly. Since his conviction Sammy switched the public and private troughs, hoping to get a pardon from Trump. So far it hasn’t worked, presumably because one of Trump’s relatives lost money to Sammy.

Judge Kaplan is consistently logical and nonpartisan, seeing through all schemes equally. Sammy is a consistent Professional Criminal, wildly overconfident, sure that he can fool everyone. He did fool most people for a long time because he played the D/R game expertly. He didn’t fool Judge Kaplan.

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(2) Disappointed in John Carreyrou.

He has done a long investigation, determining that Adam Back is Satoshi. Last week I responded quickly to the headline. At that time I didn’t want to distrust Carreyrou, but I did doubt the identification. Several years ago I looked closely at Satoshi’s code. I was surprised by its familiarity. It looked JUST like my own C++ code at the time, same format, same types of math and similar commenting style. I concluded that Satoshi was American, geographically close to Microsoft, possibly inside MS. Adam Back is British and wasn’t in that circle.

Now we have a longer interview with Carreyrou.

Interviewer: How sure are you that Adam Back is Satoshi?

Carreyrou: Somewhere between 99.5% and 100%.

Interviewer: Tell us why the identity of Satoshi matters.

Carreyrou: Bitcoin is one of the greatest financial innovations in recent history. It created this new currency. It made the concept of a decentralized currency, on the internet, available all over the world, bypassing governments and banks, possible. It spawned a 2.4 trillion dollar industry. It’s important to know who is this person who has upended our financial landscape.

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Well, now I’m somewhere between 100.00% and 100.00% certain that Carreyrou is a sucker. I’m disappointed because his earlier coverage of Elizabeth Holmes was solidly objective and logical, refusing to take sides.

He was like Judge Kaplan a few years ago. Now he’s just a damn fool, taken in by the silliest and most transparent fraud in recent history.