He claims to have invented Bitcoin – (almost) everyone else believes he is lying

Craig Steven Wright will stand trial in London over the next five weeks. The 53-year-old computer scientist claims to be the legendary Satoshi Nakamoto – the inventor of Bitcoin. The group ‘Crypto Open Patent Alliance’ (COPA) doubts this and took the Australian to court. Because Wright not only claims to be Satoshi, he is also demanding copyright compensation for ‘his’ Bitcoin whitepaper. He also repeatedly denounces critics who question his status. The official verdict must finally put an end to this nightmare.

In the Bitcoin scene, the unofficial verdict has long been reached: there is almost no one who really believes that Wright and Satoshi are the same person. And that has a lot to do with Wright’s performance.

While the actual Bitcoin inventor(s) under the pseudonym Satoshi were known for their modesty, politeness, and caution, Wright is boorish and ostentatious, denouncing critics who question his status.

Nevertheless, according to research by ‘Wired’ and ‘Gizmodo’, his name appeared at the top of the list of suspected Bitcoin inventors in 2015. The online portals came to their conclusion based on information from an anonymous source. When ‘Wired’ journalists dug a little deeper shortly afterwards, however, they encountered contradictions that led to suspicion that their anonymous source might be Craig Steven Wright himself. And that the clues were fictional.

Wright objected, continuing to portray himself as Satoshi and promising to prove his identity soon. He still owes that to this day.

In 2016, Wright recast himself as Satoshi Nakamoto. This is done using a cryptographic signature that can probably only come from Bitcoin’s founder. It was all just nonsense, was the verdict again. This was created by none other than Dan Kaminsky, the late unofficial Internet Security Pope.

Even this new setback did not stop Wright from continuing to present himself as Satoshi. He threatened Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin with a lawsuit when he called him a fraudster. He actually went to court against British podcaster Peter McCormack. The court found that Wright knowingly presented false evidence.

He wanted to do better in his lawsuit against Norwegian X-user ‘Hodlonaut’. Once again, Wright submits questionable evidence. For example, a file whose creation date dates back to 2008. KPMG auditors discovered it was created with Adobe Acrobat Distiller 15.0 software for Windows – software that only came to market years later (2015). Wright also lost the lawsuit against Hodlonaut.

Wright had to pay Dave Kleiman’s descendants no less than 100 million. They had sued him because they believed he had stolen Bitcoins worth more than $5 billion from his estate.

During his odyssey through the Bitcoin scene in recent years, Craig Wright has lost not only his reputation but also many companions. The only guest on Team Wright is dubious gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre. He owns the online publication CoinGeek, and the Wright stories there have a much less critical tone. On CoinGeek, Wright is allowed to present himself undisputedly as a victim. For example, when he explains how crypto tokens worth 3.4 billion were stolen from him and his company: “Probably using a router that intruders planted in my house.”

Dr. Starting today, Steven Craig Wright will once again try to prove that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. The plaintiff’s attorney, which includes Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, called Wright’s claim a “blatant lie” in court yesterday. There is a good chance that 2024 will claim its first prominent victim in the crypto industry.