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I think it's a reasonable explanation for the name, but it almost completely rules out these three people as the author of Bitcoin. Using part of your actual name as part of your pseudonym would be incredibly stupid.

Chelsea Manning (nee Brad) was caught almost immediately because she leaked her documents through an account with the username "bmanningfm".

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I think back to 2009 and think of the state of opsec back then and I think people could very much use ridiculously traceable names for something like Bitcoin.

Though I think bitcoin Satoshi made a reasonable effort to keep anonymous.

It was probably cunning to use the name of a real person, the Satoshi Nakamoto who lived a few blocks from Finney as it would confuse any legal efforts to go after the bitcoin creator Satoshi.

I mean in court it would be saying I accuse you Joe Bloggs of being Satoshi Nakamoto and Joe Bloggs would be saying no it's the guy in LA who is actually called that.

Good point.

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