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The Fall of Benjamin Duke

From Visionary to Power-Hungry Hypocrite

By Daniel LubyPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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You’re probably wondering, “Daniel… where’s the dirt you promised us? You said you know who Satoshi Nakamoto is. I don’t understand.” To that I say: trust me. All will become clear. Yes, you read the title correctly. And no, Benjamin Duke isn’t one of the main suspects. In fact, he isn’t a suspect at all. The true identity of Nakamoto has been the subject of much debate for many years. Countless imposters have tried and failed to convince the public. Craig Wright, for instance, still claims to be part of a team that created Bitcoin and the famous pseudonym to this day.

The Chaumian Society

However, none of the people considered ‘mainstream possibilities’ are Nakamoto. I knew the man. Personally. And the story of Bitcoin begins with our mutual interest in David Chaum’s work. You see, we studied Computer Science at the University of Exeter in the early ‘90s, with an interest in Cryptography. We weren’t in the United States, but Chaum’s 1982 paper: ‘Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments’, was still rather popular among some of our peers. We went on to form our own little chapter of the Chaumian society, later joining forces with the original version in California, as the mailing list grew exponentially. Our aim was twofold - push for monetary reform and encourage others to protect their privacy through using cryptography. During those days, Duke himself railed against the fractional-reserve banking system, arguing that people remain trapped in debt and will never be free. This is because public and private debt has exceeded the amount of broad money in circulation, meaning it’s impossible to repay all debt. As a consequence, more people will be forced to file for bankruptcy and end up homeless. He felt, and we all agreed, that we needed a decentralised system that gives control back to the people. The banks have too much power, with all of us paying the price.

The Similarities

The society was able to develop notable software over the years, but it could never create an electronic cash system that solved the double-spending problem. We discussed this long after graduation, with Duke adamant about a solution being ‘right around the corner’ as he put it. A few months later, he released a system called Ducat, a precursor of Bitcoin, which Nakamoto cited in his white paper ‘Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system’, the references of which can be found below. The proof-of-work system was incorporated in Bitcoin’s mining algorithm, so it’s very clear who Nakamoto was influenced by. The connection between Duke and Nakamoto only gets stronger once you know Bitcoin was coded in C++, with Duke being very proficient in that particular coding language.

The similarities don’t stop there. Nakamoto also used double-spacing when writing, much like Duke, who went on to do a PHD in Distributed Systems after I left Exeter. I mention that because double-spacing is the trait of an academic, an older one at that, since the practice was discontinued years ago. It goes without saying that Nakamoto’s use of British English does make the American suspects much less likely, but when you combine that with the double-spacing, along with Nakamoto and Duke both writing about their admiration of Hal Finney, the signs become harder to ignore.

It was only a few months after Nakamoto released his white paper that the genesis block was created. I was hunched over my monitor, eyes bloodshot from the hours spent designing a new programming language, reading what had been decoded. I realised an article from The Times was referenced. It was the same article Duke used during a debate on the mailing list mere hours before, concerning the ‘08 financial crisis and the bank bailouts thereafter. It infuriated him, and at the time seemed very peculiar to me. I had already noticed Nakamoto’s idiosyncrasies lined up with Duke’s from the paper and his emails, and this decoded message served as yet another sign that Duke was Bitcoin’s founder.

And For His Next Trick...

The first block in the chain had been mined, and the paper was generating a lot of debate. We finally had hope that this would be a secure system, solving the issue of hackers and cyber-attacks, with the miners able to verify transactions as the chain progressed. Despite my suspicions about Nakamoto’s identity, I liked the idea of Bitcoin as much as anyone else. I became one of the twelve, a group defined as the only individuals to receive payment in Bitcoin from Nakamoto himself for working on Bitcoin’s development. By that time, the founder was very active on Bitcoin forums and emailing regularly, until he decided to name Gavin Andresen the new project manager of Bitcoin in 2010. After that, Nakamoto mysteriously vanished, taking 1.1 million in Bitcoin with him. My first assumption was he cashed out and ran because government regulations could be upon us after the Wikileaks scandal that year. But time passed… and he never touched his Bitcoin wallet. That made no sense at all to me. People immediately started theorising. Did Nakamoto lose the encryption keys to his wallet? Perhaps he never cared for the money? Was he really on the run? Had he passed away? All of these sounded plausible at the time, but they weren’t true. In fact, Nakamoto never ran away at all.

It was only four years later that Nakamoto would return to the scene, posting ‘I am not Dorian Nakamoto’ on the r/Bitcoin forum. Interestingly enough, after being absent on forums for the same length of time, Duke started posting again. He argued that we should ‘protect Satoshi’s identity for the good of the community’ and that he had ‘a few $M play money to tide himself over’. This was in response to people figuring out just how much Nakamoto’s stash was worth. By 2015, Andresen’s stewardship had kept the government off our backs, but scalability was still an issue. An influx of people were starting to use Bitcoin, and the system couldn’t handle it. Blocks were too small, and could only handle seven transactions a second. If we carried on like this, transactions would slow down considerably. It was inefficient. Thus, we had two choices. Either follow Andresen’s new proposal, which was practically a new currency (Bitcoin XT) or side with Blockstream. We tried to make an informed decision as miners in the two Bitcoin forums, but censorship was rife. It still is. Both Forums are owned by Theymos, a man that has dealings with… guess who? Blockstream. This hindered our ability to have a discussion about the future of Bitcoin, which is exactly what Blockstream wanted, because without a super-majority, nothing can be done. In fact, Nakamoto confessed himself 'disappointed' with the proposal and viewed Bitcoin XT as just another way for a few developers to force their views on others. How ironic...

Profit Over People

This brings us to why I’m exposing Benjamin Duke. You may be thinking: “well Nakamoto doesn’t want to be identified. Leave him be. He created this software for us! We should be grateful!” I get it. I used to believe that. But after everything that's happened, Duke needs to be held accountable. You see, we had no time to understand this new proposal and its implications. The deadline for a vote on Bitcoin XT and increasing the block size was January 2016. Of course, we didn’t reach a consensus. And that’s when the big crack-down on supporters of Andresen started happening. Now don’t get me wrong, he was vying for control too, but the battle was never fair to begin with. Even Coinbase was wiped from Bitcoin’s website for supporting Bitcoin XT, with Nakamoto himself calling it the ‘pretender coin’. He was obviously on the side of Blockstream and their vision. And the only British person on the board was Benjamin Duke. He and the others did all this just to profit off the block size remaining small. They ensured the new proposal failed so the only real alternative is a centralised system where Blockstream handles the transaction fees and miners get nothing. At that point, it stops being an open-source network. At that point, it becomes exactly what Duke fought against as a student, just another bank with too much power. That’s why he needs to pay. He can’t get away with this. He may have compromised his ideals, but I never did. It’s not just me who knows either, and my best guess as to why people like Andresen aren’t speaking out is a non-disclosure agreement. He admits to it here:

A Message

If you’re reading this Ben, the people deserve to know. Yes, you’ve got plausible deniability. That much is true. But let’s be honest here: you’re a coward. You’re unrecognisable from the young guy who loved Doctor Who and just wanted to help people. You don’t want to take responsibility. You hide behind the notion that people should see Bitcoin as a commodity that was discovered, with no charismatic leader at the helm, yet the damage is already done. The faith you so desperately want people to have in the system is eroding. You want all the powers of a dictator, and none of the accountability. Well, it ends here. Your game is over.

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About the Creator

Daniel Luby

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