Breaking News: Craig Wright Declared Not Bitcoin Creator… Obviously

The recent not-so-shocking news came out. A UK court has ruled that Dr. Craig Steven Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. The judge dismissed Wright’s claims as false and unsupported by credible evidence. This judgment concludes the COPA vs. Craig Wright lawsuit, bringing relief to the Bitcoin community and leaving the true identity of Bitcoin’s creator a mystery. While this isn’t a surprise, as almost nobody believed Craig Wright, this ruling is pivotal for what crypto is meant to stand for

Key Facts

• Dr. Craig Steven Wright was determined not to be Satoshi Nakamoto by a UK court.
• The ruling concluded the COPA vs. Craig Wright lawsuit.
• Wright had claimed to be the author of the original Bitcoin White Paper and the developer of the Bitcoin system. The judge found Wright’s evidence and documents to be fake.
• The court described Wright’s lies as containing small truths but also many outright falsehoods.
• Wright often blamed unidentified individuals and used complex technical jargon to cover his false claims.
• The true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown, contributing to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin

Court Ruling Exposes Craig Wright’s False Claims

This decision brings the COPA vs. Craig Wright lawsuit to an end,  which is seen to be a big win and relief for the Bitcoin community.

For a long time, Dr. Wright has claimed to be the man behind Bitcoin, being quite confident that he wrote and published the original Bitcoin White Paper on October 31, 2008, and apparently released the first version of the Bitcoin Source Code, and developed the Bitcoin system that we all so love and what the economy relies on to a certain extent. Wright also presented himself as a self-proclaimed “person of exceptional intellect” with quite a handle full of degrees and PhDs across a few different subjects, which according to him, helped him create Bitcoin.

However, the judge’s ruling is very much not in favor of Wright, and his confidence in his statements. The judgment very bluntly stated that Wright is actually “not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.” The judge was convinced that Wright lied in both the written and oral evidence that he gave under cross-examination. 

The judge was very clear in his beliefs over the calling Wright to “Lying”, “Dishonest”, “Arrogant” and claiming he “Lied to the court frequently & repeatedly”

“Dr Wright proved to be an extremely slippery witness. In many answers he included some slight qualification. He rarely gave a complete answer and this was deliberate – he was giving himself an ‘out’ for later. On occasion he was extremely pedantic. Initially I was inclined to give him some leeway due to his ASD, but his pedantry was not consistent. He was pedantic when it suited him and not when it didn’t...In my judgement, the evidence shows that Dr Wright was lying when he said none of the emails sent from {email} were sent by him”

The court also found that quite a few of Wright’s documents, which were actually supposed to support his claims, were straight-up fake. These lies were all aimed at building on his fake identity and his falsehood which was his claim to be “the Satoshi Nakamoto”.

Judge Highlights Wright’s Pattern of Lies

The ruling went into detail and showed just how many of Wright’s lies contained a tiny bit of truth, a characteristic of skilled liars. But many outright lies were also noted. For example, when one lie was exposed, Wright often resorted to more lies to add to his story and try to cover up his trail of falsehoods. He very often blamed unidentified individuals or resorted to “technobabble” to explain the statements that don’t make sense, in his claims. 

The fact is that Wright’s forgeries were straight-up sloppy, even though he is skilled in IT security, and he sometimes admitted in court that he could have made better forgeries if he had tried.

If the tables had turned and Wright’s evidence had been truthful, he would be a very miserable person, supposedly the victim of a number of coincidences and conspiracies against him. However, the judgment decided that this was not the case, and Wright’s claims were unsubstantiated.

Australian computer scientist Craig Wright arrives at the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, Britain, February 9, 2024.

Potential Candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto

While the court has decided that Craig Wright is not the real creator of Bitcoin like he was so convinced to be, the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto still remains one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto space. Over the years, there have been many people who have been thought to be the real founder, but still, no one knows. Here are four potential candidates who have been suggested as the possible creators of Bitcoin:

1. Nick Szabo:

A computer scientist and cryptographer, Szabo is very well-known for his work on digital contracts and the creation of “bit gold,” a cousin to Bitcoin. Apart from his very extensive involvement in the field, Szabo has repeatedly stated that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto. But there are linguistic analyses of the Bitcoin White Paper and surprisingly Szabo’s writings have quite a few similarities which has put a spotlight on him.

2. Hal Finney:

Finney was an early Bitcoin user and received the first ever Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto, Finney was a well-respected developer and cryptographer in the digital space. His work on reusable proof-of-work systems was foundational to the Bitcoin that we know today. Finney has always denied being Satoshi and passed away in 2014, leaving a legacy of great contributions to the cryptocurrency world.

3. Dorian Nakamoto:

Dorian Nakamoto who was a California-based engineer, was also named as Bitcoin’s creator in a 2014, Newsweek article that has many legitimate arguments. But apart from the fact that he shared his surname and had a background in engineering, Dorian Nakamoto has strongly denied having any involvement in Bitcoin and also stated that he had never even heard of the cryptocurrency until all of the media attention back in 2014.

4. Gavin Andresen:

Gavin Andresen was the lead developer of Bitcoin after Satoshi Nakamoto left, Andresen had direct communication with Nakamoto which is very rare. Many people think that Andresen’s close involvement with Bitcoin’s early development could be an obvious shower that he is Satoshi. But again, Andresen himself has shot down this idea, keeping to the fact that he was just entrusted with continuing Nakamoto’s work.

The Mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto’s True Identity

Apart from the fact that one of the men named above could possibly be the real founder of Bitcoin, it is more than likely that none of them are “the” Satoshi Nakamoto. The real identity of Bitcoin’s creator still and probably will always be one of the biggest mysteries in crypto space. 

Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity has been said to be a huge contributor to the success of Bitcoin and gives the cryptocurrency space to develop naturally without any main front-runner or decision-maker. We may never know who Satoshi Nakamoto really is, and most probably that is how it was supposed to be.