Satoshi Nakamoto, Adam Back or Both? 4/10/26

Summary

Squawk Pod – Episode Summary

Date: April 10, 2026
Episode: Satoshi Nakamoto, Adam Back or Both?
Host: CNBC (Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Notable Guests: Adam Back (Blockstream CEO, cryptographer), Pete Buttigieg (former Transportation Secretary), John Carreyrou (investigative journalist, via discussion)

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on two key topics:

• The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity: With renewed focus following New York Times reporting that claims Adam Back is likely Bitcoin’s creator, the episode welcomes Back himself for a direct interview and in-depth cross-examination.
• Macroeconomic news and political debate: Including rising inflation, the impacts of war in Iran, energy costs, and fiery political exchanges with former Secretary Pete Buttigieg on the causes and responses to surging consumer prices.

Additional segments touch on the intensifying rivalry between leading AI firms, security concerns from new AI models, and the growing risks of AI-generated misinformation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Financial Markets & Inflation Amid Geopolitical Crisis

• Market Resilience Despite Rising Energy Costs
  • Stock indices like the S&P 500, NASDAQ, Russell 2000, and Dow Transports all marked gains despite a five-week spike in energy prices. (03:00–05:15)
• Mixed Economic Signals
  • Hosts debate how markets seem to look past war headlines. Joe Kernan notes, “It was up 300 points all morning… it was troubling because the night before… we had the ceasefire.” (03:10)
  • Becky Quick: “The bluster that is coming from all sides seems to belie this underlying… both sides might want to [deal].” (04:06)
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin expresses skepticism: “I'm going half empty because ... equity holders are professional optimists and are willing to put on a lot of blinders.” (05:16)

2. Inflation & Politics: A Spirited Debate with Pete Buttigieg

Latest Consumer Price Data (Starting at 15:35)

• US inflation hits 3.3% annual rate, energy up 10.9%—highest since April 2024.
• Pete Buttigieg’s Critique:
  • “Right now, we have the administration actively making prices higher… with tariffs… killing energy transmission projects… and a war nobody wanted.” (16:16)
  • “You see inflation tripling from last month... not because the administration tried and failed… but really because they actively increased them.”
• Host Pushback:
  • Becky Quick pushes back, arguing the administration faced a real security threat with Iran. (17:12)
  • Buttigieg insists the war was “a huge fail for the White House because they assured us the nuclear program was obliterated a year ago… the President started this war because he wanted to.” (17:29)
  • Joe Kernan counters: “Unless you really think it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” (19:12)
  • Buttigieg: “They don't have a nuclear weapon. They weren't about to get a nuclear weapon.” (19:19)
  • Buttigieg further: “America is weaker because the president launched [the war].” (19:52)
• Inflation Accountability:
  • Buttigieg: “Why did the president fail to keep his promise to lower prices, in your opinion?” (23:03)
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin: “The president did say he wanted… to bring inflation down, and he has not brought inflation down. That's all.” (23:07)
• Closing on Approval & Shutdowns:
  • Buttigieg argues: “This president has made decisions to make himself better off. If you're the kind of person who can pay a million bucks for the entry fee to Mar a Lago, then you’re doing great. But everybody else is hurting right now.” (25:10)
  • Buttigieg laments systemic dysfunction over government shutdowns: “Can we all agree this is no way to run a ball club?... None of this is normal. It's not normal to fail to have a budget or an appropriation before the deadline.” (28:37)

3. AI Rivalry and Risks

OpenAI vs Anthropic & AI System Failures (07:17–12:32)

• Executive concerns: Fed and Treasury chiefs warn big banks about Anthropic’s new “Mythos” model, able to “find and exploit vulnerabilities in major operating systems and web browsers when prompted.” (07:12)
• OpenAI launches new pro Codex feature—$100/month, 3 million weekly users.
• Rising competition and infrastructure scaling highlighted by Becky Quick: “Anthropic CFO called [the Google & Broadcom] agreement a continuation of our disciplined approach to scaling infrastructure.” (08:19)
• AI misinformation:
  • Researchers invent fake eye disease “Bixoni mania,” upload fake “research,” and watch major LLMs cite it as fact.
  • “By the way, the fake research papers thanked the Starfleet Academy and the USS Enterprise, cited funding from the Sideshow Bob Foundation and the University of Fellowship of the Ring, and it stated mid-paper that the entire thing was made up...” – Becky Quick (10:08)

4. The Satoshi Nakamoto Deep Dive

Investigating Identity (Starts 29:33, Main Interview 31:46)

• Background: NYT’s John Carreyrou concludes that Adam Back is Satoshi, using analytical telemetry and writing analysis; Back adamantly denies it.

• Adam Back: On Anonymity and Denial

  • “It's difficult to prove a negative or dissuade people out of something they want to believe.” (33:00)
  • “In the early era... there’s chat discussions showing that I’m going through a learning process, for example.” (33:23)

• On Evidence and Metadata:

  • Adam Back received an email from ‘Satoshi’ in August 2008, shared partial headers privately for legal evidence, but withheld full email metadata publicly, citing privacy norms and practical reasons.
  • “If they can assure me that it's all good, then I'm not averse to sharing them because I suspect there's nothing there.” (36:00)

• Direct Questions:

  • Becky Quick: “Are you either Satoshi or did you help create Satoshi?”
    Adam Back: “No.” (37:07)
  • “Did you write the bitcoin white paper? Did you create the blockchain?”
    Adam Back: “No, no. I proposed some early ideas that bitcoin ends up using, but there were gaps in our ideas… Satoshi really solved a few key problems.” (38:33)
  • “Is Satoshi one person?”
    Adam Back: “Yeah, I suspect so. Because, you know, it's hard to keep a secret if you have a group of friends.... stylistically I think the code is sort of... done by one person.” (41:06)

• The "disappearance" overlap:

  • Sorkin: “You disappeared from the forums when Satoshi was visible, then reappeared.”
  • Back explains: “I was co-founder of a startup...I just basically [was] very busy with some very fun and interesting things.” (41:55)

• Personal Finance Disclosure & Speculation:

  • “The absence of this disclosure is in fact a form of proof that it’s not me. Right. Because there are hazards to not filling these things in correctly.” (43:11)

• On Founder Anonymity’s Value:

  • “I think it’s actually quite beneficial for bitcoin that...there is no identifiable founder. You know, it feels more like a discovery than an invention or a product. Without that, Bitcoin is much more free to be considered like digital gold, a global commodity...” (44:01)

Notable Quotes

• Adam Back:

  • “It’s difficult to prove a negative or dissuade people out of something they want to believe.” (33:00)
  • “If you have a group of friends… the rumor spreads. Somebody gets drunk and says something inadvisable.” (41:06)
  • “Stylistically, the code is done by one person.” (41:06)
  • “It's actually quite beneficial for bitcoin that...there is no identifiable founder. It feels more like a discovery than an invention.” (44:01)

• Becky Quick:

  • “Are you either Satoshi or did you help create Satoshi?” (37:07)
  • “Did you write the bitcoin white paper?” (38:33)

5. Final Topic: The Quantum Threat to Bitcoin

• Joe Kernan: “Do you worry about quantum [computing] and the threat to bitcoin ten years from now?” (45:58)
• Adam Back:
  • Notes Blockstream’s research into post-quantum security, estimating a 10–20 year risk horizon:
    “The best calculation [quantum computers have] done...is to calculate that 15 is 3 times 5...below the power of a desk calculator today.” (48:14)

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Segment Timestamps

• Inflation/Markets: 02:39–08:19
• AI News/Misinformation: 07:17–12:32
• Pete Buttigieg interview (inflation/war): 15:35–29:26
• Satoshi Nakamoto/Adam Back Interview: 31:46–48:26
• Quantum threat discussion: 45:58–48:14

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Conclusion: Episode Takeaways

• The episode provided a pointed political debate on inflation's root causes, government response, and accountability—anchored by the volatile international context of war and energy shocks.
• The AI segment highlighted explosive growth, security concerns, and the tangible risks of misinformation in today’s large language models, with real-world cautionary tales.
• Adam Back’s segment offered exhaustive insights into Bitcoin’s ideological founding, the enduring cultural impact of Satoshi’s anonymity, and the technical nuances that continue to provoke speculation—delivering both clarity and mystery.
• Listeners gained a rare, candid look at one of crypto’s foundational personalities, as well as up-to-the-minute coverage of economic and technological power struggles shaping 2026.

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For first-time listeners:
This episode delivers a full spectrum: from hard-hitting economic and political crossfire to the enigmatic drama of Bitcoin’s origin—framed by the voices shaping today’s headlines.

Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

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[Pete Buttigieg]

Before we had AT&T business wireless coverage,

[Adam Back]

our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn.

[Adam Back]

An influencer even livestream the whole thing.

[Joe Kernan]

Not good for business.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Now with AT&T business Wireless, routes are

[Adam Back]

updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53 new followers though.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.

[Adam Back]

Bring in show music, please.

[Narrator/Host]

This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, the suspected bitcoin creator who denies being Satoshi Nakamoto. Noted computer scientist Adam Back joins us and he makes the case for continued anonymity.

[Adam Back]

I think it's actually quite beneficial for bitcoin that, you know, for whatever reason that you chose to step away in 2011, that there is no identifiable founder. You know, it feels more like a discovery than, you know, an invention or a product.

[Narrator/Host]

And the latest US Inflation data is out. The Iran war has sent energy prices soaring, which has pushed inflation higher. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins us for a lively conversation about consumer wallets, the Iran war, and much, much more.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Why did the president fail to keep his promise to lower prices, in your opinion?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The president did say he wanted to be in office to bring inflation down, and he has not brought inflation down.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That's all. He drove it up.

[Narrator/Host]

Those big conversations, plus Kevin Warsh's Fed nomination hearing has been delayed. OpenAI has put its rival Anthropic on blast. And a fake research paper has fooled AI.

[Becky Quick]

The researchers intentionally put all kinds of things that any actual academic or professor or medical student would pick up on immediately.

[Narrator/Host]

It's Friday, April 10th, and Squawkpod begins right now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Standby in 3, 2, 1.

[Adam Back]

Cuba, please.

[Becky Quick]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on cnbc. We're live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. It is Friday. You saw, I think Seven days in a row of gains for the S&P 500, for the NASDAQ, for the Russell 2000, for the Dow Transports, and the Dow Transports actually sitting at new highs, which is kind of crazy when you consider what has happened to energy prices over the last five weeks or so.

[Joe Kernan]

Weird mixed signals. Anyone else surprised? Yesterday when they looked at the market, it was up 300 points all morning long. And I got to admit, it was like you get bogged down in the, you know, and all the conjecture about what's going to happen. And it looked very. Well, it was troubling. Yesterday it was troubling because the night before, the day before we had the ceasefire.

[Becky Quick]

17% or energy prices.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah. Yesterday. Nothing's getting through. Nothing's getting through. It's awful. Israel's bombing the. Is bejesus.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Okay.

[Joe Kernan]

I think out of, out of Lebanon. And then throughout the day, this starts trickling out that, you know, Trump talked to Netanyahu and said, you know, let's, you know, not do this. Netanyahu may be entering peace talks with Lebanon.

[Becky Quick]

Well, and the bluster that is coming from all sides in this, at least from the rhetoric from it seems to belie this underlying.

[Joe Kernan]

Both sides might want, Both sides really want to. Exactly. You know, Iran is going to be. Iran's going to Iran. And we know how that works. They're going to say we're winning and all that. But if you were them and you got no Navy, you got, you know, very little Air Force, you know, Air Force defense systems, you don't have a lot left at this point. You got, you got boats that can, you got speedboats that can go up to the strait. You got speedboats that can go up there.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And that's the central issue.

[Joe Kernan]

I know, but they can still do that.

[Becky Quick]

To give that up. That's their last.

[Joe Kernan]

They are, but I think they want

[Becky Quick]

a big piece of leverage.

[Joe Kernan]

I think as the day went on, yes, at least I started feeling a little bit better instead of feeling so half empty, started feeling half full that, you know, that maybe over the weekend things start, you know, the, maybe this. There's the makings of a deal.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah. What's interesting is this was happening while energy prices continue to climb. Really, you're looking at energy prices this morning. WTI is at 98, 72. This comes after it dropped into the 90th $3 range. On the initial news of that cease fire. Brent's at 96, 65. But again, the overall feel, at least from the equity sides of things, is that maybe you get right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But I'm going half empty because I think you got to watch that number. I think that. I think that equity holders are professional optimists and for some reason are willing to put on a lot of blinders to a lot.

[Joe Kernan]

It was 120 in 2022.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yes. But that was an unusual and very

[Joe Kernan]

crazy moment in war that we thought was going to last. Sources telling CNBC that an expected nomination hearing for Fed chair candidate Kevin Wash has been delayed, but will likely take place soon. Warsh had originally been set to appear before the Senate Banking Committee next Thursday. Sources say that panel has yet to receive paperwork from Warsh, including financial disclosures. Those may be especially complicated. Number one, Warsh is married to Estee Lauder cosmetic Eric Jane Lauder, whose net worth is estimated near $2 billion. And Kevin is an associate and employee of Stan Druckenmiller, who. I'm sure he's doing fine in that role as well, I would think. You do your taxes and it's boom. Right? They might have more. I have to get an extension on my extension. I don't know why. I don't why. I think he's got. Can you imagine? I think there's not an a. You better get freaking Claude for you. The best AI program. Yeah.

[Becky Quick]

We were talking the other day about AI.

[Joe Kernan]

You need. You need AI to code.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Shockingly, shockingly. Really basic. Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

With all the varied and sundry.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah. But it's just. It's very, very simple.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Just.

[Joe Kernan]

You don't even claim any. You just got a short form. No, no.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's a short form, but nobody's got a short form.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It's just.

[Becky Quick]

You got to start sooner.

[Joe Kernan]

No, I know. I got my own issues, but I don't know why either, to be honest. I'm just a W2 person.

[Becky Quick]

Right. That's the.

[Joe Kernan]

Are you a W2? Well, I'm like.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I'm a W2 person.

[Becky Quick]

All right. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Fed Chair Jay Powell reportedly sounding the alarm on the power of Anthropic's latest AI model and the cyber risks that it could pose. Institutions reports say that Bessen and Powell summoned big bank CEOs to a meeting earlier this week to warn them about Anthropic's new Mythos model and to make sure that they are taking precautions to defend their tech systems. Anthropic has said Mythos is able to find and exploit vulnerabilities in major operating systems and web browsers when prompted. It's so far limiting the rollout of the model CNBC has reached out to the treasury department for comment.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

OpenAI announcing a pro chat got GPT tier that now offers more coding power as the giants looking to take on rival Anthropic and its popular Claude code tool. Now OpenAI's new Codex offering will cost $100 per month. Earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying the Codex had 3 million weekly users. Becky, you've got an interesting story.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah, this. Separately, OpenAI criticized anthropic in a letter to investors this week. The memo, which was viewed by CNBC, says that anthropic is, in OpenAI's words, operating on a meaningfully smaller curve. It also characterized Anthropic as compute constrained. The companies obviously are battling for a share in a rapidly intensifying AI market. Anthropic pointed CNBC to the company's announcement earlier this week. Tied to a deal with Google and Broadcom. Anthropic CFO called that agreement a continuation of our disciplined approach to scaling infrastructure. I guess kind of slapping back that we're not cutting deals and doing compute for everybody all the time. That CFO went on to say, we are building the capacity necessary to serve the exponential growth that we have seen in our customer base, while also enabling CLAUDE to define the frontier of AI development.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And by the way, on that front, what's part of what's happening is there really is so much use of cloud code that you get depending on what level you're at. And even if you're at some of the higher levels, they are throttling you so you can be working and then all of a sudden you realize you're out of tokens and you have to pay more or you have to do something or you have to wait because everyone else is using it. I mean, it's that popular place, and

[Becky Quick]

so that place is so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, but I don't know about that. But, but this is the conundrum that we've been talking about the whole time, which is, can you build fast enough? And are, you know, we've all said, are they going to. Are they overspending? And they're saying, no, no, no, we're not overspending because we're seeing that we need, we need the compute.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah, yeah, Anthropic has been winning. You were talking about it yesterday. Over the last several months, while all that is happening, there's a separate story in nature that brings up the problems with some of these large language models. Just in general, Joe, you've said this for forever. Garbage in garbage out there was a researcher who invented a fake eye condition called Bixoni mania, uploaded two obviously fraudulent papers about it to an academic server and then watched major AI systems present it as real medicine. Within weeks they said that Google's Gemini told users it was caused by blue light perplexity cited as prevalence as 1 in 90,000 people. ChatGPT advised users whether their symptoms maxed. By the way, the fake research papers that did this thanked the Starfleet Academy and the USS Enterprise. It cited funding from the Professor Sideshow Bob foundation and the University of Fellowship of the Ring and it stated mid paper that the entire thing was made up with 20 to 50 made up individuals that they used for this and within weeks it was everywhere and it was a new real condition.

[Joe Kernan]

ChatGPT also said but that's an excellent question and you're a really good individual and I look forward to.

[Becky Quick]

You've been speaking a lot with ChatGPT.

[Joe Kernan]

No, I don't anymore. I don't anymore. They try to. Tries to suck up to me and gives me wrong answers. No, but it always whenever I'm asking so it will tell me I'm right

[Becky Quick]

and then I beat it into submission.

[Joe Kernan]

No, no. What about, what about Gemini is that. That's my new thing. Is Gemini pretty good?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think Gemini is pretty good. I still thought, you know, I still believe to my core that Gemini should be the winner of this given the surface area that they have in terms of all the applications that they touch and how advanced they are. But for whatever reason, Anthropic's got the Enterprise players right?

[Joe Kernan]

I got a little stuff, I got a little icon on, on my phone where I can go right to Gemini now I don't have that. Like good.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Wow, good for you.

[Joe Kernan]

I couldn't help think about how great this would be for, for, for climate change to be able to do that, to be able to do just put in a bunch of fake. Which they kind of did already without AI.

[Becky Quick]

There are pictures, AI generated pictures of this fake disease with your eyes getting from too much computer.

[Joe Kernan]

This is perfect. You're giving people ideas. We're going to be back in the existence.

[Becky Quick]

Well the researchers intentionally put all kinds of things that any actual academic or professor or medical student would pick up on immediately.

[Adam Back]

Cheese will be next.

[Narrator/Host]

Coming up on Squawk Pod, a fiery conversation with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

[Pete Buttigieg]

The strait was open before he started

[Joe Kernan]

this close to having a nuclear weapon. 11 nuclear weapons.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We had other ways of dealing.

[Joe Kernan]

Like what? Obama's way. Well that worked that did not work.

[Narrator/Host]

The Iran war, fuel prices, inflationary pressures, and much more all awaiting you on the other side of this break.

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[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

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[Narrator/Host]

What made you confident that you could

[Becky Quick]

do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.

[Narrator/Host]

Trailblazing women, changing the game. One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.

[Becky Quick]

Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.

[Narrator/Host]

Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players new episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, you are listening to squawkpod from cnbc. This Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the CPI, or consumer price index, increased for the month. A 10.9% surge in energy costs pushed the annual inflation rate to 3.3%. That's the highest it's been since April of 2024. And that's a pretty good place to start this next conversation. Here's Becky Quick.

[Becky Quick]

All right, welcome back, everybody. Joining us right now is Pete Buttigieg, of course. He is the former Transportation secretary under President Biden. And Secretary, thank you for being with us this Morning.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Thanks for having me in.

[Becky Quick]

When I first looked at the notes, I kind of laughed because we said we were going to have you on to talk about a reaction to the numbers. I said we're not actually talking to him about a reaction to the numbers, but they did say you were interested in speaking about inflation. So let's start there. We got these numbers not as hot as had been anticipated, but we knew that energy prices were going to be higher, up 10% this time around. Food prices up 0%. But there are concerns those will rise down the road. What are your thoughts on where we stand right now?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah, as feared, inflation is up. And the big thing that's different right now, I think, is that in many periods in American history, including recent history, you've had inflation. And then the administration does things to try to reduce it. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail. But the administration is trying to push prices down. Normally. Right now, we have the administration actively making prices higher. They're actively making goods prices higher with the tariffs, obviously, typical family paid about 1,000 bucks more for that. They're actively making energy prices higher by killing energy transmission projects as well as generation projects. And they're, of course, actively making energy prices higher with a war that nobody wanted, nobody asked for. And that, of course, is the direct reason why inflation is higher now than it was before. You see inflation tripling from last month, not because the administration tried and failed to lower prices, you could put it that way, but really because they actively increased them.

[Becky Quick]

I see your point with tariffs. That's certainly valid when you look at some of these issues. But with the war, the administration obviously thinks it was going after security issue with Iran with a player that potentially was close, very close to having a nuclear weapon.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That right there is a huge, A huge fail for the White House because they assured us that the nuclear program was obliterated a year ago. Moreover, we've seen that it's possible, or at least it used to be possible, before US Credibility was demolished by this White House to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon through diplomacy. I believe the President started this war because he wanted to. And now we're in a situation where you've got a war that we didn't need to have. Iran has enormous leverage now. Certainly their military has been degraded. But let's be very clear about why the President backed down. Why did the President back down from his demands? Let's start with why is the President taking a weaker position than he started with?

[Becky Quick]

Let's start with just the prospect of the war to Begin with, yeah, look, the argument that he started this because he wanted to. There are plenty of people who think there is a very real threat of nuclear. It was presented through intelligence. Israel had an opportunity to really take and strike at this point. And as for diplomacy, that was sunsetting anyway. Anything.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It wasn't sunsetting. It was. It was detonated, it was knocked out,

[Becky Quick]

but it was going to sunset if it hadn't already.

[Joe Kernan]

They were lying about everything in it.

[Becky Quick]

Right. The idea of they had much longer range missiles than they ever. Compliance problems, we've seen all that play out.

[Pete Buttigieg]

But the point is they had been stopped from getting anywhere near a nuclear weapon. And last year the president assured us that he ended their nuclear ambitions. If he wants to come clean with the American people that he failed to do that, then he has to say that before he launches a war.

[Joe Kernan]

Democrats at that time said, no, you haven't. And then you haven't.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Clearly he hadn't.

[Joe Kernan]

Clearly that he hadn't. So then we needed to go, we needed to go back and take care of it. Unless you really think it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

[Pete Buttigieg]

But again, they don't have a nuclear weapon. They weren't about to get a nuclear weapon.

[Joe Kernan]

How do you know? Why do you keep saying they weren't about to get a nuclear. Steve Wyckoff said they had enough vision, visible material for 11 bombs.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Are you acknowledging the president lied when he said I don't know what, no

[Joe Kernan]

one knew what happened, or he didn't

[Pete Buttigieg]

know or he was lying. Which is it?

[Joe Kernan]

Is that really the point?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Whether or not he's in my name,

[Joe Kernan]

whether or not he was being knew it was obliterated or not is not the point. If it wasn't obliterated, then you have to do something. You can't go back and say, well, you lied about this so that we can't. Now we can't actually do what we need to do?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Joe, America is weaker because the president launched.

[Adam Back]

Well, that's.

[Joe Kernan]

That's your opinion. That's not.

[Pete Buttigieg]

No, no, but it's clear. And I'll tell you why.

[Joe Kernan]

Because when Trump's secretary of NATO say the world is a safer place, he just said that yesterday.

[Pete Buttigieg]

His job is to butter up the president. But the. Why do you think the president chickened out on his demand? Why do you think the president backed off of his demand?

[Joe Kernan]

The president backed off of which demand

[Pete Buttigieg]

unconditional surrender right now instead of unconditional surrender, which was the president demand just one month.

[Joe Kernan]

This is not over yet. Number. Number One is this uncond. I don't know what it's going to end up.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I'll tell you what we got strait

[Joe Kernan]

reopens again and they don't navy.

[Pete Buttigieg]

So the best case scenario is the strait being open. The strait was open before he started this.

[Joe Kernan]

But they were close to having a nuclear weapon. 11 nuclear weapons.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We had other ways of dealing.

[Joe Kernan]

Like what Obama's way that work? That did not work.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Did they get their weapon under Obama?

[Joe Kernan]

They were getting. They were close enough within months.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And the president again assured us the whole point of bombing them last year was to quote, unquote, obliterate.

[Joe Kernan]

I understand that.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I'm saying this as somebody who knows what it's like to be sent to war by a US President. And when a president sends you to war, when you and your buddies are on that gray tail plane going into a war zone, you do it with some level of confidence, some level of assurance that your chain of command. Although the President of the United States

[Joe Kernan]

doesn't even sound like now that we're there, do you hope this has a. A successful outcome? There were 40,000 Iranians that were slaughtered by the same regime. 47 years of killing Americans stirring trouble all around the world.

[Pete Buttigieg]

How do you feel about that regime being left intact by this president?

[Joe Kernan]

That's going to be the case and I don't know what might happen.

[Becky Quick]

Is that an argument for. Is that an argument?

[Joe Kernan]

So you don't want this to work and it was just a bad move. You want us to pull out now?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Look, there's no obvious way out now, but I want to make sure that this ends in a way that first of all our economy can recover, that we're not paying so much for gas. I mean, right now oil's 100 bucks. Jet fuels 200 bucks. Gas is over 4 bucks.

[Joe Kernan]

Diesel's average 380 under Biden for four years.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And. And when we left, inflation was lower than it is today.

[Joe Kernan]

You accounted for 21 president pricing.

[Pete Buttigieg]

This president took the inflation rate. Inflation is President 2.7%. It's 2 more 3% year on year. You saw the numbers just come out. It's more than 3% year on year.

[Joe Kernan]

Okay,

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

it is. The math is direct.

[Joe Kernan]

The math is, look, it's from 2. 7 to 3%.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It's higher than when he got.

[Joe Kernan]

It's not 9%.

[Pete Buttigieg]

His central campaign promise was he was going to take inflation and drive it down. And instead he's up.

[Joe Kernan]

I thought in the.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It was three when he got here and now it's more it could not be simpler than that.

[Joe Kernan]

It's around three and we're involved in a war.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Said on day one it would go down. He came in on day one and now it's up.

[Joe Kernan]

It's up to three percent. It was 21 and a half percent price.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It would go over four years.

[Joe Kernan]

Over four years it was 21 and a half.

[Pete Buttigieg]

You own.

[Joe Kernan]

Democrats own the affordability.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Listen to me, period. Why did the president fail?

[Joe Kernan]

You don't think Democrats own the affordability crisis?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Why did the president fail to keep his promise to lower prices, in your opinion?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I'm laughing because this is. This, this piece of it is basic. The president did say that he was. He wanted to be in office to bring inflation down, and he has not brought inflation down. That's all.

[Pete Buttigieg]

He drove it up. He not only failed, he drove it up.

[Joe Kernan]

Mr. Secretary, let's talk have had a minimal. A minimal.

[Pete Buttigieg]

You tell a family where I live that $1,000 per household is minimal from

[Joe Kernan]

the 21 1/2% increase that you're the Democrats.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We can, we can argue all day about just how bad Covid was and how bad it got and what it

[Joe Kernan]

took and all that you call unnecessary.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Where I live, 1,000 bucks per household isn't minimal.

[Joe Kernan]

Now you found. Now Democrats found religion on inflation after presiding over the worst inflation in 40 years. Now you found it's 20, 26.

[Pete Buttigieg]

They're in charge. You guys are in charge.

[Joe Kernan]

I'm aware.

[Pete Buttigieg]

You're going to do differently. What are you going to do differently to make the prices actually go down like you promised?

[Joe Kernan]

Number one, we got to get through this war. And you've heard people get to this war.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We didn't have to be fighting this war. What are we doing?

[Joe Kernan]

That's a matter of opinion. You can't say that.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It's a matter of opinion that I share with most Americans and a large number of Republicans and a whole bunch of MAGA people who bought into this president because they actually believe that 75%

[Joe Kernan]

Republican approval for the war.

[Pete Buttigieg]

You don't start with the approval you have within your own party. But the point is the MAGA coats

[Joe Kernan]

aren't going to approve anything.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I'm talking about Americans. Americans disapprove of the president and their right to do so.

[Joe Kernan]

He's got the same approval rating other presidents have had at this point in the term. A little bit above 42% right now

[Pete Buttigieg]

is unpopular for very good reasons, one of which is no more unpopular than

[Joe Kernan]

Obama was or Biden was at the same term. At the same point of his presidency.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That depends on which polls you're looking at. But by and large, no. I'm sorry, but, like, I've been out on the trail. I was in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district. Marjorie Taylor Greene, this is a Trump +38 district, or it was.

[Joe Kernan]

I've seen 500 people. You'll get a chance to prove that in November this year.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We had a chance to prove it last week.

[Joe Kernan]

The Senate might go. I understand.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah. Because people are.

[Joe Kernan]

Presidents make difficult decisions, obviously.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah. But usually they make difficult decisions to try to make other people better off. This president has made decisions to make himself better off. That's definitely happened. If you're the kind of person who can pay a million bucks for the entry fee to Mar a Lago, then you're doing great. But everybody else is hurting right now.

[Becky Quick]

Mr. Secretary, let's talk about a few things that fell under your fervor, your former purview. When you look at transportation, one of the issues we're dealing with right now is government shutdown that's been affecting the TSA agents. Obviously, the president has started paying them. The lines have gone down. But when you combine that with the shortage we have with air traffic controllers, I think a lot of people feel less safe in the air right now. What happened? How do we fix it?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Here's what I can tell you. For about three decades, the number of air traffic controllers in this country went down. We worked hard to make it go back up. And I was the first secretary in decades to hand my successor an air traffic control workforce that was growing instead of shrinking. When we left, it was a little bit shy of 11,000. I know that right away, air traffic controllers got an email that the notorious Elon email saying, you should go work in the private sector instead. Then there was this scramble saying, oh, we didn't mean you. You should stay. The last time I saw the secretary in front of Congress testifying on whether the number was going up and down, we didn't get a clear answer. So I don't know.

[Becky Quick]

We lost more than 300 because of the government shutdown.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Say again?

[Becky Quick]

We lost more than 300y.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That's not surprising, right? I mean, this is a tough job on the best of days. And these questions, controllers, let's remember.

[Becky Quick]

I'm Sorry, I'm confusing 300 with the TSA agent, not with the controller.

[Pete Buttigieg]

But these controllers do such an important job and such a good job, and we forget sometimes the track record of US aviation safety over the last 10, 20 years.

[Becky Quick]

I just wonder if we're stretching them to these extreme lengths, absolutely. Accident that happened at LaGuardia, not that this was because of this. They're still investigating it. But there were only two air traffic controllers in the, in the tower at that point, one of whom was responsible for landing active flights, dealing with a crisis, and trying to guard, to guide a fire crew across an active Runway.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And it's not just how many are in the tower, but when you have fewer on the bench, more of them are working overtime, they're working these, these tough schedules, then you're going to have fatigue issues. We did a whole project on fatigue. I trust and expect that the FAA currently is working on this. All of this is to say, look, I've got my differences with my successor. Obviously, one area where I'm rooting for him to succeed and for the FAA to succeed is to get more controllers to get the technology up to speed. These implementations are notorious for the way

[Joe Kernan]

the Democrats orchestrated two shutdowns of the government in.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I thought we were talking about air traffic controllers, but we can come to that. But I want to make sure we

[Joe Kernan]

say that's why they're not. That's why they're not. But the TSA agents are not, are not being paid because of the government shutdown.

[Pete Buttigieg]

They can be paid at the stroke of a pen by this president.

[Joe Kernan]

All right, but if you, if you carve out. But, but, but the government is shut down. That part is shut down. Partial shutdown because of Democrats.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, no, they're shut down because Speaker Johnson refuses to even have an up or down vote on the bipartisan compromise.

[Joe Kernan]

That's carving. That's, that's compromise, but just closing down.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That's compromise. That's how you solve problems.

[Becky Quick]

I will say Jeh Johnson was here. He was the former Secretary of Homeland Security.

[Joe Kernan]

You don't like when Republicans, Obama.

[Becky Quick]

And he said nobody should be dealing with any government shutdowns, no matter who's in power.

[Pete Buttigieg]

No, that's right. Look, this is, I think.

[Joe Kernan]

And you said, well, we learned from Republican. You said, we learned from Republicans.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, I know what I said is you guys started it.

[Joe Kernan]

But, but, but look, we started.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I'm being a little playful about that, but can we all agree that this is no way to run a ball club? I was looking up the last time that a budget actually, the last time a budget actually got passed on time, like all 12 appropriations in the whole budget was in the 90s. And by the way, on time means on the eve of the new fiscal year. Is there anybody who runs a company of any size, who would approve their budget the day before the new fiscal year, let alone months into the new fiscal. This is insane. And it's one of many, many, many things we're doing in this country. Acting as if it's normal. None of this is normal. It's not normal to fail to have a budget or an appropriation before the deadline. It's not normal to have our Congress as out of whack as it is. If I were to sit here and say the system is broken, you'd roll your eyes. Because that's something, everybody. It's a stock phrase right now. Now it's a cliche because it's so obviously true. Why do we keep behaving like it's not right?

[Becky Quick]

Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you very much for coming in today. We appreciate your time.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Appreciate it.

[Becky Quick]

Thank you.

[Narrator/Host]

I am not Satoshi Nakamoto. At least that's the refrain of Adam Back, famed computer scientist who's made notable contributions to the creation of bitcoin. New York Times investigative journalist John Carreyrou did a deep dive into the real identity of the bitcoin creator. And he concluded that it is indeed Adam Back. Adam Back himself says, nope, there's a

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

view of maybe the lady, you know, dove protest too much.

[Adam Back]

Well, I'm kind of reminded of this Monty Python skit. It's difficult to prove a negative or dissuade people out of something.

[Narrator/Host]

Mr. I am not Satoshi Nakamoto is up next on Squawk Pod. What made you confident that you could

[Becky Quick]

do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.

[Narrator/Host]

Trailblazing women, changing the game. One of my favorite pieces of advice,

[Becky Quick]

think about what your boss's boss needs.

[Narrator/Host]

Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.

[Becky Quick]

Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.

[Narrator/Host]

Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power players. New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, this is Squawk Pod.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You're watching Squawk Box right here on cnbc. I'm Andrew Ossorkin along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick, investigative journalist at the New York Times. John Cariou did a deep dive into the real identity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. He documented his years long investigation which concluded that Satoshi is the secret identity of computer scientist Adam Back. Despite his notable contributions to the creation of bitcoin, Back himself has repeatedly denied this. And now this morning, we have Adam Back on the program. CEO and co founder of Blockstream. Good morning to you. It's great to talk to you. You have been making the rounds on the back of this article, including with John Carreyou himself. And so there is a sort of unique question in all this as to why you've decided to be this public about your denial. Adam.

[Adam Back]

Well, I think, you know, people generally don't want to be considered to be satoshi because it brings with it risks. Right. But, you know, I think there's effectively some amount of selection bias because Satoshi stop participating in the forums in 2011. Right. So Bitcoin was released in 2009, and by 2011, he stopped participating in the forums. And so there's been a lot of interest over the last 15 years because of the intriguing question. Right. I speculate myself. It's clearly an interesting story that bitcoin has this mysterious person. And I don't think, you know, I don't think we're going to find anything because it's been 15 years, it's been analyzed by many people, and nobody's found anything conclusive. So what you're left with is, yeah, good.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But I was going to say, Adam, but what's so interesting, you've been public for quite some time about your view that nobody should know who Satoshi is, that it's better off that way. And so now that you're, you've been sort of pointed to as the person there's a view of, maybe the lady, you know, do protest too much.

[Adam Back]

Well, I'm kind of reminded of this Monty Python skit where, you know, the masses are saying, you are the Messiah, right.

[Joe Kernan]

To this.

[Adam Back]

Oh, God. And he's, you know, he's denying it. And the response is, well, you're really the Messiah, because the Messiah would deny it. Right. So it's. It's difficult to prove a negative or dissuade people out of something they want to believe. I think there is, like, you know, useful evidence that is relatively convincing that not. Though it's generally hard to, you know, prove a negative, if you like.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right.

[Adam Back]

So, for example, in the early era, 2013, when I was catching up on the bitcoin details, there's, you know, some chat discussions asking developers how things work, which show that I'm going through a learning process, for example. Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So, Adam, one of the things that's so interesting about this article is he uses John, who. Who, by the way, wrote Bad Blood and outed, you know, the Theranos founder for. For what had happened in that instance uses telemetry to try to look through your writing and the writing of Satoshi, and there are some very unusual similarities. And one of the things that he asked you during the process of writing this article was to provide the metadata for some emails that you had back and forth with Satoshi himself back in the day. His view is that those emails, as you know, are false, that you actually wrote them to yourself, effectively you are Satoshi, that you wrote these emails to yourself as a sort of ruse so that you people could look back and say that you were not him. He asked you for the metadata and you have been, at least from what I understand, thus far, unwilling to provide it. Why? Could I ask you for that metadata today, if possible?

[Adam Back]

Yes, I mean, I thought about it. So what happened was, you know, I got the email from Satoshi August 2008 and didn't think anything of it, just another researcher programmer using some open source software or papers I have online. And by the time people were interested in starting to share and collect Satoshi's previous communications, it wasn't possible to contact him. So it's generally considered impolite to share private correspondence without permission. You can't get permission from somebody who's, you know, not responding to emails anymore. Right. So I kind of sound them. And then finally there was the COPA trial, you know, the kind of infamous Craig Wright versus Bitcoin developers. And the lawyers working for the developers asked could they see those emails. And so I shared them, including the headers, for evidentiary reasons, with those researchers. So, you know, in the public interest. So I had assumed actually that they would be part of the court record, and they are, but not the headers. So I think that's the distinction.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Would you be willing to provide the headers now, though? Because I do think that that would potentially either rule you in or out, if you will, or be able to lead potentially even investigators or others who would ultimately want to find out who Satoshi is. I know you don't want anybody to find out who Satoshi is, which is also what leads people to think that you are in fact him.

[Adam Back]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was the other kind of small hesitation that, you know, well, maybe just hypothetically there's a mistake in those headers and he accidentally forgot to turn on his VPN or whatever kind of technology he used. Now I'm supposing that's not the case. Wei Dai, who received email from Satoshi the very next day, because I told Satoshi, hey, you might want to look at the B money Paper by way Dai and he did share his emails and they're on a blog online, including the headers. And so it's low probability. I did actually reach out to the researchers who are working for the COPA trial to ask, you know, is there. You looked at them, Was there anything in there? And so, you know, if they can assure me that it's all good, then I'm not averse to sharing them because I suspect there's nothing there.

[Joe Kernan]

Oh, hey, Satoshi. Oh, see, he didn't.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah, you thought you were gonna.

[Becky Quick]

I wanted to ask the same thing. Basically, you're not under oath here, you're not hooked up to a lie detector. But let's ask you these questions. I just ask you to be honest, are you either Satoshi or did you help create Satoshi?

[Adam Back]

No. So I mean, I think the, the thing that is a little confusing because this happened like a decade before bitcoin is that people were, you know, in the, in the open on a mail list brainstorming about how to create a bitcoin like system. So myself and how Finney and Nick Sabo and we die and a few people were involved in these discussions and you can go and read them. AARON VAN we read through all those, wrote a book. John Carrey refers to a number of those and say, because we're trying to design a bitcoin like system, it involves proof of work, it involves a peer to peer network. This is in the fallout of a centralized electronic cash system that people are excited about failing because it was centralized. So people figured, well, okay, to survive, it needs to be decentralized. That's hard. How do we do it? So we're brainstorming, you know, a period of five years or so actually. Right. And so now John Kerry has made the interesting observation that Satoshi seems actually to be using some of the phrases we were using or you know, referring to precedents like Napster versus Nutella. So I'm starting to think that John is onto something, except the conclusion is inverted, which is maybe our old writings informed and influenced Satoshi, so that's why he sees these connections. It's causal. Right.

[Becky Quick]

Just very quickly, Adam, a couple of other questions because these are the things that Satoshi supposedly did. Did you write the bitcoin white paper? Did you create the blockchain?

[Adam Back]

No, no. I mean, I proposed some early ideas that bitcoin ends up using, but there were gaps in our ideas. That's why it didn't get implemented. Right. And so Toshi really solved a few key problems that myself and others who were trying to figure out how to do, do this in sort of 1997 to 2005, something like that, ultimately didn't quite manage to make work. So she.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

There's some people who think that Satoshi could be a group of people and that you may be one of the satoshis, if you will, or connected to the satoshis. A lot of people have speculated that Hal Finney, who's no longer alive, who was friends, a friend of yours of sorts, may very well have done this. Obviously, there's whoever is satoshi, at least from the block chain, there is someone who has 70 or 80 billion dollars of Bitcoin that has not moved from the block chain the entire time. And my question to you is, in terms of what. What your theory of the case is there, do you think someone lost the key? Do you think it's somebody who's no longer alive? Do you think it's somebody who burned the key and did this on purpose? Purpose so that people would guess and that this was part of the entire sort of broader strategy around what bitcoin would ultimately become and the myth around its creation.

[Adam Back]

Yeah. So during the HBO film Electric Money, produced by Colin Hoback, we got to talk with him quite a bit because, you know, he did a lot of filming, you know, 100 times, the filming versus the output or something. And, you know, one of the things I said to him is, look, you know, I suspect and it's very easy for Satoshi to. To not get identified is he won't be participating in conferences in person under his real name. He won't be giving interviews to documentary film crews and investigative journalists. And there are lots of clever people in the world, including some who were participating anonymously on the cyberpunks list back in the 2008 period. Right. So it's. So from our point of view, given that, you know, all of the public people have various reasonably, you know, plausible reasons why it's not them. Like how Finney was running a marathon whilst it actually was transacting and emailing people. Right. It turns out. So I think it's therefore that likely that we're not going to find out. And presumably that's because it's somebody nobody has even identified as a candidate.

[Becky Quick]

Because what people do think it's a person.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Becky Quick]

You think it's one person and not a conglomerate of people.

[Adam Back]

Yeah, I suspect so. Because, you know, it's hard to keep a secret if you have a group of friends. It's a fun topic. The rumor spreads Somebody gets drunk and says something inadvisable. So it's much for one person. And stylistically, I think the code is sort of, you know, the code and logic is done by one person. I think, you know, there's a. There's a citation comment on the forum in 2013, I went and read all of the history like he'd already left by a couple of years at that point, and he said it took him 18 months to decode it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

What is the explanation? One of the things that John does raise in his piece is that you sort of disappeared from the forums effectively once Bitcoin was created for this sort of unique period of time while Satoshi was sort of talking online and then all of a sudden he stopped talking and you appeared. How do you reconcile?

[Adam Back]

Yeah, well, I was co founder of a startup called Picorp with Paul Moritz, former number three at Microsoft, and we had just sold that to emc, and so he became the head of the consumer division. I was the chief security officer. We got merged with another recent acquisition. So that was a Pitbull sort of collaboration software that I did, some implementation designer. And so we got merged with another company. So I just basically very busy with some very fun and interesting things in, you know, in my career as a kind of security researcher and software engineer.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Fair enough. Two final questions for you, one of which is you are starting a new fund that may, as John has described in the piece, require disclosure, legal disclosure, about how much crypto you ultimately own to the government. So now that this piece has come out, do you imagine you're going to be investigated by either the IRS or by the SEC or cft? I don't even know who would also regulate this component, part of whatever documentations you've had to sign about how much Bitcoin you either have or don't have or have access to.

[Adam Back]

Mm, yeah. I mean, they put that to me. I think that was yesterday. And my response was, well, I haven't really thought about it. But, you know, assuming you're right in terms of the disclosure requirements, you know, the filings will be public before the approval is in, and the absence of this disclosure is in fact a form of proof that it's not me. Right. Because there are hazards to not filling these things in correctly.

[Joe Kernan]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The benefit to it not being you is personal security. I mean, if in fact you are Satoshi, you would be worth $80 billion. You'd probably want some personal security around you. Is there, is there another reason why it would be bad for people to know I mean, beyond sort of your sort of philosophical theoretical view about Bitcoin itself.

[Adam Back]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's actually quite beneficial for Bitcoin that, you know, for whatever reason that she chose to step away in 2011, that there is no identifiable founder because then you don't, you know, it feels more like a discovery. So. So, you know, an invention or a product of a company and it doesn't have a CEO or you know, like an Elon Musk or Linux. The operating system has Linus to a fold is a very outspoken person. And so, you know, if you have that phenomenon, a lot of the world thinks hierarchically, they want to ask that person questions. And so without that, Bitcoin is much more free to be considered like digital gold, a global commodity that sovereigns will allocate to US States, the Swiss National Bank Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund. And so, you know, for it to be a neutral digital thing. And I think, you know, if you imagine back 6,000 years ago, whoever in the neolithic era decided and figured out to use gold as store value, we don't really know what those guys were thinking. Maybe they didn't have.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Adam, I read some, I read somebody online who apparently is a pal of yours, I don't know if this is true. Back in 2000, sort of 13, 14, 15, who said that you had. And maybe this is a be in your, in your favor that you had money problems. And I thought that was interesting. If in fact you were. Satoshi.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

True.

[Adam Back]

No, I mean, I was. People sometimes criticize sort of the securitization of Bitcoin ETFs and things like that. But I was, you know, a day trader back in the, in the 90s, living in the UK at the time, and I was trading on E trade. So, you know, I think the cypherpunks were quite sympathetic. And now they liked capital markets. It's like an arc of capitalism. Right? They're capitalists. They believe in a very free market. So the idea that a hallmark of bitcoin success is that it gets adopted into more and more areas in the financial system is a sign of success. Right. It's not a loss of, you know, value or.

[Joe Kernan]

Adam, you might not be satoshi, but if you're sitting around thinking about how to do blockchain and bitcoin, I was not there thinking about those things. That's all I'm going to tell you. But can you just. Do you worry about Quantum in the threat to bitcoin ten years from now? That's because that's what everyone tells me that it's only a matter of time, right?

[Adam Back]

Blockstream is a technology company, so we have a cryptographic R and D group and we have a number of people working on post quantum security. We've released a few papers. We've implemented post quantum security in a Bitcoin layer two, which is liquid. And that layer two has a lot of track record in bringing to general use features that end up in bitcoin sort of three to seven years later. And so, you know, we have that there, there are many other groups working on post quantum. So I think, you know, the hardware today is very basic. So, you know, 10, 20 years ahead is, is where you're looking at if it ever works. And in the meantime, the simple thing for Bitcoin to do, the best de risk is to be already prepared to integrate into Bitcoin some post quantum secure options so that people can migrate their coins to a new format and not think about, you know, will it work, will it work in 10 years, 20 years? It has some kind of cold fusion aspects because, you know, I went to some university classes in the early 2000s talking about quantum computers and it's been the same thing for 30 years, right? Which is, you know, amazing performance is going to come around the corner. So it has this kind of cold fusion property that people like, well, we'll have fusion power one day. And people say, well, maybe it's 50 years, maybe it's 30 years. So you have that feel. There's still a lot of physics research to do. It's not in any way to dismiss the very interesting physics research they're doing to try to incrementally get closer to it. But they have a lot of challenges. Today's quantum computers, the best calculation they've done completely, no joke, it's straight up, that is to calculate that 15 is 3 times 5. Like to factorize something that primary school children do. So they really have something below the power of a desk calculator today.

[Joe Kernan]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We want to thank you.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We got to leave it there. Satoshi Nakamoto, thank you for being with us. Yeah, appreciate it very, very much. Adam? No, thank you. Thank you, thank you.

[Narrator/Host]

That's Squawk Pod for today and for the week. Thank you for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And you can catch them live for three hours every weekday morning on CNBC starting at 6am Eastern. The best bits of that TV show can be found right here on Squawkpod as long as you follow along us wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll meet you right back here on Monday. Have a great weekend.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We are clear.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thanks guys.

[Narrator/Host]

What made you confident that you could

[Becky Quick]

do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.

[Narrator/Host]

Trailblazing women, changing the game One of my favorite pieces of advice, Think about

[Becky Quick]

what your boss's boss needs.

[Narrator/Host]

Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.

[Becky Quick]

Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.

[Narrator/Host]

Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.