He can’t possibly be THAT dumb!

B eyond the strangeness 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

This is the “he can’t possibly be that dumb” excuse, and it’s bogus, because he has proven again and again that he is indeed that sloppy and careless. His excuses, when called out on his forgeries, prove that they were unintentional mistakes.

I’ll note that the “he can’t possibly be that dumb” excuse is basically unfalsifiable, as well.

That concludes the author’s dismissal of the evidence against Wright.

Miscellaneous

There were a few additional claims made that didn’t fit into the topics above, so I’ll address some of them now.

Keys don’t prove identity!

T he other error in this claim is the assertion that keys should prove identity in the first place. CSW has written copiously on this and related topics. The ideology of many in crypto is that the rules in the code are the rules of the system. They do not see law as a superseding ruleset. Therefore, they see control of keys as the be-all and end-all on the question of ownership of bitcoin. However, we can clearly see that this is a poor argument and a flawed approach. Keys to one’s house are useful in that they create a system where the owner of the house can use the keys to limit the ease of access to trusted parties. However, if someone stole the keys, they would not own the house. If someone simply holds the keys to bitcoins, that alone should not give them legal ownership. Similarly, asking someone to prove ownership of keys to prove identity is a non-sequitur, even if it is true that control of keys known to belong to an individual increases the likelihood that the key-holder is that individual.

While this is an oft-cited justification by Wright believers, it’s nonsense. Even if holding keys is not sufficient evidence of identity, in the case of Satoshi Nakamoto, it’s necessary. Satoshi widely published a PGP key to identify himself. In the context of proving that one created Bitcoin, showing access to the PGP key or one of the first blocks is the absolute minimum that one could do to prove their identity. If holding the keys to a house doesn’t prove you own it, merely describing the exterior of the house and making up stories about why he chose a paint color proves much less, and that’s the equivalent of what Wright has done to prove his “ownership” of it. (As well as faking deeds and mortgage documents, if we want to extend the analogy.)

He had no motive!

It is interesting to ask someone who is convinced CSW is a fraud what the incentive is for him to pretend to be Satoshi Nakamoto. A typical answer in my experience is something about his character; he’s an egomaniac, a psychopath, or a pathological liar.

The incentive is money. Wright started this charade as tax fraud, and along the way, he managed to convince a billionaire to pay him for his story and “intellectual property”.

In fact, it is not clear that Calvin has given any financial support directly to CSW,

It is quite clear that Wright has (directly or indirectly) received millions of dollars that originated with Calvin Ayre.

“The Wrights’ financial situation was dire. They couldn’t pay their staff and a number had already left.​ Pedersen and some others had stayed on without pay; Wright owed his lawyers $1 million. Superannuation remittances were overdue and loan repayments unpaid; the companies needed £200,000 just to make it to next week. Craig and Ramona had sold their cars. One of the companies was already in administration and, with the ATO closing in, ‘all related entities were on the brink of collapse.’’”

…

“‘That’s right,’ Matthews said in February this year. ‘When we signed the deal, $1.5 million was given to Wright’s lawyers.”

“From that point on, the ‘Satoshi revelation’ would be part of the deal. ‘It was the cornerstone of the commercialisation plan,’ Matthews said, ‘with about ten million sunk into the Australian debts and setting up in London.’”

…

As I was paying the bill, Matthews reared up. ‘You know Craig has gone out and bought himself some cars? One hundred and eighty thousand dollars’ worth of cars.’ (When I checked this with Wright he said the cars were leased.) ‘One of them stands out like the dog’s balls in the proverbial moonlight, and this is from the man we’re trying to keep fucking secret. How many custom BMW i8s are going around London? He’s spending every fucking penny that we’ve paid him … Does he think this is just a game? You know, these guys have gone from being backyard scrappers and they’ve suddenly found themselves in a high-stakes poker game.’ Matthews said he wouldn’t take any rubbish from the Wrights, and that they’d end up on a plane back to Australia and jail if they didn’t fulfil their end of the bargain, to reveal Satoshi. ‘The people that I work with are capable of deciding this was a $30 million bad decision and write it off,’ he said.

So, yes, Wright had (and continues to have) a big financial incentive to pretend to be Satoshi.

In fact, we’ve recently learned that Ayre was the one negotiating a settlement for the Kleiman lawsuit, so Ayre is supporting him there, as well.

Why would he risk it all!?!

A nyone setting out to claim that they are Satoshi without the ability to sign publicly is engaging in an uphill battle. To those that are convinced one is Satoshi, there may be something to be gained through partnerships, fundraising, or influence, but for all those who are unconvinced, the fake claim amounts to reputational suicide. Taking the claims into court and filing libel lawsuits against detractors escalates the consequences from reputational suicide to jailtime. This seems like an odd calculus coming from an extremely successful professional in his late 40s with a wife and children.

As noted, Wright is willing to take risks. He was fined over a million dollars for tax fraud, and was sentenced to jail (later commuted to community service) for contempt of court. In the recent Kleiman case, he was found by the magistrate judge to have given “perjurious” testimony. He has blatantly plagiarized dozens of papers with no remorse despite getting caught multiple times.

Judge Reinhart’s summary deserves repeating:

“[T]he evidence establishes that he has engaged in a willful and bad faith pattern of obstructive behavior, including submitting incomplete or deceptive pleadings, filing a false declaration, knowingly producing a fraudulent trust document, and giving perjurious testimony at the evidentiary hearing”

And, as we’ve seen, Wright was rather desperate at the time. His tax fraud was not working and he was in extraordinary debt. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and pretending to be Satoshi despite the incredible evidence against you is a pretty desperate measure — one that he took.

But a conman wouldn’t do what Wright is doing!

Conmen often have a way of telling their victims what they want to hear. CSW has taken the opposite approach, sticking with a very clear set of principles that are extremely unpopular and notably consistent with the ideas espoused by Satoshi Nakamoto when writing under the pseudonym.

Keep in mind that the mark is likely Ayre, not the general public.

Also, Wright’s “ideas” are not consistent with Nakamoto’s at all. Most notably, Nakamoto held anonymity as an ideal (“participants can be anonymous”), and even admitted that Bitcoin would be “better” if it didn’t have to be a public ledger.

Buy BSV!

In 2020, there are a series of events which we anticipate will align market perception to the realities surrounding Bitcoin and the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. These include Craig’s warning that he will be moving upwards of 800,000 BTC, the January 1st 2020 maturation of a trust containing over 1 million BTC mined by CSW in 2009–2011

I will state that if Wright publicly demonstrates control of the PGP key or the coinbase key of the genesis block (or block 1), then I will concede that he likely had a role in the creation of Bitcoin.

However, I will also state that if fossil rabbits are found in the Precambrian, then I will concede that the theory of evolution is likely fundamentally flawed.

I personally assign approximately equal probability to each of these events actually happening.

My question is: when 2021 rolls around and no coins have moved, what excuse will the author move on to?