Let me try to parse out the facts that you've alleged here.

1. That it was Satoshis intention that Bitcoin would have intrinsic value resulting from acting as a "a marketplace for optimization problems" and that this was his vision of bitcoin.

This is false and I don't believe be supported by anything ever posted by Satoshi or any prior version of Bitcoin.

To make a positive argument: There is no mention of that in the Bitcoin whitepaper (which makes no mention of Script at all), nor in Satoshi's descriptions of Bitcoin: e.g. https://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-sou...

Satoshi even wrote specifically on the origin of Bitcoin's value and didn't make any mention of this intention you suggest: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583.msg11405#msg1140... -- even arguably refuting the claim that he thought Bitcoin was intended to have any intrinsic value.

I don't believe using Bitcoin to trustlessly pay for solutions to problems was ever mentioned or discussed by Satoshi, it's possible he considered it but he certainly didn't market bitcoin on that basis. If he had I think it would have rightfully been criticized as not very interesting or important.

2. Specific persons "stopped BTC from having smart contracts via a full featured VM, moving it away from Satoshi’s vision"

I'm aware of well funded campaigns from a con artist fraudulently claiming to be Satoshi making this false allegation so I understand how you could have just been suffering from misinformation on this point, but it's been corrected now and I'd be happy to elaborate on it to whatever level you're interested in.

The reason I've asked for a retraction is because the claim isn't just objectively false-- it's an accusation that persons performed a potentially tortious or even criminal act. Because it's a damaging allegation and one that has been specifically targeted at me, I think I'm entitled to insist that you substantiate it (which you cannot because it's false) or withdraw it.

I'm perfectly happy to talk through any confusion or misunderstanding-- my apologies if you felt my response escalated to an accusation of bad faith too rapidly. From my perspective you made a serious accusation then when it was countered you simply disengaged with it, which to me seemed like you lacked a genuine interest in getting to the truth.

2a. "there’s slowed adoption following that change"

Unless you're referring to Satoshi removing[1] a number of script opcodes that allowed unbounded memory usage and other vulnerabilities in July 2010 there has been no reduction in the functionality of Bitcoin's VM. Presumably not, since virtually all adoption of Bitcoin occurred long after that point. Nor was it a change that produced the sorts of limitations you think exist.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/757f0769d8360ea043...

3. "are themselves bounties which can be automatically claimed, eg by posing SAT problems to the network"

Notwithstanding the points at 1. and 2. it's always been possible to make Bitcoin payments which are trustlessly dependent on solving an arbitrary computer specifiable problem. This works fine today and requires very minimal properties from the system, I provided you with a link to an example demonstration. In that example I used a large sudoku instead of SAT because it's better known to a lay audience, but it's equivalently NP-complete.

> particularly when you didn’t bother to provide any evidence for your claim. Despite claims that doing so would be easy

I am particularly confused by this remark: What easily sourced claim did I make that I failed to source? I provided you with a link to a concrete demonstration of trading a solution for Bitcoin, which I believe disproves the central thesis of your remark: the thing you say can't be done can be.

(Though I still don't agree that it provides any intrinsic value to Bitcoin: The ability to make escrows for information that don't require third parties is a reason that Bitcoin is superior to legacy forms of money, but you can just as well say that for its other positive properties such as the ability to be sent world wide online, the fact that payments are made without an intermediary that can block them, etc. I don't think it's a controversial point that properties make Bitcoin a better form of money compared to some other form of money don't constitute intrinsic value because they're not exclusive.)

For your other factual claims 1, 2, and 2a (as I've labeled them): You are asserting something happened which I say is pure fiction. It's generally not easy to provide a citation to prove a negative but if they had happened it would be easy for you to provide supporting material (e.g. the commits making the change in popular bitcoin software).