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The Silver Lining to the Craig Wright Saga – A Re-United Bitcoin Community

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:48 PM
Andrew Quentson
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:48 PM

While the dust now settles regarding the recent claim by Craig Wright that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, on reflection, I think there is a simple and rational explanation to the seemingly confusing and dazzling recent magic show.

Although you cannot prove a negative, you can provide evidence to show that something is highly unlikely and the more evidence the more the standard of beyond reasonable doubt is reached. In this case, there is zero evidence Craig Wright is Satoshi, or that the now infamous supercomputer exists, however, there is good evidence to strongly suggest that he is not Satoshi and that the supercomputer does not exist.

The strongest evidence that he is not Satoshi is the invalid proof, which was seemingly passed as valid in his now deleted blog post on May the 2nd , the so-called “cryptographic miracle “. That is followed by a mountain of evidence to show he is not Satoshi. Such as seemingly buying bitcoins at $1,200 while he apparently already owns a million bitcoins or his constant lack of spelling and proper grammar which may be intentional and act as a distraction from the general, vague and often incorrect nature of his statements.

The strongest evidence that he does not have a supercomputer is that SGI, a highly respected company, denies in no uncertain terms any relationship with Wright or any of his companies, while Wright or his companies, in a probably fake letter, state that there is a partnership between SGI and Wright or one of his companies. Moreover, of course, there is no evidence this supercomputer exists.

Wright seemingly claimed at the Australian Tax Office that he spent some 100 million dollars or so on the seemingly non-existent supercomputer which entitled him to $54 million in tax rebate. It is not clear whether any money was actually given, but the claim itself, in the absence of the supercomputer, is fraudulent.

Also read: Craig Wright Is Not Satoshi Nakamoto; the Technical Proof

It is known that around three million was given in regards to Hotwire, a company owned by Wright now in liquidation. Hotwire was to buy a number of e-learning software, but the ATO was not convinced such software was acquired and levied a penalty of almost $2 million.

In a transcript with ATO Wright states that he had been running bitcoin since 2009. It is possible therefore that he may have provided the documents that were later leaked to Wired to the ATO to show that he is Satoshi. The ATO may have been unconvinced or were unsure, thus may have leaked it to Wired since almost everyone knows no one knows who Satoshi is while Wright was openly claiming he is Nakamoto. The documents were sufficiently convincing for Gwen and Wired to publish the story, but once they came under public scrutiny it quickly became apparent that not only he is not Satoshi, but that he probably scammed the ATO.

The story could have ended there, but as he was publicly discredited and thus his likely scam was falling apart, he may have tried to convince everyone. In the process, he may have engaged in the opportunity to scam even more as there are rumors Wright was raising funds  backed by the likely non-existent Tulip Fund.

This may explain the whole saga and hopefully, now the chapter can be closed as well as a highly important lesson learned in the Bitcoin community.

The Saga’s Effects on the Blocksize Debate

While some may say that the events of the past few days have little to do with the blocksize debate, many will likely reconsider their position and begin to give a fair ear to the so-called small blockers. One aspect that may aid is the seemingly unanimous agreement  by almost all contributors to Bitcoin Core. Although some have co-founded blockstream, many who have no connection to blockstream, such as Wladimir J. van der Laan, Cory Fields, Jonas Schnelli, Peter Todd, and many others are all of the opinion that the blocksize should grow in a way that does not affect decentralization.

Much of the time has been spent on the debate itself. Now, it may be the time to support their work and allow them to focus on coding. Specifically, it seems that only three or so coders are working on segwit which is to increase capacity to almost 2MB, giving plenty of time to test the Lightning Network in the real world. Miners may feel it is important for segwit to be activated prior to the halving, therefore, more developers working on segwit would be of high assistance.

After a very heated year of debate, reconciliation may not be easy. A lot was said and done by both sides under the belief that their path was the best for bitcoin. Many may have taken it personally. However, it is time for both sides to forget and forgive and move on for the community is stronger as one as embodied in Bitcoin’s moto Vires in Numeris.

Featured image from Shutterstock.