Which is fine. Nick was only just starting to learn about bitcoin at this time. I didn't understand this until much after I was first exposed to bitcoin, tbh. Much of how bitcoin/crypto works, although we take it for granted now, was very non-obvious to people working on ecash-like systems at the time. Bitcoin basically violates every inviolable constraint that cypherpunks had put on digital money systems.

On the other hand, just go read Adam's twitter. Half the time it is incomprehensible word salad because Adam clearly still does not proof-read his communications. Yet Satoshi's emails and forum posts were always considered and well-crafted.

In any case, I have no stake in this. I don't even own bitcoin anymore. It's just frustrating to see people's lives continuously turned upside down for no reason other than to drive clicks towards the NYT, without even the most basic journalistic integrity.

That’s about the level of investigative journalism performed by NYT here. Thanks for being sensible.

I’m a primary player in this sad saga. I can tell you that neither Szabo nor Back are Satoshi, as anyone who knows them would attest.

But to your question, all this does is make this “journalist” look dumb. The thing being discussed by Adam and Nick wasn’t wven proposed for bitcoin until 6 years after Satoshi disappeared.

The very first rule doesn’t work. If you ask for the answer up front, it will make something up and then justify it. If you ask for reasoning first, it will brainstorm and then come up with a reasonable answer that integrates its thinking.