The P2PFoundation account of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has recently posted for the first time in over four years, after being hacked and having its details supposedly sold on the dark web.
The account’s most recent post says ”nour” and went live shortly after it added Wagner Tamanaha as a friend on the platform. Tamanaha, according to available information, is a marketing expert based in São Paulo, Brazil.
Back in 2016, Tamanaha claimed to have understood “almost nothing” of bitcoin and blockchain technology when he first heard about it in 2011, but that he then started participating in the network and ended up forgetting about it.
The account’s connection to the Brazilian bitcoiner is, at press time, unclear. As for the word, “nour,” some have pointed out on social media that it means “light” and is used as a unisex name in Arabic.
Shortly after Satoshi Nakamoto’s P2PFoundation account made the post, self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright, a supporter of Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision (BSV) started posting in Arabic on social media. The sentence below translates to “the light of the world in trade.”
نور العالم في التجارة pic.twitter.com/hG8SoKe9i6
— Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) November 30, 2018
Notably earlier this month, a fraudulent tweet posted in the name of Nakamoto himself claimed there was an “issue with SegWit” that, if left unfixed, would mean he had failed. As proof, it signed a message associated with one of the first blocks on the bitcoin blockchain.The account that posted the tweet has since been suspended.
Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song later on proved the signature was fake, by reproducing it with an example of his own.
Satoshi’s Hacked Account
It’s well-known in the cryptocurrency community that Satoshi Nakamoto’s P2PFoundatin account was hacked in late 2014, as it was revealed the email account associated with it, [email protected], started sending out uncharacteristic emails.
In a Bitcointalk thread Theymos, a prominent bitcoin community member and an administrator of Bitcoin.org, revealed he received an email saying “Michael, send me some coins before I hitman you,” which made it clear the account had been compromised.
At the time, Motherboard reported it spoke with the person behind the hack, and revealed the person managed to get in touch with Nakamoto himself. The pseudonymous bitcoin creator’s personal information and passwords were, at the time, supposedly leaked.
A P2PFoundation post made through Satoshi Nakamoto’s account at the time stated:
Dear Satoshi. Your dox, passwords and IP addresses are being sold on the darknet. Apparently you didn't configure Tor properly and your IP leaked when you used your email account sometime in 2010. You are not safe. You need to get out of where you are as soon as possible before these people harm you. Thank you for inventing Bitcoin.
At press time, links redirecting to the post seem to point us to the beginning of the thread, indicating the post itself has been deleted. An online search for the term yields no results from Satoshi’s account.
The last time the world has heard from Satoshi Nakamoto himself was earlier that year, when he posted on the account to claim he wasn’t Dorian Nakamoto, a man various mainstream news outlets claimed was behind the pseudonym. Earlier, Satoshi Nakamoto was active on the Bitcointalk forum, but mysteriously disappeared in late 2010.
Cryptoglobe has reached out to Tamanaha. This piece will be updated once we hear back.
