by With a purported IQ of 183, 14 master’s degrees and at least two PhDs, Craig Wright seemed to have enough intelligence to be the mythical founder of Bitcoin.
The computer scientist readily admitted to being the real Satoshi Nakamoto, the fictitious creator of the trillion-dollar cryptocurrency, after being exposed by reporters nearly a decade ago.
And over the years, he has provided a wealth of evidence to support his claim, from contemporary notes that show his intention to establish the digital currency to, crucially, the private key that unlocks it.
But, now, the 53-year-old’s claims have finally, and definitively, ruled out what many in the crypto community have believed for years – nothing but complete bunkum.
After a five-week High Court trial, Judge James Mellor concluded that Wright had not only lied “extensively and repeatedly”, but had also committed “large-scale” forgery.
“Dr. Wright presents himself as extremely intelligent,” the judge noted dryly in his scathing 231-page judgment. “However, in my judgment, he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.”
The news came with a huge sense of relief within the crypto community, most of which had been highly skeptical of Wright’s claims since they first emerged in 2015.
The abrasive Australian has spent years targeting suspects with expensive legal action, threatening to personally hunt them down “until they are broke, bankrupt and alone”.
Identity mystery
Ultimately, however, this “arrogance” was the cause of his downfall, according to the judge, who said the real Satoshi would not have trusted the litigation.
The mysterious identity of Bitcoin’s founder has baffled journalists and crypto enthusiasts alike since the cryptocurrency’s “white paper” was first published in 2008. The paper describes Bitcoin as a “peer-to-peer electronic money system”, an “electronic coin” that describes Bitcoin. to replace money transfers that are currently controlled by the financial system.
Going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, the author of the white paper exchanged hundreds of messages with collaborators – before suddenly ceasing communication in 2011.
Several claims to be the real Nakamoto surfaced in later years – only to be discredited. That was until the name of Wright, a little-known IT security consultant, came up.
Operating on the fringes of the crypto industry, the twice-married father of three from Brisbane, Australia, was “exposed” by tech publications Wired and Gizmodo.
The evidence was based on leaked emails and transcripts, including one in which Wright said: “I’ve tried my best to hide the fact that I’ve been running Bitcoin since 2009.”
Perhaps it was no coincidence that Wright – who denies being behind the leak – was in the process of revealing himself as Nakamoto at the time.
He was in financial trouble and locked in disputes with the Australian tax office, and he agreed to sign over the “exclusive rights” of his life story as the creator of Bitcoin to Canadian billionaire businessman Calvin Ayre.
In return, he was loaned around £1.3 million to cover his tax problems – a bailout at the time – and became the chief scientist of a new crypto company to cash in on his name. .
To prove that his claim was true, his sponsors devised a plan for Wright to make the cryptographic proof public and end the mystery forever. But the big reveal never came.
Instead, he published a jargon-heavy blog post that fell far short of meeting the required burden of proof. Some of the most reliable figures in Bitcoin, who previously endorsed Wright, suggested that they were duped.
Legal battles
Despite widespread rejection by members of the crypto community, however, stubborn Wright doubled down — aggressively, too.
On social media, he said he would launch “Jihad” on suspects, saying: “I am God’s punishment in a financier,” although expensive litigation, supported by Ayre, quickly became his weapon of choice.
In 2019, he inflamed further tensions among the crypto community by registering the United States copyright on the Bitcoin white paper and the code and his legal battles took him across different jurisdictions, from the US to Norway.
By 2021, an influential cabal of industry leaders decided enough was enough and formed the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). Their mission statement was to share technology openly and “stand up to bullies like Wright”.
They filed a case in the High Court in the United Kingdom to “exorcise the contempt of Wright’s majesty” and finally prove, once and for all, that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto.
Over five weeks this Spring, Dr. Wright was questioned in detail about the 100 or so documents he claimed were proof that he wrote the white paper.
One key piece of “evidence” was a page of notes scribbled on Quill’s pad dated August 2007. It summarized a meeting between Wright and a colleague in which they discussed a new form of digital currency, which would be passed from person to person without an intermediary. , along with a list of follow-up steps cited by a “paper” to be published in 2008.
But an affidavit from Hamelin Brands, Quill’s parent company, revealed that the pad did not enter circulation until 2012 – several years after Bitcoin was created.
In court, Wright argued that the firm was wrong. COPA’s lawyer replied: “Dr Wright, you’re just making it up as you go along.”
‘Lies and distractions’
For many who have investigated Wright over the years, his ability to exaggerate the truth is no surprise. Even his mother admitted that Wright, who was raised a Catholic, “had a long habit of adding bits to the truth, but making it bigger”.
Scottish writer Andrew O’Hagan, who spent almost nine months with Dr Wright in 2016, saw similar characteristics. He wrote: ‘What his mother said had something to do with something I noticed. In what he said, he often went further than was necessary; longer than he should have done. He seemed to start with the truth, and then, slowly, he would raise his stake until the whole thing seemed weak.’
Judge Mellor’s own assessment found: “Once one lie was exposed, Dr Wright resorted to other lies and deceptions.” He concluded that as Wright faced greater and more significant challenges to his claims, he took his lies and forgeries to ever higher levels.
Judge Mellor counted a total of 47 forgeries, and suggested that any attempt by Wright to explain them would turn into “technobabble”.
But it was Wright’s character that came in for the harshest criticism, which he said was in stark contrast to Nakomoto, whose writing and correspondence were “calm, knowledgeable, cooperative, precise with little or no arrogance”.
So where does this leave Wright – and will we ever find the real Satoshi Nakamoto?
Unsurprisingly, Wright said he “fully intends” to appeal the decision. But regarding the identity of the creator of Bitcoin, perhaps it closes the chapter for now.
The essence of Bitcoin is the idea that it is not owned by anyone, it is a decentralized currency that cannot be corrupted by human influence. What right does Wright, or anyone, have to claim it? And yet the saga may do him no harm.
As Gavin Andresen, an American software developer instrumental in the founding of Bitcoin, said: “Having a mysterious founder is a great creation myth. People love creation myths. Bitcoin might be less interesting to people if you know the real story.”
