Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin foundation, penned an open letter to Leah McGrath Goodman, the journalist who has purportedly discovered the true identity of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto and revealed in a Newsweek exclusive. Andresen’s disappointment, widely shared by the Bitcoin community, is that Goodman chose to publish photos of Nakamoto’s house, names of his family members, and other personal details that openly revealed how to track down this man.

Read: Newsweek Writer Invades Privacy of Man Named Satoshi Nakamoto

Andresen wrote on Twitter:

I’m disappointed Newsweek decided to dox the Nakamoto family, and regret talking to Leah.

— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) March 6, 2014

And then followed up with this open letter on Reddit. 

Hey Leah:

I meant exactly what I tweeted: I am disappointed you (or your publishers) chose to publish enough personal information that people can easily find Dorian and his family.

The pieces might all be public information, but you worked really hard to piece them all together, and the crazy people who might decide it is a good idea to go visit “Satoshi” are likely not as smart or hard-working as you.

And all of your evidence is circumstantial, EXCEPT for the “I’m not involved in that any more” quote, which might simply be an old man saying ANYTHING to get you to go away and leave him alone.

Anyway, I hope some good comes of all this; I hope it stimulates more debate on personal privacy and the role of journalists in our “pan-opticon” world.

FreedomPop, America’s fastest growing mobile service company, has launched a new FreedomPop Privacy Phone – the only smartphone and mobile service that enables encrypted communications.

The phone, nicknamed the “Snowden Phone,” is a response to the growing frustrations and concerns around privacy infringement, call monitoring and Internet tracking.

And guess what? The company accepts Bitcoin as payment for those desiring more payment privacy than their credit cards.

The company launched the phone to specifically protect Americans’ privacy, thereby providing the peace and assurance knowing your data is not being compromised.

“In light of recent violations in consumer’s privacy across social networks and mobile devices, privacy is becoming increasingly important to many Americans and we all have a right to communicate anonymously,” said Steven Sesar, COO at FreedomPop. “Large carriers don’t have the flexibility, desire or creativity to invest in privacy. We don’t agree with this approach and felt it was up to us to create a truly private mobile phone service at an affordable price.”

FreedomPop provides disruptive mobile services so that no one is left off the “connected grid.” Launched in 2012, FreedomPop is rewriting the rules of the American telecoms industry and is backed by Mangrove Capital, DCM and Skype Founder Niklas Zennstom’s Atomico. The company offers consumers access to free high-speed Internet and mobile phone services nationwide.

The Privacy Phone leverages FreedomPop’s VoIP network, and enables encrypted communication for voice calls and text messages. The phone also uses128-bit encryption – the same proven encryption trusted by banks and government agencies. In addition, all application and Internet data will be sent through a secure encrypted virtual private network (VPN) for anonymous Internet browsing while protecting from viruses, phishing websites and other malware. Users can also request a number change at any time as many times as they want.

FreedomPop allows customers to pay in Bitcoin. Though not purely anonymous, Bitcoin payments can be made without directly revealing one’s identity. Will the Snowden Phone become the device of choice for Bitcoiners?

The Privacy Phone costs $189 and is built on top of the Samsung Galaxy II Android smartphone and comes with unlimited voice and text, plus 500 MBs of data for three months then costs $10 a month after that.

For more information on the FreedomPop Privacy Phone and to sign up for service now, go to www.freedompop.com/privacyphone. Follow FreedomPop on Twitter @FreedomPop4G.

Upon sending the article to her publisher at Newsweek, freelance writer Leah McGrath Goodman was undoubtedly feeling pretty proud of herself.

She had found Satoshi Nakamoto! Yes, the father of Bitcoin, the elusive billionaire.

In a detailed exposé, Goodman describes a 64-year-old Japanese-American man living in California who wants to be left along to work on his model trains.

The journalist tracked Nakamoto – his name is actually Satoshi Nakamoto it turns out – to his home and intruded his privacy to the point that the police were called.

Nakamoto alleged admitted some past involvement in being the father of Bitcoin but did not want to say more.

“I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it,” he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. “It’s been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.”

Journalistic Integrity, Where Art Thou?

On one hand, this is the scoop of the century. Since Bitcoin started its meteoric rise in 2013, journalists everywhere have been clamoring to find the real identity of the man behind the cryptocurrency.

On the other hand, the published article portrays a litany of arguably unethical behavior by a freelance writer, including:

• Posting a photo of Nakamoto’s California home including the license plate number of his car
• Posting a photo of Nakamoto himself
• Posting names and details about Nakamoto’s family and personal finances

The man identified as the creator of Bitcoin is not living the billionaire lifestyle that his original investment could afford him. On the contrary, he seems to be getting by and has had his own run of personal finance troubles such as foreclosed mortgages.

This mean’s that Nakamoto, if truly the originator of Bitcoin, has access to incredible wealth but has not cashed out and created the appropriate protections for that wealth, both in terms of personal security and financial diversification.

In other words, Leah McGrath Goodman may have just told the world where to find the private keys to hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

Immediately, responses to the article began taking the form of:

“This is one of the most moronic and grossly irresponsible pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Your speculative article on the person behind bitcoin was blatantly disrespectful, a breach of journalist integrity, and has placed this man and his family in potentially life-threatening danger.”

“What a disgusting, irresponsible exercise in sensationalism and attention-whoring.”

Goodman seems defiant in her approach, suggesting that she didn’t reveal anything non-public.

@EntropyExtropy Good question. Pictures and info people are asking about (including residence and car) already public. His name too.#Bitcoin

— Leah McGrath Goodman (@truth_eater) March 6, 2014

For our part, we won’t be reposting details about the man’s identity until he himself comes forward and willingly acknowledges his involvement in Bitcoin.

With the meteoric rise in price of Bitcoin, we have a decimalization problem.

If you wanted to buy a cup of coffee with bitcoins today, the point-of-sale register would quote a price of 0.0027760 BTC. For early adopters of Bitcoin, that’s easy enough to understand. But what about normal consumers?

A new proposal, called BitNote, is looking to solve this.

“Bitnote is a freely available Bit-currency price quoting system that anyone can use,” say its creators  Joey Cofone and Adam Kornfield.

Taking inspiration from data storage math – byte, KB, MB, and GB – the conversion from Bitcoin to Bitnote is similar: 1 Bitcoin = 1,024 Bitnotes

“This simply provides an easier presentation and naming mechanism that people are far more accustomed with,” explained the Bitnote team. “The more people can name and understand their currency units, the more likely they are to embrace Bitcoin.”

For example, instead of quoting a movie ticket as 0.021513 Bitcoins it now becomes 22.03 Bitnotes. Same value, easier means of understanding.

The team has also proposed a currency symbol for Bitnote, explaining “All good currency symbols—such as the British Pound, US Dollar, or Japanese Yen—have carefully crafted currency symbols. This takes a combination of simplicity, uniqueness, and ease of replication (both digitally and by hand), which we applied in taking the Bit-currency symbols to the next level.”

What about mBTC?

Bitnote is not the first concept to address the running decimals of Bitcoin. Most people in the Bitcoin world have become comfortable with breaking down 1 Bitcoin as follows:

• 1 mBTC (milli-bitcoin) = 1/1,000 BTC
• 1 µBTC (micro-bitcoin) = 1/1,000,000 BTC
• 1 satoshi = 1/100,000,000 BTC

This system allows for a future where, if 1 BTC is worth $1 million, we can still buy coffee with satoshis.

As Bitcoin is a decentralized system, there is no governing body to dictate whether Bitnote or mBTC becomes the term of art for the mainstream. Only time will tell.

Learn more about Bitnote at www.bitnote.co.

“CoinSummit is about quality, and not quantity. Our aim is to create a sought after annual rendezvous for leaders and key stakeholder in the cryptocurrency space and provide the right environment for high quality networking.” — Pamir Gelenbe, Founder of CoinSummit

There’s a new Bitcoin conference coming to San Francisco this month that is shaping up to feature the who’s who of Bitcoin! CoinSummit will take place on March 25-26 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

This invite-only two day event connects virtual currency entrepreneurs, angel and VC investors, hedge fund professionals and others who are looking to learn and network in the virtual currency industry. Request your invitation to CoinSummit here.

Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz was recently announced as the keynote speaker. And Jackson Palmer, the co-founder of Dogecoin, will make his first public speaking appearance at the conference. much wow!

Other speakers include Roger Ver, Nicolas Cary, CEO of Blockchain.info; Nejc Kodric, Founder of Bitstamp;, Will O’Brien, CEO of BitGo;, Chris Larsen, CEO of Ripple Labs;, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum.org, Patrick Murck, General Counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation, angel investor Ben Davenport, Ribbit Capital’s Micky Malka and Nick Shalek, Naval Ravikant, founder of AngelList;, Brock Pierce, angel investor and board member, Mastercoin Foundation;, and Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners, and several others will be representing the investment community, among other heavy hitters from Silicon Valley.

“We expect an explosion of new companies entering the space and developing new products in often difficult and uncertain climates,” said a conference spokesperson. “Mixing services to maintain user anonymity and privacy will be a hotly contested topic and most likely subject to regulatory guidance in the US. Security is also likely to be a big theme at the conference (watch out for people walking around with the Trezors). Merchant adoption is gathering pace and stores are seeing the benefits of using a bearer instrument in accepting payment.”

CoinSummit is also hosting a  StartUp Showcase at the conference. The Startup Showcase will offer 10 hand picked cryptocurrency start-ups the opportunity to present in front of the entire CoinSummit audience. Startups need to apply here with their pitch deck and will be selected on the basis of the size and attractiveness of the opportunity they are pursuing, the strength of their team, and their traction/metrics/achievements.

The selection panel consists of leading investors in the cryptocurrency space and includes Ben Davenport, Angel investor and entrepreneur, Jimmy Furland, Angel investor and entrepreneur, Pamir Gelenbe, Founder of CoinSummit and Partner at Hummingbird Ventures, Firat Ileri, Investor at Hummingbird Ventures, Martin Mignot, investor at Index Ventures, Alex Morcos, Angel Investor and founder of Hudson River Trading, Jez San, Angel Investor and founder of PKR.com, Nick Shalek investor at Ribbit Capital, and Santiago Subotovsky from Emergence Capital Partners. The deadline for applying is March 17 2014 and the selected start-ups will be announced on March 19. Attendance for the presenting CEO/Founder of the selected start-ups will be free of charge.

“While there are many Bitcoin conferences and events around the world, we aim for CoinSummit to be the defining event for entrepreneurs, investors, decision makers and industry leaders to congregate,” said Gelenbe, who is also a venture partner at Hummingbird Ventures. “Our aim is to bring great people together, entrepreneurs and investors passionate about the ecosystem to discuss, network and make things happen in a beautiful space ripe for creativity. ”

Numbers are limited so the conference organizers have created an application process. Early bird prices are $500 for pre-series A Entrepreneurs and $1500 for all others.  You can apply directly here.

On Bitcoin is pleased to be a media partner of CoinSummit.

Hope to see you on the 25th and 26th March at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for what is set to be an unmissable event.

Visit coinsumm.it to learn more and follow them on Twitter @coinsummit.