The emails that have recently become public through the law suit on Craig Wright by the David Kleinman estate confirm what Craig Wright has been saying since the Andrew O’Hagan interview.
That Craig Wright was one of the main people involved in the creation of Bitcoin moreover is behind the moniker Satoshi Nakamoto.
The official proof Craig Wright publicly provided where he signed a message with the public key belonging to Satoshi was deemed fraudulent by skeptics because there was evidence that the public key could have been obtained through the block chain and thus it was considered by the general crypto community likely to have been a scam.
This being said, Craig Wright has signed the genesis block ‘unofficially’ with the private key in the presence of the most reputable figures in the world of Bitcoin i.e Andreas Antonopoulos (Public Speaker & Computer Security Expert), Gavin Andresen (The original Lead Developer of Bitcoin), Jon Matonis (The Founder of The Bitcoin Foundation) and other trusted parties.
One thing for certain is he has the private keys. That's proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he's been involved in Bitcoin since its origin.
Craig Wright had planned to go ahead and transfer coins from an address associated with Satoshi when critics called the evidence he publicly provided fraudulent, however backed down sending an email to Andrew O'hagan, the Journalist involved in the story around his public outing.
The email linked an article headlined “UK law enforcement sources hint at impending Craig Wright arrest”.
The article suggested that the father of Bitcoin might be liable, under the Terrorism Act, for the actions of people who used Bitcoin to buy weapons. (A similar case was made against Ross Ulbricht who created The Silk Road website and is serving 3 life sentences).
Under the link, Wright had written an explanation: “I walk from 1 billion [dollars] or I go to jail. I never wanted to be out, but if I prove it, they destroy me and my family. I am the source of terrorist funds as Bitcoin creator or I am a fraud to the world. At least a fraud is able to see his family. There is nothing I can do.”
Satoshi, like Ross Ulbricht, may have ended up in Jail if he came out and definitively proved to the world he was Satoshi.
Moreover, the circumstantial evidence is demonstrably clear.
- Craig Wrights mother claims that Craig was obsessed with Japanese culture growing up as a kid and had samurai swords.
- The non-public emails and posts of Satoshi found on forums make use of certain words i.e Bloody, wet blanket that would only likely be used by a British/Australian/New Zealander.
- An email written to David Kleinman in 2008 asking him to provide assistance editing a White-Paper he had been working on dealing with a new Electronic form of money.
- Craig Wright's technical understanding of Bitcoin is second to none and he certainly has the credentials to be Satoshi.
If we simply stuck with the circumstantial evidence, it would be self-evident and at least 'highly probable' that Craig Wright is Satoshi unless one wants to buy into elaborate conspiracy theories.
The unofficial evidence provided however, makes it clear to anyone outside of the most skeptical that Craig Wright is in fact ‘unofficially’ the Satoshi behind the Whitepaper.
The fact that Ross was and Craig could be sent to jail for creating a service others misused is abominable. Is the government liable for criminals who shot up neighborhoods from their cars on the streets (the streets being provided by the government)?
Unconscionable.
Interesting case. He says that he didn't decide it, someone decided it for him. It does sound like his family had been threatened.
When he came out saying this stuff, it did occur to me that he might have been pulling a double bluff - that he was Satoshi but by claiming it in a way that was unconvincing, it would take most of the heat off him. Now, many people refer to him as "Fake Satoshi", and they won't even consider the claim that he might be genuine. Maybe he played everyone.
Very interesting. I'd always maintained that Wright was likely involved with the creation of Bitcoin, though it was unclear whether "Satoshi" was one person or just the spokesperson of the project.
Craig had always maintained that he was the main part involved in the creation of bitcoin but others helped. The first video I ever watched of Craig, my gut said it was him but I assumed he was a fraud after hearing he'd been proven to be so online. Such is the power of the crowd.
After researching the evidence and watching the first recorded public key signing, it became clear to me Craig had likely been speaking the truth.
The Satori moment however only began to hit me after I started watching Craig's online video's, realising his knowledge of Bitcoin, cryptography, and the architectural structure of the blockchain was on another level to any of the key figures in the movement. His familiarity with the history of the key developers, inner workings and the origins of the block-chain make it self-evident to anyone willing to watch his lectures that he's been around since its inception.
A few key things I've learned listening to Craig are that
The technology underlying the block-chain contrary to popular belief has been around since the late 1990's however adding the economic component is what made it Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is Turing Complete meaning it is capable of solving any problem that a Turing Machine can.
'Wright believes that BTC is a Total Turing Machine (TTM) – the first one to ever come into existence outside a lab:'
Much of the Bitcoin community has assumed the allegations about him being a fraud are true without looking further into the circumstances of the evidence.
That’s to be expected however. The fact that it is 2018 and there is a growing community of flat earth believers despite us having confirmed the earth is not flat with high resolution satellite imagery only confirms that emotions are more powerful than hard proof.
When all is said, Craig Steven Wright, David Kleinman and I believe Hal Finney (Having received the first bitcoin transaction from Satoshi) were the three key figures in the creation of Bitcoin.
I was mistaken about Andreas Antonopolous having CSW sign the genesis block in his presence. John Matonis, Gavin Andresen and others have bared witness to this however. Antonopolous said he had declined the 'opportunity' to sign an NDA and participate in the process of proving Satoshi was actually Dr Craig Wright.
"About two weeks ago I was contacted and asked to offer security advice for a project. I was asked to sign an NDA in order to discuss the project itself, something I am reluctant to do, in general. Once I received the NDA however, it became obvious that the project was related to verifying the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. I immediately declined the offer, declined to participate and declined to sign the NDA.
I'm sure many people will think I was wrong to decline the "opportunity" to verify SN's identity. From my perspective, the request for me to verify his/her/their identity is in itself an appeal to authority. It is replacing public cryptographic proof with endorsement by a third party. If SN wants to "prove" their identity, they don't need an "authority" to do so. They can do it in a public, open manner. To ask people in the space who have a reputation to stake that reputation and vouch for SN's identity raises many red flags in my mind.
I don't know if Craig Wright is SN. I don't care and I don't want to know.
As I have expressed many times in the past, I think the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto does not matter. More importantly I think it serves to distract from the fact that bitcoin is not controlled by anyone and is not a system of Appeal-to-Authority. Identifying the creator only serves to feed the appeal-to-authority crowd, as if SN is some kind of infallible prophet, or has any say over bitcoin's future.
Identity and authority are distractions from a system of mathematical proof that does not require trust. This is not a telenovela. Bitcoin is a neutral framework of trust that can bring financial empowerment to billions of people. It works because it doesn't depend on any authority. Not even Satoshi's." - Andreas Antonopolous
I know that this is going to sound nit-picky, so I apologize for that in advance, but the guy's name is Dave Kleiman, not Dave Kleinman. Only one "n" at the end, none after the "i".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kleiman
https://www.youtube.com/user/davekleiman1
That being said, this piece is pretty good, apart from the mistake about Andreas Antonopoulos witnessing the signing of the genesis block. AA was invited to London for the proof session, but he declined, asserting that it did not matter who Satoshi was/is. I think he was remembering the disaster that was the Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto unveiling & didn't want to get caught up in another mess. Who knows?
Anyway, as Gavin Andresen said, it's impossible to be 100% certain in a situation such as this, but to anybody paying close attention it's been obvious for quite some time that CSW is probably the main driving force behind the creation of both BTC & BCH. So, thanks Craig, you did the world a big favour. Cheers!
Dave Kleiman
Dave Kleiman (1967 – April 26, 2013) was a noted forensic computer investigator, an author/coauthor of multiple books and a noted speaker at security related events. Kleiman's estate alleges that he was involved in the creation of bitcoin.