While many industries suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many even had to declare bankruptcies, the digital currency market prospered and grew into becoming recognized as a legitimate industry.
It was also during the pandemic’s beginning that I started writing about Bitcoin and blockchain. But unfortunately, being a part of the film industry, I had to go back to writing online articles to earn when all filming halted due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.
I was not technical and needed to learn emerging digital currencies and blockchain technologies. Instead, I could rely on decades of writing experience in news and marketing.
Gathering Information About Bitcoin and Blockchain
It was a grueling week as I tried to gather and squish all information about Bitcoin and blockchain in my brain to write my first article. I even read the Bitcoin white paper, although I could not say I understood half of it. And then, it took me another week of back and forth with my editor to finally submit an article that could be published.
Two years in, I can say that I am more knowledgeable now about Bitcoin and blockchain—even with the more advanced IPv6 and the metaverse stuff. But I still consider myself a non-technical person. So I do not presume to understand coding, scripts, and the inner workings of Bitcoin and blockchain.
I veer away from writing highly technical articles for fear of writing something erroneous based on my limited understanding. However, after having immersed myself in the blockchain space, I am continuously learning, and my knowledge and interest in these technologies grow every day.
Encountering The Satoshi Nakamoto Debate
When reading and writing about Bitcoin, it is inevitable to encounter the heated debate about the real-world identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous author of the Bitcoin white paper—who started it all in 2008.
In 2015, nChain Chief Scientist Craig S. Wright was outed as Satoshi Nakamoto by media outlets Wired and Gizmodo. One side claims that Wright was involved in doxing himself—that he concocted this elaborate plan to claim to be the Bitcoin creator everyone was looking for.
Wright has stated that he is a very private person who was forcefully thrust into the public spotlight. However, he never wished to be outed, so he used a pseudonym and maintained anonymity for seven years.
The controversy surrounding the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has not died down, and court battles continue to be fought until this day, with Wright going after people defaming him as well as the other parties trying to lay claim to the 1.1 million coins that Satoshi Nakamoto can only own, currently worth nearly $22 billion. At one point, the value of the Satoshi coins reached a total of $74.8 billion.
With a “he said, she said” kind of argument, I was on the edge of my seat every time I covered one of these trials. Again, I do not dare say that I fully understand the testimonies and evidence presented in court—I was not physically present in any of the trials. I had to rely on court transcripts and other accounts.
However, I got the gist of what happened in these trials and was privy to more details than the regular person. I would bounce back and forth from, “Wow, Wright really is Satoshi,” to “If he really is Satoshi, why did he do this or why did he not do this?” As a bystander, I could not help but take sides and draw my conclusions.
The Ramifications of Wright Being Satoshi Nakamoto
Before I go to what I now believe in my heart to be true based on my interpretation of the information I have gathered in the past two years I have been a Bitcoin or blockchain news writer, it is best to delve into why Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity is so contentious.
Well, cliché as it may seem, I think it all boils down to fame and fortune. The original Bitcoin community has had two major splits—one that produced Bitcoin Core (BTC) and another that produced Bitcoin Cash (BCH) which also gave way to the rise of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV). The original ticker symbol for Bitcoin, BTC, was retained by Bitcoin Core, which many consider to be the original Bitcoin mainly due to its high trading price.
These splits resulted from the upper echelons of the Bitcoin ecosystem not agreeing to scale the original Bitcoin protocol. BTC refuses to scale and maintains its 1MB block size cap and throughput of only seven transactions per second (tps). BCH, on the other hand, has scaled to 32MB and 116 tps, but refused to scale further than this.
Both BTC and BCH have altered the original Bitcoin protocol to make way for second-tier solutions to mitigate the fact that they do not scale. BCH has gone further in making changes to the protocol so they could create an anonymous network that makes transactions virtually untraceable by law enforcement agencies.
After Wright was doxed in 2015, he became vocal about everything BTC and BCH are doing wrong. According to him, scaling is key to Bitcoin’s survival, and it has to work within the rule of law to be valid. BSV is the implementation that listened to Wright and believed in his vision for Bitcoin. It is also the Bitcoin that Wright considers the original.
Now, if Wright is proven once and for all to be Satoshi Nakamoto, his name will be vindicated, and he will go down in history as the inventor of Bitcoin. BTC and BCH supporters would be proven wrong, which include big names in the industry like Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, as well as his many detractors.
If Wright is to be officially recognized as Satoshi Nakamoto, then the price of BTC, which has continued to go downhill since Wright won the Kleiman v Wright trial in 2021, will plummet. This will cause many big-time BTC investors to lose a ton of money and severely damage their reputation, as many have been vocal about their distrust in Wright.
Moreover, the entire foundation of BTC maximalists—those who believe in the mantra that any coin other than Bitcoin is a “shit coin”—will crumble. In effect, the BTC they have put on a pedestal will be another shit coin as it is not the original Bitcoin supported by its true creator. BSV will reign supreme, and its price may skyrocket.
These are just heavier consequences if Wright is proven to be Satoshi Nakamoto. So the stakes are indeed high, and it is definitely in the interest of many if Wright continues to be considered a fraud.
Weighing Facts and Opinions
There are many smear campaigns against Wright on the Internet. However, setting that aside, looking at the facts of the Kleiman v Wright and the Granath v Wright trials and drawing logical conclusions from testimonies, I believe that Wright is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto.
The Kleiman V Wright Trial
I will cite three major reasons why I have arrived at this conclusion. First off, in the Kleiman v Wright trial, Ira Kleiman alleged that his late brother, David Kleiman, was a partner of Wright in writing the Bitcoin white paper and mining the 1.1 million Satoshi coins. It was already a given that Wright authored the revolutionary white paper and mined said coins. The question was whether or not he had a partner.
The utter absence of evidence and testimony pointing to David Kleiman as Wright’s partner was what got me. If I were David Kleiman, who was sick and dying—alone, in pain, and in debt—I would have let the world know that I co-invented Bitcoin. It would be my legacy so the world would remember me for this great invention.
Also, I would have cashed out my Bitcoin to get better treatment or improve my quality of life. I would spend the money I have earned doing whatever I wanted before I die. And then, I would share this blessing with my family and friends. I believe this is what any person would do in this case, rather than suffer and die in anonymity.
But David Kleiman did none of these things. He did not even tell any of his family members or best friends about creating or owning Bitcoin. At the time of his death, Bitcoin was already rising in value and popularity; 550,000 coins would have amounted to over $145 million at its peak.
Knowing he was seriously ill, it does not make sense that David Kleiman would not have claimed this and used it. Instead, he took out a second mortgage on his house and fell so into debt that he could not even pay his phone bills. For me, this is more glaring than any evidence presented in court.
The Granath V Wright Trial
My second reason can be seen in the Granath v Wright trial, which concluded just last month. In this case, Magnus Granath, more popularly known by his previously anonymous Twitter handle “Hodlonaut,” aimed to prove to a Norwegian court that his offensive tweets calling Wright “trash,” “a fraud,” and “a pathetic scammer,” among other things, were not defamatory under the free speech act of the country.
In the trial, Wright did not present any documents as evidence, but instead, opted to put witnesses on the stand who could testify to his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto. All witnesses who took the stand were top executives and field experts.
While not all of the witnesses attested to being 100% sure that Wright created Bitcoin, they all said that with Wright’s high intelligence and skills, he was more than capable of inventing Bitcoin. Although all of them were connected to Wright in some way—former colleagues, friends, and family—I do not believe they would lie in court on his behalf.
I also think these people are not the type to be bought—they are all highly respected in their fields, and I assume they would have already earned enough money not to sell their integrity. Furthermore, these witnesses said with conviction that Wright talked to them about technological concepts now integral to Bitcoin and blockchain. Even though the Judge ruled in favor of Granath, this did not change the testimonies presented during the trial.
Wright Has Been Claiming To Be Satoshi Nakamoto for Seven Years
And the last major reason I believe Wright to be Satoshi Nakamoto is because of the man himself and because I do not believe he is perpetrating a long con. Wright has been claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto for seven years now. It does not make sense to me that he would expend all his energy, money, and time in claiming to be someone he is not.
On top of this, Wright truly is brilliant. His accomplishments speak for themselves—he has decades of experience in cyber security, information technology, and digital forensics. He was one of the people who built the first-ever online casino and worked on the security of the Australian Stock Exchange. It would be him if someone were ever clever enough to create Bitcoin.
On Refusing To Use The Satoshi Keys
One of the most considerable doubts cast on Wright—and also made me think twice about his identity—is that he would not sign using the Satoshi keys to prove to the world that he is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto. This is something that his detractors have always capitalized on. “He does not have the keys, why else would he not sign?” is a valid question.
However, Wright’s reason for this is that keys are not proof of identity, but merely proof of possession. Let’s say Wright’s keys were stolen, then does it mean that the person who stole his keys is the rightful owner? No, the thief is just in possession of the keys. It also does not verify his identity as Bitcoin creator Craig Wright.
This is what Wright wants to stress, and he feels would be negated if he did sign using the Satoshi keys to prove his identity as the Bitcoin white paper author. Instead, he would put 100 people on the stand to attest to his identity rather than rely on the Satoshi keys. And this is precisely what he has been doing with his lawsuits.
As someone who I believe is one of the greatest minds of our generation, I respect and even understand why he would not publicly sign using the Satoshi keys. Bitcoin is his lifelong work and what will define him in history. And given what has happened to his invention—being used and known as a haven of illicit activities similar to the dark net in its early years—it is understandable why he would be so particular about it.
Whether or not Wright signs using the Satoshi keys, I believe that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. He might be eccentric and appear arrogant at times, but he knows what he is saying. Watching his keynote presentations made me say, “Well, that makes sense.” It really does. It makes sense when Wright talks about Bitcoin and his vision for it. And I think it is because he is the one who created it.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Sam Allcock is the founder of PR Fire. His team help small to medium-sized businesses achieve coverage in publications like Yahoo Finance, Daily Mail, Metro, USA Today, MSN News, The Huffington Post, and The Telegraph through smart press release distribution.
