I'd be willing to bet that Adam was part of team Satoshi.
After vanishing for some years he came back in late 2013 playing dumb.
But they still got to him making him an offer he couldn't resist.
Blockstream was founded to deliver a heavily limited version of Bitcoin. No privacy/fungibility despite Adam talking a lot about it and no scaling without custodians.
A Bitcoin that would still build on its early reputation, (ironically) prolonging the life span of fiat currency (read control-plane-capital on "freegold") however castrated as a medium of exchange so it wouldn't disrupt the machinery of banking dynasties. At least not too early.