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The FUD Letter

2 Jan, 41 tweets, 11 min read

I have just released my first issue, entitled "Why Do People Think Craig Steven Wright is Satoshi". However, I think parts of this are too important to paywall, so I will be putting much of the information in this thread for people who cannot subscribe: thefudletter.com/why-do-people-…

First, we must go all the way back to 2013. Craig started claiming to the Australian Tax Office that he controlled in excess of 1 million Bitcoins (the amount being bandied about at that time as the likely amount Satoshi held)

However, one of the addresses that Craig claimed to control (16cou7Ht6WjTzuFyDBnht9hmvXytg6XdVT) signed a message that suggests Craig was lying about it controlling it:

“Address 16cou7Ht6WjTzuFyDBnht9hmvXytg6XdVT does not belong to Satoshi or to Craig Wright. Craig is a liar and a fraud.”

@1FeexV6

Furthermore, at this time Craig also claimed to control the @1FeexV6 address, which is actually controlled by the Mt. Gox hacker. So it seems Craig did not control that address either.

Page 91 is where Craig made that claim btw: courtlistener.com/docket/6309656…

It wasn't until February 11th 2014 that Craig seems to outright claim that he was a part of Satoshi Nakamoto, writing to the grieving mother of his friend Dave Kleiman to tell her that the two of them were 2/3 of Satoshi and asking her to preserve Dave's walelt

https://twitter.com/gardling/status/1393541363766079490?s=20

Slightly further along in 2014 we see Craig continue to try to claim that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, even editing blog post to insert a 'backdated' Satoshi key:

https://twitter.com/gardling/status/1393541363766079490?s=20

During this time he has also started to tell the ATO that he actually put all his Bitcoins in a trust that is somewhere...eventually he disclosed the supposed holdings of that trust here: web.archive.org/web/2020110103…

Furthermore, he confirmed their authenticity here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

However, it appears those addresses were not actually part of any trust as 146 of them signed a message that makes it clear that Craig did not control them: archive.md/Z1oB8#selectio…

“Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a fraud. He doesn't have the keys used to sign this message.
The Lightning Network is a significant achievement. However, we need to continue work on improving on-chain capacity.

Unfortunately, the solution is not to just change a constant in the code or to allow powerful participants to force out others.
We are all Satoshi”

So it seems to me that Craig was again lying about what he controlled. This leads us to the more public claims that Craig has made of being Satoshi. You see in 2014 Craig's company Hotwire went into bankruptcy and he needed cash

And he found it! Calvin Ayre was able to step in and get Craig millions in liquid cash that he needed, in exchange for the 'intellectual property' he controlled and his life story as 'Satoshi Nakamoto'

Andrew O'Hagan who was brought on to write the life story described the goal as: “They would complete the work on his inventions and patent applications — he appeared to have hundreds of them — and the whole lot would be sold as the work of Satoshi Nakamoto.”

Shortly after this several media outlets start receiving a collection of documents that claim to dox Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto. Wired and Gizmodo bite and run with articles.

Then both outlets receive criticism and retract their articles.

This leads the team around Craig to need to come up with another way to prove to the world that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. So he begins doing signings in private for people supposedly using Satoshi keys, the most famous and convincing of these being the Gavin signing

Gavin Andresen, one of the leading Bitcoin developers, was flown out to London to see Craig signed, and he did! He watched Craig sign a message supposedly using the block 9 coinbase address, however, things get weird when Gavin asked Craig to verify on his computer

Craig absolutely refuses to verify the cryptographic signature on Gavin's computer, and instead insists on sending out his assistant to get a brand new computer. When the new computer arrives it takes Craig and co. several hours to prepare it for the signing.

@Zectro1

The issue with private signings like this is that they can be manipulated to make things seem a way they actually are not. @Zectro1 describes one such way to do that using the same wallet that Craig used here:

https://twitter.com/Zectro1/status/1192576225413222405

For my own sake I wanted to confirm that it was actually as easy as it seemed:

It really does seem to be that easy and you can find instructions to reproduce it here: github.com/bennettftomlin…

Further suggesting that there may have been issues, Craig got extraordinarily angry that GQ brought along a lecturer in cryptology to verify the signing:

Craig was also supposed to send the journalists who saw the signings with the signatures on memory sticks so that they could verify it. Instead Craig filled the memory sticks with 'fake stuff' to make it impossible to verify lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/…

The three media outlets, Gavin, and Jon were under embargo until May 2nd when they were finally able to publish pieces describing the experience. Craig publishes a blog post: web.archive.org/web/2016050220…

However, it quickly becomes clear to outside observers that the signature was inauthentic, and actually copy and pasted from an older Nakamoto signature. Craig quickly promises to Gavin that he will post a version with a new and never used signature: courtlistener.com/docket/6309656…

He does not

On May 3rd Craig posts a new post with the title "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof". In this posts he promises that he will be: "transferring Bitcoin from an early block" web.archive.org/web/2016050316…

The next day Craig and co come up with a plan where Jon, Gavin, and the BBC will each send a small amount of BTC to the block 9 coinbase address and then Craig will send it back, they send their BTC, and Craig never sends it back

Craig Wright has never signed publicly or moved known Satoshi coins.

Since then he has supposedly signed in private for more people, but never in public and has moved on the final version of his attempt to prove he is Satoshi, now dependent on suing people.

@CobraBitcoin

He has filed suit against @CobraBitcoin for hosting the Bitcoin whitepaper, and against @PeterMcCormack and @hodlonaut for calling him a fraud. He seems to believe winning these cases will convince people he is Satoshi

Important note: Craig has self-described as a fraud before: cointelegraph.com/news/5-surpris…

I have seen no convincing evidence that Craig Wright is Satoshi, and plenty of reason to call him out as a bad actor. For more read the full post: thefudletter.com/why-do-people-…