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Wikipedia says "Nakamoto created a website with the domain name bitcoin.org" and "transferred several related domains", while bitcoin.org says it was "originally registered and owned by Bitcoin's first two developers, Satoshi Nakamoto and Martti Malmi". A 2014 businessinsider.com article says bitcoin.org was first registered in 2008 via anonymousspeech.com, and that Malmi stated bitcoin.org was "originally created by Satoshi", and Malmi's first contact with Nakamoto was in 2011 when bitcoin.org was transferred to Malmi.

The article also says anonymousspeech.com accepted cash and E-gold. Did Nakamoto pay for the original bitcoin.org registration, and used cash or E-gold (paid for with cash) to do that and keep his origins untraceable? Or is it possible that somewhere in history is a non-anonymous payment of some kind that would finger Nakamoto? For example, archive.org shows bitcoin.org was an actual hosted site at least by January 31, 2009. Where was it hosted, and how and to whom was that hosting paid for?

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    > Malmi's first contact with Nakamoto was in 2011 when bitcoin.org was transferred to Malmi. Malmi did work on Bitcoin in December 2009
    – 0xb10c
    Commented Aug 1, 2019 at 19:06
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    Interesting question! I'm also looking forward to hear more on that. But you may find answers to such questions much more rapidly at bitcointalk.org rather than here. It is a everything-around-bitcoin community while here is focused on technical side of bitcoin (& much better).
    – behkod
    Commented Sep 4, 2019 at 22:39
  • He must have paid for it with Bitcoins! Ah, wait...
    – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
    Commented Jan 13, 2021 at 17:58
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    @user97386 the domain was purschased using egold. A somewhat clone of PayPal distributing it s own money pegged to gold. Interesting that Bitcoin was created when the managers of egold were having a hard time being sued for money laundering because their thing didn t allowed to trace who made what with the funds.
    – user2284570
    Commented Jan 14, 2021 at 11:02

2 Answers 2

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How did Nakamoto untraceably pay for registering bitcoin.org?

Nobody knows for certain apart from Nakamoto and the businesses involved.

Nakamoto was (and remains) notably secretive and their true identity is not reliably known† and they no longer communicate with the world using that name in any verifiable manner.

All the businesses involved in the alleged registration process protect the identity and other confidential information associated with their customers. As they should. Therefore the details sought are not public knowledge.

first registered in 2008 ...

That certainly appears to be the case.

The domain registry information currently includes the following information:

Domain Name: BITCOIN.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D153621148-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Creation Date: 2008-08-18T13:19:55Z
Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.

...via anonymousspeech.com,

The website of AnonymousSpeech.org says

Any inquiries regarding the identity of our subscribers are ignored. We do not respond to any of them.

We are committed to the privacy of our users, and will absolutely not release any kind of data to any foreign governments.

archive.org shows bitcoin.org was an actual hosted site at least by January 31, 2009. Where was it hosted, and how and to whom was that hosting paid for?

That information is not available.

We know a couple of important things about Nakamoto:

  • They were extremely protective of the secrecy of their identity.
  • Though their work was not without flaws, they were competent in the field of online privacy and encryption.

We should therefore not expect to easily find any information they specifically sought to hide from the public.

Nakamoto's main aim was to create a cash system that did not rely on trusting third parties - their aim was not to teach us how to anonymously register DNS domains. This should shape our expectations of available information.

Footnotes

† So far as I know, the people claiming to be Nakamoto have failed to provide proof or have provided evidence subsequently shown to be false. We cannot ask Nakamoto and if we could, they would not an answer if their behaviour is consistent with their past behaviour.

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    So law enforcement might get it if needed.
    – user2284570
    Commented Sep 6, 2020 at 12:35
  • @user2284570 and like Al Capone, they would first come to collect taxes from him, considering that he has around 1 million bitcoins! It is for this reason that I believe governments might actually know who he is, he must have made some opsec mistake on the early days somewhere, and the incentive to find them is large.
    – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
    Commented Jan 14, 2021 at 10:49
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    @CiroSantilli郝海东冠状病六四事件法轮功 Depends. In come countries you don t have to pay anything until you cash out. Also, I learned the domain was purschased using egold. A somewhat clone of PayPal distributing it s own money pegged to gold. Interesting that Bitcoin was created when the managers of egold were having a hard time being sued for money laundering because their thing didn t allowed to trace who made what with the funds.
    – user2284570
    Commented Jan 14, 2021 at 11:00
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    @CiroSantilli郝海东冠状病六四事件法轮功 more exactly, he bought the domain on registrar offerring to pay in egold as well as visa/MasterCard. But nothing states he paid in gold outside the fact his stands seems to favor a gold standard.
    – user2284570
    Commented Jan 14, 2021 at 11:54
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    @user2284570 Do you have any references for this claim that he paid with egold?
    – Pieter Wuille
    Commented Jan 15, 2021 at 1:28
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The answer to this is the way domain names are purchased and secured at registrars such as godaddy.com and namecheap.com plus multiple registrar payment methods. For a fee the registrar will hide the true owner and all details of a site and put in a proxy name. You can go to www.internic.net to find out about a domain such as:

Domain Name: BITCOIN.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D153621148-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-24T13:58:35Z
Creation Date: 2008-08-18T13:19:55Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2029-08-18T13:19:55Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date:
Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1068
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6613102107
Reseller:
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registrant Organization: WhoisGuard, Inc.
Registrant State/Province: Panama
Registrant Country: PA
Name Server: DNS1.REGISTRAR-SERVERS.COM
Name Server: DNS2.REGISTRAR-SERVERS.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned

Domain names can be moved from owner to owner of registrar to registrar around in a highly secure fashion and decentralized fashion. Now that I think about it, a little like coin transfers.

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