The Last Days of Satoshi with Pete Rizzo

 
 
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“Satoshi kind of left an unfinished product, because in order for it to be finished, it had to solve the riddle of him.”
— Pete Rizzo

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Remotely
Date: Wednesday 21st April
Company: Kraken & Bitcoin Magazine
Role: Editor

Ten years ago, in April 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto sent his last known message to Mike Hearn, stating that he had "moved on to other things" and that Bitcoin was "in good hands". Satoshi left the development with Gavin Andresen and a group of contributors and left the Bitcoin community for good. 

At launch, Bitcoin was governed and developed entirely by Satoshi; it was centralised. To reach the level of decentralisation that Satoshi envisioned, Bitcoin couldn't have a leader that the community looked towards; instead, it needed to rely on peer review, debate and consensus. Satoshi, the mythical and mysterious leader, had to leave the project he founded.

Pete Rizzo wrote The Last Days of Satoshi to answer the fundamental questions about Bitcoin's early history and its creator. How did he run the project? And why did he have to leave?

In this episode, I talk to Pete Rizzo, the Editor at Kraken & Bitcoin Magazine. We discuss Satoshi's final days, his contribution to Bitcoin, the project's transition to decentralisation, and why his disappearance was inevitable.

TIMESTAMPS

00:06:13: Introduction
00:07:41: Bitcoin historian
00:10:25: Is Satoshi one person?
00:11:31: Satoshi had to leave
00:13:17: The birth of FUD
00:15:35: Four phases of Satoshi
00:20:07: Satoshi's emotions
00:21:42: Bitcoin is still a beta software
00:25:52: Satoshi's "handover" to Gavin Andresen
00:28:01: Satoshi opens the software to Bitcoin developers
00:30:31: Reaction to Satoshi disappearing
00:33:16: Gavin takes over
00:35:12: Satoshi's role
00:38:25: Looking back on ten years without Satoshi
00:39:25: Bitcoin governance and Michael Marquardt/Theymos
00:42:38: Gavin Andresen
00:46:33: The press seek Satoshi
00:50:34: The block size debate and Bitcoin as a decentralised money
00:54:29: Jeff Garzik
00:59:38: Bit DNS and sidechains
01:00:28: Peter definitely does NOT ask, "Who is Satoshi?"
01:01:26: Peter asks who Satoshi isn't…
01:05:09: "Are you winning son?" meme
01:09:06: Pete Rizzo's changing conviction
01:14:52: Pulling everything together for a book
01:18:38: Final comments


 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack