Who is Craig Wright?

The name - Satoshi Nakamoto, is surrounded by numerous theories and mysteries about who this person might truly be. Therefore, Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, publicly announced that he is, in fact - Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin inventor.

Craig Wright is a fifty-year-old man who has worked in the IT sector for multiple high-profile firms, one of which was the Australian Securities Exchange. He also acted as the chief scientist at blockchain developer nChain, the CEO of the technology company Hotwire PE and the director of many other companies.

He earned popularity and publicity after claiming to be the mysterious person who invented Bitcoin. 

The scientist is currently working at nChain Inc., a firm that offers enterprise blockchain solutions supported by the Bitcoin SV blockchain.

Shortly after Wright announced that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, he was given the nickname “Faketoshi” by some individuals from the industry. Also, Craig Wright is accountable for the formation of Bitcoin SV (BSV), a BCH hard fork, after persuading a new segment of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem to resentfully break from the main project owing to technical disagreements.

The Bitcoin SV software was aimed at boosting the Bitcoin Cash blockchain’s block size limit to 128 MB. On March 16 of 2021, BSV’s block size was indicated to be 638 MB.

In 2015, Craig Wright was considered to be a possible inventor of Bitcoin when he was the subject of a piece by WIRED magazine. Following the publication of this information by Wired, his residence was raided by federal police, who later stated that the raid was authorized by the Australian Taxation Office.

According to WIRED, the trust fund is kept by Wright's business, Tulip Trading, which is thought to own 1.1 million Bitcoin acquired by Nakamoto. According to Gizmodo and WIRED, Wright's PGP keys were established in 2009 and could be directly attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto's email address.

Moreover, the claims were later backed by the analysis of BBC and The Economist in 2016.

In 2014, there was reported evidence from an Australian Tax Office interview, including unconfirmed transcripts, concerning his tax affairs. 

The papers show his engagement with the Bitcoin project, as well as emails advocating for Bitcoin from accounts related to Nakamoto, and also one addressed to Wright's lawyer, Clayton Utz, signed off as "Craig (possibly)."

According to the transcripts he said: “I did my best to try and hide the fact that I’ve been running Bitcoin since 2009.”

The computer scientist indicates that there is some cryptographic evidence to back up his claims. For instance, digital messages with Wright’s name are supposedly linked to the early blocks of data that Bitcoin’s founder had mined.

However, people are thinking that this is a hoax, and Wright could have grafted these signatures by reusing Satoshi’s original.

He added Dave Kleiman and Hal Finney, the creators of the first Proof-of-Work algorithm, as his alliances in developing the first cryptocurrency. With the skillset of these people, it is possible that they could have managed to create the very first cryptocurrency, nevertheless, many still believe that it is a hoax.

In addition, the documents and blog posts that supposedly supported his claim have been deleted from the internet since 2015.

Craig Wright has his own website, where he claims to be one of the initial minds underlying what is now known as blockchain technology, and also the creator of the world's first digital casino.

After meeting Wright in London in 2016, former Bitcoin lead developer, Gavin Andresen, felt that Wright was the actual Satoshi. Wright allegedly signed a message to Anderson using his credentials and private key from one of Nakamoto's first 50 bitcoin blocks generated.

According to Bitcoin Foundation Director, Jon Matoni - Wright also signed a message using Bitcoin’s first and ninth blocks.

However, the most famous figures in the crypto industry such as Charlie Lee, the Litecoin inventor, and Joseph Poon, the Lightning Network co-inventor, do not believe that the evidence is valid and have commented that it is illogical.

Vitalik Buterin did not hold back and called him a “fraud”.

PGP keys from 2009, according to Vice Media's Jordan Pearson and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, may be transferred back and changed to link to anyone's email address.

In Andrew O'Hagan's book "The Secret Life: Three True Stories," published in June 2016, Wright discussed how he gave an illegitimate private key instead of the initial Satoshi Nakamoto PGP private key due to legal responsibilities concurred in a Seychelles trust fund signed by David Kleiman.

Wright’s plan to prove himself as the creator of Bitcoin failed. In addition to the obscurity, there are accusations that Craig Wright misrepresented his academic authentications and provided false company partnerships.

In the earlier version of his Linkedin profile, he indicated that he had earned a doctorate from Charles Sturt University in Australia. However, the same University had said that it was, indeed, not true.

Nakamoto's identity is still a mystery, although Wright stands by his claims and employs UK libel law to sue anyone who refers to him as a fraud.

He received adverse reactions regarding him and Bitcoin SV from the industry. In addition, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, singled him out as the cause of the exchange was withdrawing BSV from its platform.

Even while he makes every attempt to establish that he is, in fact, the person behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, there isn't enough conclusive proof. So, the famous question still remains.