Best Way to Explain who and what is Satoshi Files: Craig Wright
Craig Wright, the cryptosphere’s persona non grata, is the most contentious of all those who possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Wright is one of the few people who claims to have invented Bitcoin, although few people believe him. Why is this the case?
Attempting to untangle his story feels like trying to understand a technical lecture on quantum physics delivered in Dothraki, among other things.
Craig Steven Wright was born in 1970 and reared in Brisbane, Australia’s easternmost city. Frederick Wright, his father, served in Vietnam and may have worked for the NSA, while his mother reared him.
According to interactions with Wright’s mother and Wright himself, he was a disturbed and lonely child. Craig was constantly bullied at school, according to his mother, and his home life wasn’t any better. Frederick, his dad, was a violent alcoholic who “lost all his friends” after leaving the armed forces and abused Wright’s mother, who left him.
Wright became interested in computers and coding at a young age because to his grandfather, Ronald, who was a signals officer and potentially a spy in the Australian military. He built a house once he retired.
He used his home computer lab to teach his grandson Craig computer applications.
Wright became interested in Japanese culture as a youth, particularly Samurai and martial arts. During one of their training sessions, his tutor Mas mentioned a Japanese philosopher named Tominaga Nakamoto to Wright. Nakamoto chastised faiths that focus on authority being derived from traditions and history. This belief, according to Wright, inspired the ‘Nakamoto’ element of the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.
(*With regard to the ‘Satoshi’ component (which means ‘ash’ in Japanese), Wright claims he selected it partially because of Pokémon protagonist Ash Ketchum, and partly because Bitcoin is the “phoenix” from which our society will be “reborn.” However, Ash (as in Ash Ketchum) does not translate to Satoshi; it is simply a name chosen by the writers. Satoshi is a common boy’s name that denotes knowledge and knowledge.)
During Wright’s adolescence, his mother observed a disturbing trait in her son: he lied constantly and about seemingly insignificant topics in order to shock or amaze others. It’s unclear when or why Craig began lying compulsively, but one thing is certain: it’s a habit he maintains to this day. Even after three decades of being caught lying by tax officials, journalists, researchers, lawyers, and courts, he still doesn’t tell the truth.
Career
Wright claims to have worked on a smart bombing system while in the Australian Air Force straight out of high school. Wright appears to have been “locked” in a “bunker” while coding. It’s unclear whether this is correct, but there’s little reason to believe it is.
It’s unlikely that the military would hire a baby-faced high school graduate to build bombing devices, let alone lock him in a bunker.
Wright left the Air Force after a skin cancer scare to pursue a career in information technology. His initial positions were with OzEmail, an Australian internet service provider, and K-Mart, a retail chain, before joining the Australian Securities Exchange.
Wright began working with gambling companies including Centrebet and Lasseter’s Online in his early thirties, where he claims to have designed the architecture for the world’s first online casino, as well as Playboy and a few unknown Costa Rica-based casinos.
Wright began gathering qualifications in a diverse range of areas while building his IT career, including: a
Master’s degrees in quantitative finance, law, statistics, information security systems, network and systems administration, IT management, IS engineering, and political science are all available. He also claims to have a doctorate in business management as well as a Ph.D. in theology. Wright is also a researcher and lecturer at Charles Sturt University, where he has published a number of scholarly papers and articles. However, some of his academic achievements may be fraudulent. Craig Wright was not conferred a Ph.D., according to a statement published by Charles Sturt University.
Nonetheless, he continues to gain several qualifications year after year, and he frequently says that his enormous qualification collection serves as supplemental evidence of his Satoshi assertions.
During a 2018 presentation, he actually carried out all of his credentials in a wheelbarrow in order to “shut down skeptics.”
Craig founded DeMorgan, an IT security service firm that designed security systems for Australian financial organizations, in 1997. Craig sold 5% of the company’s shares to Michael Ryan for $50,000 AUD after six apparently successful years as CEO. Craig signed a non-compete agreement and agreed to remain in charge for the foreseeable future.
However, due to discrepancies in DeMorgan’s finances relating to Craig’s expenditures, Wright and his wife Lynn both resigned from DeMorgan to start their own firm. The Wrights then contacted all of DeMorgan’s clients, despite their non-compete agreement, in an attempt to drum up business for their new firm.
As a result,
This culminated in a legal squabble, which is thought to be Craig Wright’s first unpleasant interaction with the legal system. Despite the fact that Wright stopped snatching his previous clients from DeMorgan, the company failed not long after.
Following the DeMorgan debacle, he worked as an information systems manager for BDO, an accounting business. Craig was let go as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. Craig and Lynn packed their possessions and relocated to a farm on Australia’s East Coast because they had nowhere else to go. Wright argues that Bitcoin evolved from a speculative idea to a revolutionary creation on a farm in rural Australia.
Satoshi appears.
On October 31st, 2008, Satoshi distributed his whitepaper to the Cypherpunk mailing list and later to the P2P email list. The Cypherpunk mailing list comprised technical professionals such as Wei Dai and Adam Back, as well as Craig Wright and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Interestingly, Assange once chastised Wright for proposing that assistance recipients “get off their buttocks and work.” Assange wrote to the Cypherpunks mailing group, but specifically to Wright, “Do we really need your amateur political views?”
Hal Finney was the first person to respond to Satoshi’s whitepaper. Finney was a computer scientist best known for developing reusable proof-of-work, without which Bitcoin would not exist. Satoshi mentioned in one of their first chats
Finney claims that he wrote all of Bitcoin’s code before writing the whitepaper to persuade himself that he could iron out any kinks before releasing the whitepaper. Later, he said, “I’m better with code than words.” These arguments suggest that Satoshi (1) authored and edited all of the Bitcoin code himself, and (2) is an exceptionally capable coder.
Satoshi used British spellings rather than American spellings in his forum posts and emails, such as cheque rather than check. This implies that Satoshi studied English in Britain, Europe, or an ex-British colony like Australia.
Craig Wright was still working for the accountancy company BDO when Satoshi contacted Adam Back and Wei Dai in the summer of 2008. Wright was in charge.
Wright held no other positions at the time, but he was pursuing a law degree at the University of Northumbria in the United Kingdom, which he completed in early 2008.
We’ve already discovered a contradiction in Wright’s story. Wright not only claims to hold a law degree, but also frequently refers to himself as a lawyer with a specialty in finance law. Satoshi, on the other hand, made it obvious that he is not a lawyer when he told Mike Hearn through email “I am not a lawyer” a year after Wright completed his law degree.
Craig Wright, who was recently laid off, wasted no time feeling sorry for himself while living on the farm: just weeks after coming out to the countryside, he began a new business.
‘Information Defense Pty Ltd,’ the first of many, safeguarded and maintained code for numerous internet casinos and sports betting enterprises. In March 2009, he founded ‘Integyrs Pty Ltd,’ a risk modeling firm that also analyzed code for “a major multinational gaming company.” Finally, in November 2009, Wright established GreyFog, a company that created security tools for the digital media business.
Craig Wright was clearly a busy man in 2009; was he too busy to start Bitcoin as well? It’s not impossible, but he wouldn’t have gotten much sleep.
Indeed, a comparison of Wright’s and Satoshi’s email timestamps reveals that Satoshi was idle between 07:00 and 12:00 UTC, whereas Wright was offline between 13:00 and 18:00 UTC. According to the findings of the study
Wright’s work and sleep routine corresponded to someone living in Australia’s AEST time zone (where he actually lived), whereas Satoshi’s timestamps corresponded to someone living and working on the US East Coast (EST).
So, did Wright really get a law degree, operate these businesses, and develop Bitcoin on only two or three hours of sleep per night? This appears to be a little far-fetched. However, Wright does not claim to be the only creator of Bitcoin. Instead, he claims to have created Bitcoin with the assistance of an American IT security professional named Dave Kleiman, who specializes in computer forensics and security.
The Proof That Craig Wright Is Satoshi Nakamoto
The earliest piece of evidence is an alleged email discussion between Wright and Kleiman from March 12th, 2008, which Gizmodo obtained. The emails show Wright requesting Kleiman’s assistance in editing a paper about “a new form of electronic money” known as “Bit cash” or “Bitcoin.” Wright writes in the email that he will only release Bitcoin under a pseudonym, but he does not explain why. The domain name of the sender address, information-defense.com, is apparently from Wright’s company of the same name.
Three years later, another email exchange shows Wright admitting to Kleiman that he is unable to maintain the Satoshi persona. Again, if this email is real, it may bolster Wright’s assertions, but it provides no concrete evidence.
2nd Blog Post
The second probable “smoking gun” was a blog entry named “Bitcoin,” which appeared on January 10th, 2009. Wright adds in the post, “The Bitcoin Beta will go live tomorrow.” This is a decentralized system… We’ll keep trying till it works.”
Gavin Andresen, a core Bitcoin developer, was persuaded.
In a 2016 interview with Wired, fundamental Bitcoin engineer Gavin Andresen recalled being asked to a secret meeting with Craig Wright to witness cryptographic proof that Craig is, in fact, Satoshi. Andresen chose a key from the first block of 50 coins, which only Satoshi possesses, in a Convent Garden hotel in London. Andresen also ordered that the signature be checked on a brand new laptop. Craig put his signature on the message.
“Gavin’s favorite number is eleven CSW,” which Andresen verified on the new laptop.
Craig also performed this cryptographic proof for the Bitcoin Foundation’s Jon Matonis and reporters from The Economist, BBC, and GQ.
Furthermore, while Andresen was naturally skeptical of meeting Craig in the first place, email discussions between them convinced Andresen that Craig knows a lot about Bitcoin and sounded very similar to the Satoshi with whom he talked in the early days.
Andresen later stated on his personal website that he was “convinced beyond a reasonable doubt: Craig Wright is Satoshi.”
A February 2023 edit to the post, on the other hand, demonstrates that Andresen regretted trusting Craig Wright and “being drawn into the “who is (or isn’t)”
“Satoshi’s” game.”
Craig Wright’s Blog Post #4
Craig outlined the method of authenticating Satoshi’s cryptographic keys by signing a file containing an extract about the novelist Jean-Paul Sartre in a lengthy and technical blog post published on May 2, 2016, the same day the Wired article was published.
Craig’s Connection to the Gambling Industry and the Bitcoin Code
Craig Wright spent a significant amount of time before moving to the farm working for and with gaming enterprises. In addition to working with Playboy’s gaming business, he claims to have created the digital architecture for Australia’s first online casino, Lasseter’s Online. Furthermore, two of the three businesses Craig Wright founded from the farm in 2009 have substantial ties to the gambling industry.
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