Thread by @bitnorbert

Day 2 🧵. Good morning, rainy Oslo! Session starts in 90 minutes, and today is the defence's opening statements. #WeAreAllHodlonaut

Judge enters, announces tech issues are not solved, the plaintiff's pending videos will not be showed today.

Court is in session, Manshaus addressing the court.

Manshaus complains that the plaintiff did not address the tweets at issue directly yesterday.

Haukaas (plaintiff's lawyer) breaks protocol to make a comment, bad look.

Manshaus says the premise of the tweets were wrong since Craig had proved his satoshiness in private signing sessions. Norway's strong freedom of speech protections may not apply in this case.

Implies Hodlonaut had to adhere to the principle of "ethics in journalism".

Says Hodlonaut has no press-related protection as his statements were made anonymously.

Says there were no prior contact between Hodlonaut and Wright, the "attack" was unprovoked.

Hodlonaut also encouraged others to be "rabid and toxic" towards Craig.

Says freedom of speech protections exist to aide in the search for truth, which apparently does not apply to Hodlonaut's tweets.

Hodlonaut's attacks on Craig damaged Craig's own freedom of speech, says Manshaus.

Says legality of tweets cannot be determined on general basis, depends on the actuality and context they were made in.

Brings up the "fraudulently claims to be Satoshi" not being the same as him not actually being Satoshi …

Says this means this could be interpreted as an admission that Craig is Satoshi, although he recognises that this is not the stated intent.

Says the 11K pages of discovery is mostly irrelevant. Lots of blog posts and such, and Kleiman material.

Says some of the material comes from hacking (not by plaintiff), such as from Gizmodo.

The tweets at issue were offensive and implied criminality.

Says Craig was outed by Gizmodo and Wired against his will. The 2014/15 deals were to develop tech and generate patents, the outing came as a complete surprise and forced their hand.

The "proof sessions" are fundamental. But possession of keys does not determine satoshiness. Keys are like passwords; they can be shared and split up etc. Like many Bitcoin users, Craig hasn't wanted to control his keys on his own.

Craig thought that if he signed publicly, he would only be criticized (??). Therefore he did it privately to Andresen and Matonis. Says these two knew Satoshi uniquely well, so he wanted their word that he's Satoshi. "The social aspect", says Manshaus.

It's interesting, says Manshaus, that neither @gavinandresen nor Matonis has retracted their statements that Craig is Satoshi.

Says "The Satoshi Affair" describes the mood well, re "I will not jump though hoops". The fake Sartre signature was not intended to prove satoshiness.

Says a lot of the documents in discovery comes from "interested people on the internet". Again mentions that some comes from Gizmodo – "were they hacked from Wright, are they from the ATO?" Says the case is not determined by people on the internet.

KPMG (who found likely fake docs from Wright's camp): "we shared them in good will; if we had known about false documentation, we would of course not have shared them." (I know this sounds outrageous, perhaps I heard wrong?)

The more recent evidence, and especially people, are the most relevant for our case, says Manshaus.

Statements like "clearly mentally ill" is an invasion of Craig's right to privacy. It's a statement of fact, not opinion.

Now quoting some Hodlonaut tweets, one where he calls Coingeek and Bitcoin dot com "scam sites". Says people retweeted. "This has an effect", "strong statements". "Faketoshi" probably refers to Craig, says Manshaus.

Craig is OK with debate, says Manshaus, but these are attacks. Reads more tweets, including the announcement of "I'm going to make next week Craig Wright is a fraud week". Encouraging tagging could manipulate Twitter's trending algorithm.

Lightning torch is brought up. "The chain goes strong" implies it had something to do with Craig. "Like a general watching over his troops", says Manshaus.

Craig complained to Twitter about the attacks without getting heard, his attempts to set the profile to private were reversed, and Twitter finally closed his account.

Now explaining the term "maximalist". Explains "hodl", accurately. Mentions WSB (??). Hodling is like wsb, apparently.

Quotes a tweet by Hector Lopez asking why Craig is a fraud, apparently not getting a response.

Hodlonaut having few followers aren't the point, says Manhaus. He was retweeted a lot, causing "exponential" distribution. Hashtags were also used to spread the messages.

Says Craig and his followers don't consider "Bitcoin BSV" a fork, it adheres to the whitepapers.

Lightning torch explained as "a pretty cool project". Caused Jack Dorsey to follow Hodlonaut, and he had 5-6M followers at the time. "Says something about the spread".

Hodlonaut had 125K tweet impressions per day in 2019.

Some technical issues with the translation service now.

Quotes someone making fun of Craig for trying to buy old mining keys. That person was most likely joking, because "that was of course not Craig", says Manshaus.

They found a Telegram group called "Bitcoin Plebs" with 404 members. A user called "End The Fed" calls for an attack on "shitcoin scammers", which is said to include BSV. "Who is in for some toxicity?" the user is quoted as having written.

More quotes from the same group refers to BSV as "pedo apologetics".

Says this attack's goal was to get BSV delisted from exchanges. Delisting was to be a "BSV extinction event".

Judge asks if the point was to remove a Bitcoin competitor in order to make Bitcoin's price goes up. Yes, it was. "Ok, that was a stupid question", says judge.

More quotes from the "End The Fed" user, encouraging ban evasion etc. Make a new user and "tone down" personal attacks to avoid another ban.

Haukaas breaks in again, asks if this is relevant. Judge says "we'll see that later."

Manshaus says Hodlonaut is at least responsible for the tone on the Telegram group (given his Twitter activity), and may have been directly involved in that group (under another name, I guess?).

"Carlosaugorus" (my best attempt at spelling) was banned, and afterwards a new user called "Hodlosaugorus" (sp?) with a Hodlonaut-like profile pic.

Hodlonaut (I think?) instructed people to use slang and l33t speak to evade Twitter's content filters. Another user agrees to do this.

A screenshot of the "End The Fed" user with a Hodlonaut-like profile picture. "We are all Hodlonaut" is quoted.

Hodlonaut being anonymous represented an "imbalance" between him and Craig.

10 minute break now.

Manshaus talking more about Lightning torch, quotes an article about how it makes Lightning better known. Lists well-known people involved in the chain. Quotes Bitcoin Magazine saying Hodlonaut has built a "respectable following".

Quotes something indicating that Hodlonaut is biased against BSV. No shocking sighs can be heard in the room.

Quotes previous Bitcoin fan Kevin Pham having "found the light" in BSV.

Says an "echo chamber" is built by bitcoiners not interacting with BSV people on Twitter.

Quotes a Hodlonaut tweet from 2017 saying simply "HODL", to illustrate his "economic incentive".

Says plaintiff had no "cause" for the attack, could just have engaged in regular discussion instead.

Repeats that the 11K pages are largely irrelevant, including the Kleiman material and KPMG's report (KPMG are witnesses).

They contain only one article about Craig's suspected scam from the time before Hodlonaut's tweets.

Now presenting Craig's background. Early interest in cryptography, computers etc. Things pointing towards the claimed authorship of the Bitcoin white paper.

Craig just wanted to research, write and develop, he had no interest in coming out as Satoshi, says Manshaus.

Now starts the attack on Hodlonaut's integrity. Quotes tweets about 9/11, Russia, Nazi Germany etc.

Recounts the process of serving Hodlonaut. Says the attacks continued even after a letter was sent.

Manshaus gives a history of Bitcoin now. Mixes up transactions and blocks. Repeats that they see BSV as the continuation of Bitcoin. Says Satoshi left in 2010 and gave admin rights to Andresen.

Says Craig grew up in an environment where programming was "a thing", he learnt early. Quotes O'Hagan about early influences (his grandfather Lynam in particular). His experiences lead to his carreer in digital forensics. Interest in Japan behind his online "alter ego".

More quotes from "The Bitcoin Affair" to build up the narrative of Craig's satoshiness. It's a recommended read, not going to reconstruct the quotes here.

Oops, that's supposed to read "The Satoshi Affair".

Talks about Craig having founded an ISP in Australia, worked for the stock exchange, ran a gambling site etc. Before he "started up the genesis block".

Lynam was a witness, but can't show up for health reasons.

Quoting from an earlier interview with uncle Lynam, where he speaks warmly of Craig.

Max Lynam, the uncle's son, is a witness. We'll hear from him on Friday.

Spending time explaining that grandfather Lynam was a brilliant cryptographer, code-breaker etc.

Still quoting from the uncle Lynam interview about Craig's background, in payment systems and gambling. Lynam said he received an early version of the Bitcoin whitepaper. "I have no doubt in my mind that was the precursor". (This is old stuff we've seen many times)

I probably confuse the various Lynams involved here, by the way.

Now showing the judge "the white paper that Craig Wright distributed". Says Craig invested his own money because Bitcoin wasn't worth anything yet.

There's supposedly handwriting on the white paper being shown (it's not shown to the audience). Perhaps rusty staples as well?

Manshaus shows case papers with Craig's handwritten remarks similar to those on the white paper.

Manshaus says there are six early drafts of the white paper, as Word documents. Craig supposedly shared copies to various people, including Lynam, Dave Kleiman, and Stephan Matthews (who is another witness).

Says plaintiff is wrong about Craig's satoshiness not being proven, because Andresen and Matonis both said he is, and they really knew Satoshi (wtf).

Quoting a February 2020 deposition from @gavinandresen. Highly credentialed, found Bitcoin in 2010. Ran a faucet. Interacted with Satoshi on the bitcoin forum. Being left with SourceForge admin access.

45 minute lunch break now.

Back in session, Manshaus continuing on Andresen's deposition. For the amount of time they spend using Andresen to promote Craig's interests, it's a bit strange that he's not a witness. I'm guessing he doesn't want to. I wish @gavinandresen would comment, but he will not.

Manshaus is trying to argue that Andresen and Wright had unique insight into previous, private discussions between Andresen and Satoshi, to imply Wrights satishiness. Nitty-gritty code and API discussion now.

Yet more Andresen now, quoting from a 2014 article about his skeptical reaction to Dorian Nakamoto. Also quotes him denying being Satoshi himself.

Now describing Wrights life from 2011 onwards, after "he" had left Bitcoin to Andresen. ATO troubles "concerning Bitcoin in particular". Says Stefan Matthews was shown an early draft of the white paper. McGregor is introduced to the story, nCrypt's founding etc

Manshaus says Wright did *not* send material to Gizmodo and Wired. He says they had a long-term plan, but had to change things after the media coverage. Wright was "pressured" into the Satoshi stuff.

Wright was told that O'Hagan had signed an NDA, causing him to be very open – but there was no such NDA.

Making the point that there was no coordination in the "Satoshi" outing; Wright's camp supposedly wasn't ready, had no control over what Wired and Gizmodo wrote. "We don't know" how media received the information, or whether Wired and Gizmodo collaborated.

The media coverage triggered lots of criticism and analysis, pointing out flaws. But Wright has never claimed this as proof (huh?), only that Matonis and Andresen says he's Satoshi.

Wright was pressured by his team to do media appearances after the media coverage, but he didn't want to. The "proof sessions" (private signings) were a compromise.

What Matonis saw hasn't been made public because Wright is "very restrictive" around the use of keys. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quoting from Matonis' blog post where he acknowledges Craig as Satoshi.

Quoting O'Hagan on Wright resenting "to have to prove anything", as he was given his own signing session.

Quoting Andresen as having been "extremely skeptical", requesting several pieces of evidence. Emailing with Wright made Andresen comfortable traveling to London. Quoting O'Hagan about Andresen's signing session.

One of Wright's British lawyers leave the courtroom for a few minutes, bowing to the judge on his way out and again on the way in. Charming custom that I don't think is native to Norway.

Still quoting O'Hagan on Andresen's signing session. Lots of time is spent emphasising why Wright never wants to show signatures publicly.

Says Wright had promised a public proof after Andresen and Matonis went live with their blog posts, but that this never happened. A lot of speculation about why, says Manshaus, but we don't know.

Now quoting from Andresen's "Satoshi" blog post. He still has not retracted it. Why, @gavinandresen ?

The BBC report with signing session is described now. Manshaus says Wrigiht was already annoyed at this point, felt pressured into it.

15 minute break now.

We're back. Manshaus talks about the Sartre "signature". Says McGregor had drafted the blog post, and managed the process. Says it wasn't intended as proof.

Quotes from articles from the aftermath of the "Satoshi" and "Sartre" blog posts. Andresen saying he wasn't hacked, believes in Craig. "I'm still convinced he's Satoshi despite the really weird proof"

Acknowledges that the BBC, Matonis and Andresen all sent amounts of Bitcoin to Satoshi's addresses after Wright promised he would return them, which he never did.

Manshaus says McGregor wrote and published Wright's "I'm sorry" blog post.

I wonder if part of their strategy is to scapegoat McGregor. As far as I remember, he resigned from the whole Wright/Satoshi/nChain project early on.

More from the Andresen deposition. Making a point that he went from "extremely skeptical" to convinced. Talking about his emerging doubts, caused by not being allowed to show the siganture publicly.

Says a lot of public coverage of Wright's trials are biased against him.

Countering plaintiff's claims that the signing sessions could have been manipulated. No signature file was downloaded from a UK IP at the time. Plaintiff said yesterday that this means Electrum could be fake.

Manshaus says you don't need to verify if you download directly from electrum.org. (Sorry, but this is simply false)

Quotes interaction with an Electrum admin saying he has found some candidates of downloaders who could be from the signing session, but inconclusive.

Electrum admin says while they have candidate downloads, they can't be sure. Says attack vector may be elsewhere. Manshaus says this assumes bad faith in the signing sessions.

Says it's easy to find people on the internet critical of Wright, with reason, but we have to remember that they are biased.

Manshaus tries to sow doubt about the origin of some of the filed case docs. Says a lot comes from discovery in the Kleiman case, and some originate from hackers. ATO docs are from informal meetings.

This must be pretty explosive stuff if they have to attack it from that angle.

ATO fines were just a regular old "administrative sanction".

Addressing the KPMG report in evidence. Strongly disagree with plaintiff that all documents are either manipulated or unverifiable. Any such cases are irrelevant for Craig's satoshiness given that he doesn't even want to prove it.

The documents don't play a central role for their case. They agree with KPMG that there are unanswered questions, but says the report is "voluminous" and messy. KPMG's methods are unrepeatable. Docs may be contaminated by having been opened in different versions of Word etc.

Says KPMG assumes bad faith which leads to mistaken conclusions, but suspicious findings could have innocuous causes.

Now going through various categories of documents, pointing out possible causes of discrepancies.

Spends time on an alleged "early version" of the Bitcoin white paper where the lambda symbol is missing. KPMG seems to allege that a PDF was opened in a word processor, edited, and converted back to PDF, losing details in the process. Manshaus says this cannot be verified.

Manshaus giving a crash course in digital forensics. The point is to make KPMG appear as amateurs, I guess.

An "old" Word file with featues from more recent Word versions could be caused by KPMG opening the file in a modern Word version, like newbie goofs.

Amy Klin is an "autism expert" who will witness for Craig. Bitcoin Magazine can film anything, except this witness (and anything shown on displays). We'll hear from her on Monday.

Judge interrupts saying this is not the time to discuss whether "mentally ill" could mean autism.

Manshaus now giving a summary of today's statements. The day is coming towards and end.

Arguing that Hodlonaut should pay costs due to late filings, not responding to UK demands etc.

We're done for today. Again, thanks for following along! I'll post some reflections again this evening.