Well, considering what was happening to the founders of e-gold[0] at the time of Bitcon's creation, remaining anonymous was a very rational choice on the part of Satoshi. It now seems like the US Gov has accepted Bitcoin as a proper currency, but that outcome was never certain, and the potential legal implications of a negative outcome were very clear after the e-gold fiasco. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold