Latest news with #BenjaminWallace
Sydney Morning Herald
20 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
A deep dive into Bitcoin's enduring riddle: the identity of its inventor
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday. CRYPTOCURRENCY The Mysterious Mr Nakamoto Benjamin Wallace Atlantic, $45 In 2008, a white paper was published entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. It explained how existing technologies like proof of work, public key encryption and peer-to-peer network architecture could be assembled into a decentralised digital currency - the Bitcoin. The author, whose name was given only as Satoshi Nakamoto, had been active on internet forums and had built an implementation of the so-called Bitcoin - leaving clues to his identity - in code and word. Then one day he disappeared. Over the past 16 years, the identity of the paper's author has been the matter of widespread speculation - with possible candidates running in the hundreds, mostly nerds, freaks and weirdos, along with a few starry-eyed optimists. It's generally assumed that Nakamoto is a mister but could be a group. And owing to Nakamoto's use of British English, this rogues' gallery even includes a few Australians - a bigot and a conman, most likely a serial liar. The Mysterious Mr Nakamoto, by former WIRED writer Benjamin Wallace, journals a 15-year search for Nakamoto's true identity. From the beginning, his book shines less as a hunt than as an excuse to tell Bitcoin's florid history. The general idea of cryptocurrency emerged from an online group called the Cypherpunks, of which Nakamoto was a member. These were a mix of crunchy Bay Area hippies who somehow found common cause with their ideological opposites: Randian libertarians. Both could agree that the post-global financial crisis bailouts were proof of rot in an antiquated system that new technologies could replace. Today it takes an effort to cast one's mind back to an era of tech utopianism when technology was a solution to, rather than an entrenchment of, societal problems. The belief was that recent advances in cryptography would provide anonymity while decentralisation would avert concentration of power and limit the financial corruption that had led to the crisis. Wallace notes similar efforts existed to Bitcoin but failed to catch on. Bitcoin was unique in its intuitive understanding of market and human psychologies.
The Age
20 hours ago
- The Age
A deep dive into Bitcoin's enduring riddle: the identity of its inventor
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday. CRYPTOCURRENCY The Mysterious Mr Nakamoto Benjamin Wallace Atlantic, $45 In 2008, a white paper was published entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. It explained how existing technologies like proof of work, public key encryption and peer-to-peer network architecture could be assembled into a decentralised digital currency - the Bitcoin. The author, whose name was given only as Satoshi Nakamoto, had been active on internet forums and had built an implementation of the so-called Bitcoin - leaving clues to his identity - in code and word. Then one day he disappeared. Over the past 16 years, the identity of the paper's author has been the matter of widespread speculation - with possible candidates running in the hundreds, mostly nerds, freaks and weirdos, along with a few starry-eyed optimists. It's generally assumed that Nakamoto is a mister but could be a group. And owing to Nakamoto's use of British English, this rogues' gallery even includes a few Australians - a bigot and a conman, most likely a serial liar. The Mysterious Mr Nakamoto, by former WIRED writer Benjamin Wallace, journals a 15-year search for Nakamoto's true identity. From the beginning, his book shines less as a hunt than as an excuse to tell Bitcoin's florid history. The general idea of cryptocurrency emerged from an online group called the Cypherpunks, of which Nakamoto was a member. These were a mix of crunchy Bay Area hippies who somehow found common cause with their ideological opposites: Randian libertarians. Both could agree that the post-global financial crisis bailouts were proof of rot in an antiquated system that new technologies could replace. Today it takes an effort to cast one's mind back to an era of tech utopianism when technology was a solution to, rather than an entrenchment of, societal problems. The belief was that recent advances in cryptography would provide anonymity while decentralisation would avert concentration of power and limit the financial corruption that had led to the crisis. Wallace notes similar efforts existed to Bitcoin but failed to catch on. Bitcoin was unique in its intuitive understanding of market and human psychologies.
The Advertiser
18-06-2025
- Business
- The Advertiser
Is the inventor of Bitcoin just some guy who lives on the Queensland coast?
What's new: A small-town doctor discovers he can see how many days his patients have left to live in Michael Thompson's novel All The Perfect Days while Stephen King reintroduces readers to private detective Holly Gibney in Never Flinch. Benjamin Wallace. Atlantic Books Australia. $45.00. Satoshi Nakamoto is the person credited with inventing Bitcoin, the world's first cryptocurrency. But is he really a person? Does he even exist? If he does, he's a billionaire many times over, but, curiously, his $75 billion Bitcoin fortune has remained untouched. So is Nakamoto actually Elon Musk, or is he just a guy who lives on the Queensland coast? Benjamin Wallace has been writing about crypto since covering it for Wired in 2011, and he sees Nakamoto's identity as one of the last big mysteries. He follows a trail of breadcrumbs from the US to Norway and Australia. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Linda Jaivin. Black Inc. $26.99. Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s was a time when, it seemed to observers, almost the entire country went mad. Mao detonated the societal explosion that ripped the country and its heritage apart with the words Australian China expert Linda Jaivin has used as the title of this concise and very readable little book. Youthful red guards took violent aim at "the four olds", mass murders of class enemies were committed and even the centuries-old Forbidden City came close to destruction. Then came "mango worship", a bizarre, widespread veneration of ... a fruit. Find it at QBD Books or Amazon. Patrick McGee. Simon & Schuster. $36.99. That little glass and plastic brain we all have in our pockets, otherwise known as the iPhone, has changed the world. Apple's visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs, conceptualised it, but to build it, Apple had to rethink how to produce exceptional quality at huge scale. That path led to China, where Apple invested a staggering amount of money building excellence in manufacturing (and helping, the author argues, to create modern China in the process). A central theme of this book is the existential problem the world's biggest company faces from putting so many of its eggs in China's basket. Find it at Apple Books, QBD Books and Amazon. Harrison Christian. Ultimo Press. $36.99. A young Charles Darwin was set to become a clergyman when, in 1831, the chance to join a Christian mission to South America, aboard a ship called the HMS Beagle, fell into his lap. As Harrison Christian says, the voyage resulted in "one of the most unchristian theories imaginable" and Darwin's revolutionary book On the Origin of Species. Christian looks at the voyage and its aftermath from the perspectives of the budding scientist Darwin and the ship's fervently religious captain, Robert FitzRoy, who would later publicly denigrate his former companion and say that he was sorry he had taken Darwin aboard. Find it at Amazon, Big W, or Kobo. Taylor Jenkins Reid. Hutchinson Heinemann. $34.99. There are few contemporary fiction writers who write about falling in love better than Taylor Jenkins Reid. When NASA opened applications for the first female scientists in its space shuttle program Joan Goodwin knew she had to be one of them. What she hadn't planned on was how it would make her question everything she knew about herself - and the universe. She finds passion and a love she never imagined. Then, in December 1984, one mission changes everything. Atmosphere will hit you in the heart from every direction - and with a gravity that will stay with you long after you return to Earth. Find it at Amazon and Big W. Stephen King. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. Private detective Holly Gibney has been a recurring character in seven Stephen King novels since he introduced her in 2014's Mr Mercedes. She got her own crime to solve in 2023's Holly and now, in Never Flinch, we find her working for a women's rights activist to track the controversial campaigner's increasingly unhinged and bold stalker. When Holly's police detective friend Izzy Jaynes asks for her help identifying an anonymous letter writer threatening to kill "13 innocents and 1 guilty" as "an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man", the two disturbing and dangerous mysteries collide. Find it at Big W or Amazon. Michael Thompson. Pantera Press. $34.99. The film rights to Michael Thompson's first book, 2023 heartwarmer How to Be Remembered, were sold before it was published. The new novel by the Sydney-based former journalist and Ray Hadley radio show executive producer - who now co-hosts popular business news podcast Fear & Greed - promises more life-affirming drama as a small-town family doctor discovers he can see exactly how many days his patients have left to live. He uses this knowledge to try to help his patients, family and friends live full lives. But, of course, his "gift" doesn't quite work the way he hopes and he discovers some things he just doesn't want to know. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Holden Sheppard. Pantera Press. $34.99. Holden Sheppard's debut novel for young adults, Invisible Boys, about teens wrestling with their sexuality in fiercely macho Geraldton, is now a hit drama on Stan. That book drew on the author's experiences growing up gay in regional Western Australia and he does it again for his first book for adults, which expands beyond coming-of-age angst. Jack Brolo is a digger driver at remote WA worksites. He's desperately trying to cover his tracks as a gay man, with booze and reckless behaviour. Returning home to Geraldton for a wedding, he must face his conservative family and news he conceived a son with his teenage girlfriend. Find it at Amazon and QBD Books. You can also find these and other great books at Apple Books and on Kobo. What's new: A small-town doctor discovers he can see how many days his patients have left to live in Michael Thompson's novel All The Perfect Days while Stephen King reintroduces readers to private detective Holly Gibney in Never Flinch. Benjamin Wallace. Atlantic Books Australia. $45.00. Satoshi Nakamoto is the person credited with inventing Bitcoin, the world's first cryptocurrency. But is he really a person? Does he even exist? If he does, he's a billionaire many times over, but, curiously, his $75 billion Bitcoin fortune has remained untouched. So is Nakamoto actually Elon Musk, or is he just a guy who lives on the Queensland coast? Benjamin Wallace has been writing about crypto since covering it for Wired in 2011, and he sees Nakamoto's identity as one of the last big mysteries. He follows a trail of breadcrumbs from the US to Norway and Australia. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Linda Jaivin. Black Inc. $26.99. Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s was a time when, it seemed to observers, almost the entire country went mad. Mao detonated the societal explosion that ripped the country and its heritage apart with the words Australian China expert Linda Jaivin has used as the title of this concise and very readable little book. Youthful red guards took violent aim at "the four olds", mass murders of class enemies were committed and even the centuries-old Forbidden City came close to destruction. Then came "mango worship", a bizarre, widespread veneration of ... a fruit. Find it at QBD Books or Amazon. Patrick McGee. Simon & Schuster. $36.99. That little glass and plastic brain we all have in our pockets, otherwise known as the iPhone, has changed the world. Apple's visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs, conceptualised it, but to build it, Apple had to rethink how to produce exceptional quality at huge scale. That path led to China, where Apple invested a staggering amount of money building excellence in manufacturing (and helping, the author argues, to create modern China in the process). A central theme of this book is the existential problem the world's biggest company faces from putting so many of its eggs in China's basket. Find it at Apple Books, QBD Books and Amazon. Harrison Christian. Ultimo Press. $36.99. A young Charles Darwin was set to become a clergyman when, in 1831, the chance to join a Christian mission to South America, aboard a ship called the HMS Beagle, fell into his lap. As Harrison Christian says, the voyage resulted in "one of the most unchristian theories imaginable" and Darwin's revolutionary book On the Origin of Species. Christian looks at the voyage and its aftermath from the perspectives of the budding scientist Darwin and the ship's fervently religious captain, Robert FitzRoy, who would later publicly denigrate his former companion and say that he was sorry he had taken Darwin aboard. Find it at Amazon, Big W, or Kobo. Taylor Jenkins Reid. Hutchinson Heinemann. $34.99. There are few contemporary fiction writers who write about falling in love better than Taylor Jenkins Reid. When NASA opened applications for the first female scientists in its space shuttle program Joan Goodwin knew she had to be one of them. What she hadn't planned on was how it would make her question everything she knew about herself - and the universe. She finds passion and a love she never imagined. Then, in December 1984, one mission changes everything. Atmosphere will hit you in the heart from every direction - and with a gravity that will stay with you long after you return to Earth. Find it at Amazon and Big W. Stephen King. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. Private detective Holly Gibney has been a recurring character in seven Stephen King novels since he introduced her in 2014's Mr Mercedes. She got her own crime to solve in 2023's Holly and now, in Never Flinch, we find her working for a women's rights activist to track the controversial campaigner's increasingly unhinged and bold stalker. When Holly's police detective friend Izzy Jaynes asks for her help identifying an anonymous letter writer threatening to kill "13 innocents and 1 guilty" as "an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man", the two disturbing and dangerous mysteries collide. Find it at Big W or Amazon. Michael Thompson. Pantera Press. $34.99. The film rights to Michael Thompson's first book, 2023 heartwarmer How to Be Remembered, were sold before it was published. The new novel by the Sydney-based former journalist and Ray Hadley radio show executive producer - who now co-hosts popular business news podcast Fear & Greed - promises more life-affirming drama as a small-town family doctor discovers he can see exactly how many days his patients have left to live. He uses this knowledge to try to help his patients, family and friends live full lives. But, of course, his "gift" doesn't quite work the way he hopes and he discovers some things he just doesn't want to know. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Holden Sheppard. Pantera Press. $34.99. Holden Sheppard's debut novel for young adults, Invisible Boys, about teens wrestling with their sexuality in fiercely macho Geraldton, is now a hit drama on Stan. That book drew on the author's experiences growing up gay in regional Western Australia and he does it again for his first book for adults, which expands beyond coming-of-age angst. Jack Brolo is a digger driver at remote WA worksites. He's desperately trying to cover his tracks as a gay man, with booze and reckless behaviour. Returning home to Geraldton for a wedding, he must face his conservative family and news he conceived a son with his teenage girlfriend. Find it at Amazon and QBD Books. You can also find these and other great books at Apple Books and on Kobo. What's new: A small-town doctor discovers he can see how many days his patients have left to live in Michael Thompson's novel All The Perfect Days while Stephen King reintroduces readers to private detective Holly Gibney in Never Flinch. Benjamin Wallace. Atlantic Books Australia. $45.00. Satoshi Nakamoto is the person credited with inventing Bitcoin, the world's first cryptocurrency. But is he really a person? Does he even exist? If he does, he's a billionaire many times over, but, curiously, his $75 billion Bitcoin fortune has remained untouched. So is Nakamoto actually Elon Musk, or is he just a guy who lives on the Queensland coast? Benjamin Wallace has been writing about crypto since covering it for Wired in 2011, and he sees Nakamoto's identity as one of the last big mysteries. He follows a trail of breadcrumbs from the US to Norway and Australia. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Linda Jaivin. Black Inc. $26.99. Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s was a time when, it seemed to observers, almost the entire country went mad. Mao detonated the societal explosion that ripped the country and its heritage apart with the words Australian China expert Linda Jaivin has used as the title of this concise and very readable little book. Youthful red guards took violent aim at "the four olds", mass murders of class enemies were committed and even the centuries-old Forbidden City came close to destruction. Then came "mango worship", a bizarre, widespread veneration of ... a fruit. Find it at QBD Books or Amazon. Patrick McGee. Simon & Schuster. $36.99. That little glass and plastic brain we all have in our pockets, otherwise known as the iPhone, has changed the world. Apple's visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs, conceptualised it, but to build it, Apple had to rethink how to produce exceptional quality at huge scale. That path led to China, where Apple invested a staggering amount of money building excellence in manufacturing (and helping, the author argues, to create modern China in the process). A central theme of this book is the existential problem the world's biggest company faces from putting so many of its eggs in China's basket. Find it at Apple Books, QBD Books and Amazon. Harrison Christian. Ultimo Press. $36.99. A young Charles Darwin was set to become a clergyman when, in 1831, the chance to join a Christian mission to South America, aboard a ship called the HMS Beagle, fell into his lap. As Harrison Christian says, the voyage resulted in "one of the most unchristian theories imaginable" and Darwin's revolutionary book On the Origin of Species. Christian looks at the voyage and its aftermath from the perspectives of the budding scientist Darwin and the ship's fervently religious captain, Robert FitzRoy, who would later publicly denigrate his former companion and say that he was sorry he had taken Darwin aboard. Find it at Amazon, Big W, or Kobo. Taylor Jenkins Reid. Hutchinson Heinemann. $34.99. There are few contemporary fiction writers who write about falling in love better than Taylor Jenkins Reid. When NASA opened applications for the first female scientists in its space shuttle program Joan Goodwin knew she had to be one of them. What she hadn't planned on was how it would make her question everything she knew about herself - and the universe. She finds passion and a love she never imagined. Then, in December 1984, one mission changes everything. Atmosphere will hit you in the heart from every direction - and with a gravity that will stay with you long after you return to Earth. Find it at Amazon and Big W. Stephen King. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. Private detective Holly Gibney has been a recurring character in seven Stephen King novels since he introduced her in 2014's Mr Mercedes. She got her own crime to solve in 2023's Holly and now, in Never Flinch, we find her working for a women's rights activist to track the controversial campaigner's increasingly unhinged and bold stalker. When Holly's police detective friend Izzy Jaynes asks for her help identifying an anonymous letter writer threatening to kill "13 innocents and 1 guilty" as "an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man", the two disturbing and dangerous mysteries collide. Find it at Big W or Amazon. Michael Thompson. Pantera Press. $34.99. The film rights to Michael Thompson's first book, 2023 heartwarmer How to Be Remembered, were sold before it was published. The new novel by the Sydney-based former journalist and Ray Hadley radio show executive producer - who now co-hosts popular business news podcast Fear & Greed - promises more life-affirming drama as a small-town family doctor discovers he can see exactly how many days his patients have left to live. He uses this knowledge to try to help his patients, family and friends live full lives. But, of course, his "gift" doesn't quite work the way he hopes and he discovers some things he just doesn't want to know. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Holden Sheppard. Pantera Press. $34.99. Holden Sheppard's debut novel for young adults, Invisible Boys, about teens wrestling with their sexuality in fiercely macho Geraldton, is now a hit drama on Stan. That book drew on the author's experiences growing up gay in regional Western Australia and he does it again for his first book for adults, which expands beyond coming-of-age angst. Jack Brolo is a digger driver at remote WA worksites. He's desperately trying to cover his tracks as a gay man, with booze and reckless behaviour. Returning home to Geraldton for a wedding, he must face his conservative family and news he conceived a son with his teenage girlfriend. Find it at Amazon and QBD Books. You can also find these and other great books at Apple Books and on Kobo. What's new: A small-town doctor discovers he can see how many days his patients have left to live in Michael Thompson's novel All The Perfect Days while Stephen King reintroduces readers to private detective Holly Gibney in Never Flinch. Benjamin Wallace. Atlantic Books Australia. $45.00. Satoshi Nakamoto is the person credited with inventing Bitcoin, the world's first cryptocurrency. But is he really a person? Does he even exist? If he does, he's a billionaire many times over, but, curiously, his $75 billion Bitcoin fortune has remained untouched. So is Nakamoto actually Elon Musk, or is he just a guy who lives on the Queensland coast? Benjamin Wallace has been writing about crypto since covering it for Wired in 2011, and he sees Nakamoto's identity as one of the last big mysteries. He follows a trail of breadcrumbs from the US to Norway and Australia. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Linda Jaivin. Black Inc. $26.99. Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s was a time when, it seemed to observers, almost the entire country went mad. Mao detonated the societal explosion that ripped the country and its heritage apart with the words Australian China expert Linda Jaivin has used as the title of this concise and very readable little book. Youthful red guards took violent aim at "the four olds", mass murders of class enemies were committed and even the centuries-old Forbidden City came close to destruction. Then came "mango worship", a bizarre, widespread veneration of ... a fruit. Find it at QBD Books or Amazon. Patrick McGee. Simon & Schuster. $36.99. That little glass and plastic brain we all have in our pockets, otherwise known as the iPhone, has changed the world. Apple's visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs, conceptualised it, but to build it, Apple had to rethink how to produce exceptional quality at huge scale. That path led to China, where Apple invested a staggering amount of money building excellence in manufacturing (and helping, the author argues, to create modern China in the process). A central theme of this book is the existential problem the world's biggest company faces from putting so many of its eggs in China's basket. Find it at Apple Books, QBD Books and Amazon. Harrison Christian. Ultimo Press. $36.99. A young Charles Darwin was set to become a clergyman when, in 1831, the chance to join a Christian mission to South America, aboard a ship called the HMS Beagle, fell into his lap. As Harrison Christian says, the voyage resulted in "one of the most unchristian theories imaginable" and Darwin's revolutionary book On the Origin of Species. Christian looks at the voyage and its aftermath from the perspectives of the budding scientist Darwin and the ship's fervently religious captain, Robert FitzRoy, who would later publicly denigrate his former companion and say that he was sorry he had taken Darwin aboard. Find it at Amazon, Big W, or Kobo. Taylor Jenkins Reid. Hutchinson Heinemann. $34.99. There are few contemporary fiction writers who write about falling in love better than Taylor Jenkins Reid. When NASA opened applications for the first female scientists in its space shuttle program Joan Goodwin knew she had to be one of them. What she hadn't planned on was how it would make her question everything she knew about herself - and the universe. She finds passion and a love she never imagined. Then, in December 1984, one mission changes everything. Atmosphere will hit you in the heart from every direction - and with a gravity that will stay with you long after you return to Earth. Find it at Amazon and Big W. Stephen King. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. Private detective Holly Gibney has been a recurring character in seven Stephen King novels since he introduced her in 2014's Mr Mercedes. She got her own crime to solve in 2023's Holly and now, in Never Flinch, we find her working for a women's rights activist to track the controversial campaigner's increasingly unhinged and bold stalker. When Holly's police detective friend Izzy Jaynes asks for her help identifying an anonymous letter writer threatening to kill "13 innocents and 1 guilty" as "an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man", the two disturbing and dangerous mysteries collide. Find it at Big W or Amazon. Michael Thompson. Pantera Press. $34.99. The film rights to Michael Thompson's first book, 2023 heartwarmer How to Be Remembered, were sold before it was published. The new novel by the Sydney-based former journalist and Ray Hadley radio show executive producer - who now co-hosts popular business news podcast Fear & Greed - promises more life-affirming drama as a small-town family doctor discovers he can see exactly how many days his patients have left to live. He uses this knowledge to try to help his patients, family and friends live full lives. But, of course, his "gift" doesn't quite work the way he hopes and he discovers some things he just doesn't want to know. Find it at QBD Books and Amazon. Holden Sheppard. Pantera Press. $34.99. Holden Sheppard's debut novel for young adults, Invisible Boys, about teens wrestling with their sexuality in fiercely macho Geraldton, is now a hit drama on Stan. That book drew on the author's experiences growing up gay in regional Western Australia and he does it again for his first book for adults, which expands beyond coming-of-age angst. Jack Brolo is a digger driver at remote WA worksites. He's desperately trying to cover his tracks as a gay man, with booze and reckless behaviour. Returning home to Geraldton for a wedding, he must face his conservative family and news he conceived a son with his teenage girlfriend. Find it at Amazon and QBD Books. You can also find these and other great books at Apple Books and on Kobo.
