Bitcoin SV spiked 20% this week, with the Genesis Hard Fork approaching and a hedge fund outlining why it buys Craig Wright’s Satoshi claim.

Yes, we know the vast majority of our readers are very vocal in their belief Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, but any coin increasing 20% in a week is worth examining more closely.

[See also Monero which jumped a quarter this week and 8% since John McAfee threw his weight behind it yesterday.]

BSV is an interesting coin to speculate on because even if you’re 99% sure Wright isn’t Satoshi, you could still make outsize returns on the 1% chance he’s able to convince the world he is.

BSV is trading at 1.5% of the price of Bitcoin – which means a 6700% increase if BSV was to ever trade at the same price.

In any case, for those who dislike Wright intensely, the best way to annoy him is to speculate on the price of BSV as he genuinely HATES crypto traders.

BSV price spike a surprise

Bitcoin SV’s price spike this week is something of a surprise as many expected the coin to flounder after January 1 came and went without any announcement about Wright regaining access to the Satoshi wallets.

Wright had told a Florida Court a bonded courier was due to show up that day, enabling him to regain access to 1.1 million Bitcoin.

He told Blockchain Journeys in our exclusive podcast (The Real Man Behind the ‘Fake Satoshi’), that unlocking those coins wouldn’t prove anything anyway.

The podcast also looks at CSW’s autism which may help cast a different light on his erratic and difficult behaviour.

It remains to be seen what will happen if Wright is never able to unlock those coins, but until then Bitcoin SV is on a tear.

Possible factors behind the price rise

It’s not immediately obvious why, but the Genesis hard fork is due in a month on February 4 and the chain is getting noticed for its high transaction throughput and low fees.

Bitcoin SV claims the Genesis hard fork will return Bitcoin (mostly) to the original protocol and eliminate the block size cap altogether.

In addition institutional investors are starting to look more closely at BSV.

Back in October a Venture capital firm and hedge fund called The New Economy Fund rebranded as Unbounded Capital and announced it was going all in on the Bitcoin SV ecosystem.

The firm outlined its reasons in a blog post published on December 27 called ‘Why We Think Craig Wright is Satoshi and Why That Matters‘.

Unbounded Capital’s reasoning

*CSW’s background “lines up much more with that of a creator of Bitcoin than a clear fraud” and he has a dozen degrees “and a prolific career as a computer security expert working for OzEmail, K-Mart, ASE, Mahindra & Mahindra, Lasseter’s Online, and BDO Kendalls”.

*His Masters of Law dissertation “contains sections that resemble the Bitcoin whitepaper even though the dissertation predates it.” Unbounded are aware of the fact the online version was published after the WP, but say that both CSW’s handwritten version and the version in the Newcastle Uni archives came before the WP and will be used as evidence in the libel suit against Peter McCormack.

*The fact many of his early papers were unpublished at the time is a good thing as it means Wright has since been able to patent all the concepts. He told Blockchain Journeys he has around 800 pending patents and 100-200 granted.

*Gavin Andresen, former chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, communicated with Satoshi regularly and believed Wright’s email tone was the same. He affirmed CSW was Satoshi after seeing him sign a message using a key from the first block of 50 coins claimed by Nakamoto himself.

*Unbounded accept that various documents were faked, but believe this was due to hacks arguing it was strange that “an expert in both law and computer security would be so sloppy in forging documents that an army of anonymous Reddit warriors could routinely expose the same mistakes again and again.”

*They argue that CSW isn’t a conman because he didn’t attempt to exploit the claim to make money or set up an ICO. Instead he’s thrown his “weight behind a vision for Bitcoin supported by the minority of Bitcoin holders and ultimately ended up backing a minority chain, thereby alienating the majority and failing to capture value by creating a new coin where he could have assumed outsized ownership.” In our recent piece on Wright and the Blockchain Journeys podcast, we also wondered what sort of conman doesn’t make any attempt to convince people and goes out of his way to upset them instead.

*Unbounded conclude by suggesting the market has priced BSV wrong due to a successful disinformation campaign which means betting on BSV now could be hugely profitable:

“For those who understand that CSW’s credibility is much greater than what has been represented, an enormous opportunity lies ahead. Unbounded Capital plans to be among those who leverage an unprecedented informational asymmetry within the crypto space to generate outsized risk-adjusted returns.”

As always, DYOR.