WHERE IS SATOSHI NAKAMOTO?

                              From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142     15512        1151        189      712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532     423 

Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235

          8        1700      9836          250        339     253

        14        1934      9001          709        281      300

        22       2228      9326          839        279      124

        29        2190      8859         643        309      108

Oct    5        1811       7495          686        285     103

          6        2102       8255         543        315       59

        12        1819       7544         201        249        37 

        19        2005      7528         401        160        80 

        26        1451       7535         409        584       53

        27       1594       8671         433        734        62 

Nov   3        1436       7830        186        458        23

        10        1493      8366         264        362        48

        17        1416       8440         374        470         11

        24        1594      8270         176        396        22

        25         306      7154          281        488       114

Dec    1        1633      8475         266        477        28

Summary:

• Clearly, those two low COVID-19 new deaths figures of last week for the U.S. were anomalous, and unexplainable.
• Also, if the Omicron variant will begin to show new deaths, it will be in a week or two.
• In any event, the new deaths for South Africa was somewhat low.
• The U.S. led the world in new cases yesterday with 120,441.  #2 was Germany with 71,887 and #3 the UK at 48,081.

Way back in 2013 I posted on Bitcoins.  To quote:

There is a digital currency, a dream of libertarians, only found on the world wide web, and is called bitcoin.  It was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, who placed 1,624,250 bitcoins on the virtual block, and, apparently, kept around a million, now worth $450 million.  Nakamoto then disappeared, passing on the reins to Gavin Andresen.  Who is Nakamoto?  No one knows.  Well, we can eliminate Zorro, but perhaps keep Uncle Sam as a prospect.  At the top left is Andresen, who says he is not Nakamoto.

So how much are Nakamoto's coins now worth?  More than $60 billion.  Who is Nakamoto and where is he?  Said the World Street Journal this week:

In an age in which it is hard to be anonymous, Nakamoto remains a ghost.

Wikipedia suggests that the name is pseudonymous of one or more people who created the bitcoin.  However they show this graphic to the right, with his history:

• Began working on the bitcoin in 2007.
• On 18August2008 registered the domain name bitcoin.org, with that address.
• On 31October 2008 published a white paper describing the digital cryptocurrency.
• Launched the network on 9January2009.

• 
  In mid-2010 gave control of the source code repository and network alert key to Gavin Andresen (right)...and dropped out into the ether.
• In 2021 a monument (right) was created in Budapest, Hungary in honor of his work on bitcoin and crytocurrencies.
• He purportedly owns between 750,000 and 1.1 billion bitcoins, so on November 2021 his net worth was up to $73 billion, making him the 15th richest person in the world.

So who or which team is Satoshi Nakamoto?

• Someone from Japan who is 46 years old.
• Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney who passed away in 2014 at the age of 58 from Lou Gehrig's disease.
• Graduated from Cal Tech as an engineer.
• Lived close to someone named Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto.
• The textual writing of both is similar.
• Thus, one theory is that Finney just borrowed the name of Satoshi Nakamoto.
• 
  Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto of California, who was born Satoshi Nakamoto.
• Studied physics at Cal Poly Pomona.
• Worked as a systems engineer for defense projects
• Was laid off twice and became a libertarian in the early 1990s.  That is, he became motivated to circumvent government policies and finances.

• 
  Although they deny, other candidates could be Nick Szabo, Craig Wright, Vili Lehdonvirta, Michael Clear, Vladimir Oksman, Charles Bry, Shinichi Mochizuki, Gavin Andresen, Jed McCaleb, Ross Ulbricht, Adam Back, Elon Musk and Paul Le Roux.
• John McAfee (left) has never been mentioned as Satoshi Nakamoto, but he has the right background in software, British link and Libertarian, having run for U.S. President for the Libertarian Party in 2016 and 2020.  
• In a Forbes 2020 article, he said he was 99% sure he knows the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, and that it is a team of eleven people, including many of those listed immediately above.
• Accused of murder, rape, tax evasion and assorted other crimes.
• Was caught in Spain and awaiting extradition, committed suicide in June of this year.
• However, he earlier said that if anyone found him of self-hanging, you can assume he was murdered.

So who and where is Satoshi Nakamoto?  It remains one of the internets's most tantalizing mysteries.

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