On March 14, 2024, the British courts finally recognized that Craig Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. The trial revealed new information about Nakamoto’s initial concerns, but none about his real identity. This announcement, although anticipated by the Bitcoin community, preserves the mystery surrounding Satoshi.
The mystery surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto remains intact
On Thursday March 14, 2024, British judge James Mellor confirmed that Craig Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin.
This announcement came as no surprise to the Bitcoin community. Indeed, Wright’s initial claims were sufficiently dubious that anyone familiar with Satoshi Nakamoto’s story could easily question them.
As a reminder, around 1 year after Bitcoin’s launch, its creator, whose identity remained a secret, decided to cede governance of the network to its users, and then to disappear for good. This decision was motivated by the fear of reprisals that could threaten the sovereignty of the blockchain.
Since 2016, Craig Wright has been trying in vain to convince the world that he is the man behind Satoshi Nakamoto. He has repeatedly tried to patent technologies used by Bitcoin and has taken legal action against several developers, so far without success.
In February 2024, the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) took legal action against the man now known as “Faketoshi”, demanding an official statement from him that he is not Satoshi.
Yesterday, COPA published an article entitled “12 reasons why Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto”, exposing 12 inconsistencies in Wright’s claims that they believe demonstrate that he is not the creator of Bitcoin.
What has this trial taught us?
This trial, although seemingly futile, has brought to light old email correspondence between the real Satoshi Nakamoto and 2 of the main developers with whom he regularly communicated, Adam Back and Martti Malmi.
These emails, spanning 120 pages, reveal several of Nakamoto’s concerns about Bitcoin’s future, including network scalability issues. Craig Wright has failed to prove that he was the author.
On the X network, BitVm designer Robin Linus proposed a satirical theory of Craig Wright’s trial.
What if Satoshi wanted to hide his identity so badly he decided to get a court to declare that he isn’t?
– яobin linus (@robin_linus) February 19, 2024
“What if Satoshi wanted to hide his identity so badly that he decided to ask a court to declare that it wasn’t him? “
Linus’s theory is that the best way for Satoshi Nakamoto to definitively hide his link with the creation of Bitcoin, would be to awkwardly impersonate him so that he would be discredited by both the community and the British justice system.
