When you are as wealthy as Satoshi, you become powerful. And it is in the public interest to know what the powerful are up to.

On the other hand, as long as Satoshi remains unknown and doesn't spend his coins, his wealth will not grant him power.

I am not sure we do have a right to privacy in some generic sense. We have a right to privacy in certain very well defined situations and not in others

So...what right is that? I mean, specifically, in case law? When people do something that causes a substantial effect in the public sphere, they are seen as (at the very least) as a "limited public figure" and in the U.S., journalists have a large amount of protection in the freedom to report on such people.

Satoshi would be that public figure. This Nick guy so far is not. He has a right to privacy.

That's not a right to privacy...at least as precedent is concerned. Once you've done something that has a public impact, or even, involved in something that is now in the public attention, a U.S. news organization can make the case that information about you is of public interest.

Take the Amtrak engineer in the recent Philadelphia crash...as far as I can tell, he most definitely would like to remain out of the spotlight. Yet, because he happened to be the engineer at the time of the crash -- whether or not we know that he directly or even indirectly contributed to the crash -- news orgs have some legal protection in scrutinizing his life, including where he went to school, his job history, and any public social media postings.

Sometimes privacy is accorded out of tradition or convention...for example, the identity of a rape victim who is testifying in a court case is public information, though it is rarely reported except under special circumstances. But in this case, the victim did not intentionally put themselves in this position of public interest, but because court cases are considered to be important for the public to know about, the victim's identity is considered public information.

It should be said that nothing is completely cut and dry, there's always a tension between the public's right to know and privacy. But the right of privacy is usually afforded to victims and for people whom public exposure would cause greater harm than censorship -- i.e. the identity of witnesses in a state case. Bitcoin's creator does not seem to fall into this category.

>Once you've done something that has a public impact, or even, involved in something that is now in the public attention, a U.S. news organization can make the case that information about you is of public interest.

Except there isn't evidence that this guy is Satoshi. So there isn't evidence that he is a public figure.

Also, choosing not to reveal someone's identity is not censorship.

No he doesn't (legally speaking, which I assume is the framework you're adopting based on your use of the term "public figure"). It's totally legal to report facts or opinions about random people. Standards for libel and the burden of proof are different but truth is still a defense.