In the ever-evolving saga of Bitcoin's mysterious creation, a pivotal moment looms on the horizon: the COPA v. Wright trial, set to commence in mid-January 2024. This landmark case is poised to tackle a question that has intrigued and divided the entire crypto community: the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. COPA (Crypto Open Patent Alliance), representing some of Silicon Valley's most influential companies, seeks a court declaration that Dr. Craig S. Wright is not the elusive Satoshi. For the first time, a legal battle hinges directly on unmasking, once and for all, the enigmatic founder of Bitcoin, making this trial a watershed event with profound implications for the Bitcoin world.
Here is why I believe Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto
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Proficiency in Bitcoin Script: At the CoinGeek Toronto 2019 conference, Wright discussed the original design and capabilities of Bitcoin script, particularly in relation to Bitcoin SV (BSV). His presentation highlighted the return to Bitcoin's initial scripting and the reintroduction of certain features like OP_RETURN, which enhances BSV's functionality and security.
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Digital Cash Systems Experience: Wright's approach to solving the electronic cash puzzle with Bitcoin involved understanding the history of digital cash, previous system failures, and the importance of legal and economic incentives. Craig has openly discussed and written about these previous digital cash systems often.
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Multidisciplinary Expertise: Wright's background includes contributions to blockchain technology as a computer scientist, businessman, and inventor. He founded nChain and has over 25 years of experience in IT and security, with a strong academic background in computer science and experience in lecturing and research.
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Understanding of Bitcoin Scripts and Codes: Wright emphasized the return to Bitcoin's original scripting as intended in the whitepaper and discussed the reintroduction of OP_RETURN in Bitcoin SV for enhanced functionality and security.
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Insight into Complex Bitcoin Mechanics: Wright's vision for Bitcoin includes a focus on facilitating micropayments globally, maintaining a stable protocol, and enabling near-instant value transfer while integrating with existing legal systems. He also addresses misconceptions about Bitcoin's purpose and design - this was alleged to have been part of the reason for the splits between BTC, BCH and BSV.
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Bitcoin's Unique Properties: Wright outlined his vision for Bitcoin, which includes scalability to billions of transactions per second, global accessibility, extremely low transaction costs, and complete traceability within legal frameworks all of which BSV teams appear to be working towards.
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Bitcoin's Security Model: Wright has argued that the real security of Bitcoin comes from economic incentives rather than just computational power. He posits that the economic model of Bitcoin ensures that it is in the best interest of miners to act honestly, a view that adds depth to the understanding of Bitcoin's security mechanisms.
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Knowledge of Bitcoin's Turing Completeness: Wright has spoken about Bitcoins Turing completeness and has provided technical explanations on how Bitcoin's script language can be used for various computational functions proving this. This was a controversial stance until the potential of Bitcoin's script was more broadly acknowledged in the crypto community.
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Witness Testimonies: Gavin Andresen, a prominent figure in the early development of Bitcoin, once stated that he believed Wright was Satoshi after a private demonstration where Wright signed a message using one of Nakamoto's private keys. Andresen is one of a few people who have provided similar testimony. While Andresen has recently changed his tune cryptically saying on his website “I don’t believe in rewriting history, so I’m going to leave this post up. But in the seven years since I wrote it, a lot has happened, and I now know it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright as much as I did. I regret getting sucked into the “who is (or isn’t) Satoshi” game, and I refuse to play that game any more.” And right after saying *“*I believe Craig Steven Wright is the person who invented Bitcoin.”
Ian Grigg , and Jon Matonis being others. -
Oath-bound Testimonies: During legal proceedings, several very well respected individuals such as Neville Sinclair, Stefan Matthews, Robert Jenkins, Shoaib Yousuf, Donald Lynam and Max Lynam all testified under oath about Wright's early involvement with Bitcoin. Some of the involvements include providing drafts of the white paper to be read by RAAF Wing Commander and Order of Australia recipient Don Lynam (Craigs uncle), lending a good degree of legal weight to his claims.
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Early Bitcoin Involvement: Wright has provided evidence, such as documents and emails, that suggest his involvement in purchasing the bitcoin.org domain prior to the release of the Bitcoin whitepaper.There is also little doubt Craig and potentially other friends and or colleagues mined Bitcoin in the very early days.
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Tax Records and Legal Investigations: Wright claims of having declared Bitcoin related purchases in the Australian 2008/2009 tax year, specifically the bitcoin.org domain name, and various other complex confrontations with the ATO (Australian Tax Office), which investigated his Bitcoin holdings among other company and tax related items, was widely reported in the media.
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Copyright - Bitcoin White Paper: The initial lawsuit for copyright infringement led by Dr. Wright has concluded only two months after Dr. Wright initiated legal action against the operator of bitcoin.org, known as Cøbra, the English High Court delivered a verdict in Dr. Wright's favor. The court acknowledged Dr. Wright's copyright over the Bitcoin White Paper and issued an order for Cøbra to cease the infringement. This directive includes removing the Bitcoin White Paper from the bitcoin.org website and its associated Github repository in the United Kingdom.
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Patents: Craig Wright, personally as well as through his companies, employers, partners and colleagues, has already existing and filed for a further number of blockchain-related patents. This extensive portfolio suggests a deep and ongoing engagement with blockchain technology.
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Satoshi Vision and BSV: Wright has been instrumental in the development of Bitcoin SV. Many in the Bitcoin and crypto communities refer to Bitcoin SV as a fork of Bitcoin, however Bitcoin SV supporters along with Craig Wright state that Bitcoin Core (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) were the ones that forked away from the original Bitcoin protocol as stated on the Bitcoin SV website “BSV remains as Bitcoin, BCH forks away
Bitcoin SV (BSV) becomes the new ticker symbol for the original Bitcoin Protocol when BCH decided to divert from Bitcoin’s white paper, introduce non-Bitcoin compliant features which included introducing anonymity that hinders government and financial regulation. This is why it’s considered Bitcoin’s Independence Day.”.
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Bitcoin's Versatility: Dr. Wright has consistently stated that Bitcoin's protocol has capabilities far beyond simple financial transactions, such as handling complex data types and smart contracts, a view that has only recently started to gain traction in the wider Bitcoin community with such advancements as Ordinals (Ordinal Inscriptions), also known as Bitcoin NFTs.
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Insights on nLockTime and nSequence: Wright has discussed at length and taught others about the nLockTime and nSequence features in Bitcoin, which allows transactions to be locked until a certain point in the future. His understanding of these features and their potential applications mirrors the foresight that Satoshi would have needed to implement such features.
https://www.youtube.com/live/WUj2pGLklTU?si=FyktggNsIUteBh4f
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Byzantine Problem Solution: Dr. Wright has both written and spoken about Bitcoin's solution to the Byzantine Generals' Problem, emphasizing the economic incentives that ensure network consensus. His interpretation of how Bitcoin solves this problem through economic means is unique and aligns with a deep understanding of Bitcoin's consensus mechanism.
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The Burden of Proof Shift: When media outlets like Wired and Gizmodo suggested in 2015 that Wright might be Satoshi, many other media outlets pounced on this and a frenzy of investigation started into Dr. Wrights person and life by both professional investigative journalists and amateur websleuths. Wright later confirmed their speculations during a BBC interview. However, the crypto community was not happy with this confirmation, we can speculate as to why - this critical point in time flipped the burden of proof from the media firms which outed Dr. Wright to Wright himself. Which makes one wonder why Craig would put himself in this position as many have suggested, he fed the information to Wired and Gizmodo himself, even though both articles describe, in depth, how they were able to investigate the curious case of Satoshi.
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Bitcoin Mining Holdings: In the US court case involving Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, a Florida jury ruled that Wright did not owe half of 1.1 million bitcoins to the family of his late business partner, David Kleiman. The case was centered around the ownership of bitcoins worth approximately $71 billion. Wright has claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, a claim met with skepticism in the cryptocurrency community. The jury awarded $142 million in intellectual property rights to a joint venture between Wright and Kleiman, which contributed to early blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies. Wright stated that he would prove his ownership of the bitcoins if he won the trial, and he plans to donate much of his bitcoin fortune to charity.
As the crypto world eagerly anticipates the COPA v. Wright trial, the debate over Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto continues to capture the imagination. This trial, centralizing on the identity of Bitcoin's creator, is not just a legal matter; it's a pivotal chapter in the story of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency overall. While the evidence and testimonies are compelling, and personally I, as the author of this article am of firm belief that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin, the final verdict on Wright's claim remains to be witnessed by the public. Whether or not Wright is the legendary Satoshi, this saga underscores the enduring allure and transformative power of Bitcoin (BSV).