Postulation warning; The following is entirely devoid of evidence:
Taking for granted that Wright is not Satoshi.. How could a respected, crypto-savvy computer scientist become duped by an old sign(i/a)ture?
The obvious answer is that the con-man is a very good con-man, and i'm not writing off that possibility. But what other reasons could there be for his support?
The next possibility is that he benefits from having the media move on. For instance, It would help him to continue hiding the real identity of Satoshi. Perhaps he is even the cryptographer himself. Since he has other "experts" with him for the ride, he can claim ignorance and not suffer professionally if it goes south.
There could also be less direct political motivations for feigning belief. Bitcoin gains stability by moving the huge sums of early coins into a more accountable state than "these coins could crash the market any day now."
"Matonis, Andresen and Wright are all big-blockians. Having the esteemed creator Satoshi on their side would help their argument, and it is entirely plausible that there are several large organisations who would benefit from having more control over the regulation of Bitcoin."
The same fact is also alluded to in the OP Economist article:
"It pays, too, to bear in mind that Mr Wright’s outing will most likely be of benefit to those in the current bitcoin civil war who want to expand the block size quickly, whose number include Mr Matonis and Mr Andresen. Mr Wright says that if he could reinvent bitcoin, he would program in a steady increase of the block size."
Add to that that there's this conference in NY today where Andresen repeats his claims:
Ah. That seems most likely to me. If true, It is interesting to see this scale of disinformation campaign by a non-government actor. It seems like it would unravel quickly without having any meaningful control over media.
Taking for granted that Wright is not Satoshi.. How could a respected, crypto-savvy computer scientist become duped by an old sign(i/a)ture?
The obvious answer is that the con-man is a very good con-man, and i'm not writing off that possibility. But what other reasons could there be for his support?
The next possibility is that he benefits from having the media move on. For instance, It would help him to continue hiding the real identity of Satoshi. Perhaps he is even the cryptographer himself. Since he has other "experts" with him for the ride, he can claim ignorance and not suffer professionally if it goes south.
There could also be less direct political motivations for feigning belief. Bitcoin gains stability by moving the huge sums of early coins into a more accountable state than "these coins could crash the market any day now."