Craig Wright

Who Is Craig Wright?

Craig Steven Wright is an Australian computer scientist who gained both popularity and notoriety in the cryptocurrency space after asserting that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Some members of the industry have nicknamed him “Faketoshi.” Craig Wright is responsible for the emergence of Bitcoin SV (BSV), a hard fork of BCH, after leading a new faction of the Bitcoin Cash community to split from the original project due to technical differences.

The Bitcoin SV software aimed to increase the block size limit of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain to 128 MB. This move was supported by billionaire entrepreneur Calvin Ayre. On Mar. 16, 2021, BSV’s block size reportedly reached 638 MB.

Currently, Wright holds the position of chief scientist at nChain Inc., a company that provides enterprise blockchain solutions powered by the Bitcoin SV blockchain.

According to his own website, Wright is considered one of the earliest minds behind what we now know as blockchain technology, as well as the world’s first online casino.

Wright has a background in IT and security. On LinkedIn, he describes himself as a senior management executive information security specialist. He has also served as chief scientist at blockchain developer nChain, CEO of technology firm Hotwire PE, and director of various other companies.

Wright claims to have been directly involved in the creation of Bitcoin, with the assistance of his late friend, computer forensics professional Dave Kleiman.

In July 2015, Wright divested his office holdings and resigned as director from several companies. Shortly after, in December 2015, WIRED and Gizmodo publications reported that Wright might be the inventor of Bitcoin.

In 2015, Wright presented a collection of cached documents and blog posts as evidence supporting his claim. However, these pieces of evidence have since been erased from the internet.

Wright’s announcement was later supported by former Bitcoin lead developer Gavin Andresen, who believed that Wright was the real Satoshi after meeting him at a hotel in London in 2016. Wright is said to have validly signed a message to Andresen with his initials and private key from one of the first 50 Bitcoin blocks mined by Nakamoto.

Wright also signed a message using Bitcoin’s first and ninth blocks, according to Bitcoin Foundation director Jon Matoni.

The evidence included leaked unverified transcripts from an interview with the Australian Tax Office regarding his tax affairs in 2014, documents revealing his involvement with the Bitcoin project, and emails sent from addresses linked to Nakamoto advocating for Bitcoin, as well as one sent to Wright’s lawyer, Clayton Utz, signed off as “Craig (possibly).”

The transcripts quoted Wright saying, “I did my best to try and hide the fact that I’ve been running Bitcoin since 2009.”

Gizmodo and WIRED also stated that Wright’s PGP keys were created in 2009 and could be traced back to Satoshi Nakamoto’s email address. These claims were supported by investigations by the BBC and The Economist in 2016, which reported that Wright had digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during Bitcoin’s early development.

However, most prominent figures in the crypto community, such as Litecoin creator Charlie Lee and Lightning Network co-inventor Joseph Poon, do not recognize Wright’s proofs as valid and have criticized his technical commentaries. Vitalik Buterin even went as far as calling him a “fraud.”

Wright’s claims have also been disputed by security researcher Dan Kaminsky, who stated that Wright’s private key was invalid, as it had simply extracted data reusing an old signature from a Bitcoin transaction performed in 2009 by Satoshi.

Vice Media’s Jordan Pearson and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai also reported that Wright’s PGP keys from 2009 can be backdated and fixed to point to anyone’s email address.

In Andrew O’Hagan’s book, The Secret Life: Three True Stories, published in June 2016, Wright said he provided an invalid private key instead of the original Satoshi Nakamoto PGP private key due to legal obligations agreed upon in a Seychelles trust fund signed by David Kleiman, who passed away in 2013.

WIRED’s report stated that the trust fund is held through Wright’s company, Tulip Trading, which is speculated to control 1.1 million Bitcoin held by Nakamoto.

While the mystery of Nakamoto continues, Wright maintains his claims and has used UK libel law to sue those who call him a fraud, including Vitalik Buterin, the founder of cryptocurrency Ethereum.

This litigious behavior has led to an industry backlash against him and Bitcoin SV, with several platforms delisting BSV in 2019 after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao singled him out as the reason for removing BSV from the exchange.