Nobody knows for sure what the motivation is outside of attempting to determine motive by reading Satoshi's old posts on the message boards.
What I've seen speculated, which makes sense to me, is that he/she/they didn't want a central authority that could be corrupted.
For instance, if Satoshi was well known and public - his/her/their opinion would carry a disproportionate amount of weight in decision making (expand block size - for instance). If he/she/they were coerced into taking a detrimental stance, that could influence the community into making detrimental changes.
I'm also of the opinion that Satoshi was Hal Finny, who is no longer with us, which would explain why none of the coins thought to be owned by "Satoshi" have ever moved.
I remember reading about the possibility that bitcoin, or more specifically the block-chain, was created by an AI. The rest of the hypothesis (which explained why an AI would do that) was also interesting. Not saying I believe or don't, but it was an interesting idea.
I'd be interested in reading that if you have a link.
I can hardly believe I found it. This information could well be out of date, but it was interesting to consider the possibility an AI could trick mankind in this way. Worth the 10 minutes even if its dead wrong IMO.
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