It's not a theory I have ever heard, and I think there's sufficient reason to rule it out. Swartz never really professed an interest in currency or monetary policy, etc. that I am aware of. He was an extremely prolific individual who worked on many very public projects. Transparency was clearly one of his core values, and never exhibited more than passing general nerd interest in cryptography, anonymity, or the technolibertarian ideal that seems to have been a driving force for Satoshi. Also, he was already pretty damned busy in 2008-2009. I doubt he would have had time to do the huge amount of design work that went into Bitcoin without somebody noticing what he was working on.
So, Aaron was a brilliant dude, who did a lot of cool stuff. I just don't think the personality matches up, at all, with whoever created Bitcoin. If Swartz created a cryptocurrency, which I don't think he would have, I doubt it would look like Bitcoin. (There's also several people much higher on the list of "might be Satoshi".)
Nick Szabo and Wei Dai appear to be mythical creatures just as much as Satoshi Nakamoto and therefore saying that, say, Szabo is Nakamoto provides no information. The other two appear to be real people.
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It's not a theory I have ever heard, and I think there's sufficient reason to rule it out. Swartz never really professed an interest in currency or monetary policy, etc. that I am aware of. He was an extremely prolific individual who worked on many very public projects. Transparency was clearly one of his core values, and never exhibited more than passing general nerd interest in cryptography, anonymity, or the technolibertarian ideal that seems to have been a driving force for Satoshi. Also, he was already pretty damned busy in 2008-2009. I doubt he would have had time to do the huge amount of design work that went into Bitcoin without somebody noticing what he was working on.
So, Aaron was a brilliant dude, who did a lot of cool stuff. I just don't think the personality matches up, at all, with whoever created Bitcoin. If Swartz created a cryptocurrency, which I don't think he would have, I doubt it would look like Bitcoin. (There's also several people much higher on the list of "might be Satoshi".)
Who are on your list?
Nick Szabo. Mike Hearn. Hal Finney. Wei Dai.
Nick Szabo and Wei Dai appear to be mythical creatures just as much as Satoshi Nakamoto and therefore saying that, say, Szabo is Nakamoto provides no information. The other two appear to be real people.
I believe these are both meatspace identities.
Nick Szabo is a "former law school professor at George Washington University" according to Wikipedia.
Wei Dai has attended SIAI/MIRI workshops in person:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ig9/outside_views_and_miris_fai_endg...
("Wei Dai" could be a pseudonym but if so I haven't seen him mention that on Less Wrong.)
Yes.