
Craig Wright faces tough questions over forged documents in court - benmunster1
https://decrypt.co/7768/forged-documents-and-multi-billion-dollar-fortunes-craig-wright-faces-tough-questions-in-court
======
samcday
The whole story seems so bizarre. As far as I understand it, some kind of
fraudster got caught up in a bunch of his own lies, of which being the
inventor of Bitcoin happened to be one. We're only reading about it because
"Bitcoin" happens to be a frothy buzzword that gets the clicks. Otherwise this
would just be some local news case about a wacky person saying the darndest
things.

It's funny how we decide what's news.

~~~
seibelj
There is a multi-billion dollar asset known as Bitcoin SV that is valued
highly on the belief Craig Wright invented bitcoin. He is not just a local
crank.

~~~
smcl
Then it’s valued highly by a lot of extremely gullible people. The first time
I heard about Craig Wright was that debacle where he was desperate to prove he
was Satoshi, hand-waved his way through a very staged proof and then when
called on it he subsequently refused to do an extremely simple proof that
would’ve beyond doubt proven what he claimed (lamenting that no one would be
happy with it). Everything I’ve read since then has confirmed he’s just a
grifter, this article is no different.

------
vintermann
Pretending to be vastly richer than you really are happens to be the first
step in a large number of confidence games.

In case anyone wonders why someone would want to pretend they're Satoshi.

~~~
pavlov
This is also the fundamental reason why Donald Trump is using the Justice
Department to prevent any disclosure of his tax returns.

~~~
adventured
No it's not. The most likely reason for that is Trump probably gave money to
Planned Parenthood or a similar organization that would harm the pitch to his
base.

We have his legally required financial disclosure forms that show a range on
his income. Some of the best wealth trackers on earth - those at both Forbes
and Bloomberg - have also put together sound estimates on his wealth (closer
to $3 billion, not $10 billion).

Factually Trump presides over a sizable, serious business that is generating a
large amount of cash.

Prominent assets: $765m Vornado partnership, $525m golf course & resorts,
$445m 725 Fifth Ave, $480m 40 Wall St, $420 Niketown building, $330m other
properties, $295m liquid, $140m 502 Park Ave, $95m DC hotel

"President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure report shows he had at
least $434 million in revenue last year, but saw a drop in money coming from
his Florida luxury resort Mar-a-Lago. The report, released Thursday, is
required to be filed annually with the Government Ethics Office. It covers the
president’s finances for 2018, his second year in office."

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/read-president-donald-
trumps...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/read-president-donald-trumps-
financial-disclosure-report.html)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/trump-
s-n...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/trump-s-net-worth-
rises-to-3-billion-despite-business-setbacks)

------
trollied
At the end of the day, all he needs to do is use the Satoshi key on a
transaction on the bitcoin blockchain to prove everything.

He hasn’t and can’t.

Am I wrong?

~~~
akerro
We're going to see such things at some point, there are a few "bitcoin address
collider", some of them are even distributed.

~~~
Thorrez
AFAIK, there are 160 bits of entropy in a bitcoin address. Let's say satoshi
has ~1 million addresses with bitcoin in them (2^20). That means 2^140
attempts need to be made to steal any of satoshi's bitcoins. Cracking 128 bits
of entropy is essentially impossible[1], cracking 140 bits is even harder.
This collider tried 7 quadrillion addresses in 1 year[2]. That's 2^53, nowhere
near 2^140.

[1]
[https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/1148](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/1148)

[2] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nzpv8m/the-large-
bitcoin-...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nzpv8m/the-large-bitcoin-
collider-is-generating-trillions-of-keys-and-breaking-into-wallets)

------
jnbiche
The amazing things is that this guy -- an obvious fraud and conman -- has been
invited to numerous high-level Bitcoin/Blockchain conferences as a speaker.

It always stuns me how relatively few people are able to spot frauds (although
it explains a lot about our current political situation). I'm guessing 40-50%
of the population is susceptible to this kind of trickery.

~~~
Waterluvian
This is a feature, not a bug.

Healthy communities are comprised of people who are trusting and permissive by
default. The cost is that on occasion these communities will be exploited.

Personally I think it's a very low price to pay for all its benefits.

~~~
jnbiche
> This is a feature, not a bug....Healthy communities are comprised of people
> who are trusting and permissive by default.

It's entirely possible to find a happy medium. You can be trusting without
being totally naive about individuals with bad intentions.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It really isn't, per what 'pdpi wrote. What we should do is being maximally
trusting (to reap the efficiency benefits), and punish _hard_ anyone trying to
take advantage of it, way out of proportion compared to the magnitude of the
violation, in order to discourage people from abusing the trust of others.

The goal really is to let everyone be safe in trusting others to the point of
naivete, because trust is that huge of an efficiency hack.

(I mean, think of the ridiculous amounts of energy Bitcoin wastes with its
proof-of-work scheme, precisely because it tries to replace trust with
computation. This energy is what trust saves you.)

~~~
mrkstu
I spent much of my youth in Utah, and it is probably the epitome of this.

Best state Gini coefficient [0]. Great income mobility (also best in US [1]).

It also has a rampant fraud/ponzi/mlm issue [3]. They come from the same
source- There is a general level of trust that is much higher than anywhere
else I've lived or experienced. Mostly rooted in a trust in others is part and
parcel of the culture and dominant religion. I don't think the upsides would
be achievable without the downsides that seem endemic to it.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient)
[1] [https://business.utah.gov/news/utah-at-top-in-nation-for-
upw...](https://business.utah.gov/news/utah-at-top-in-nation-for-upward-
income-mobility/) [3] [https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900068203/does-
utah-dese...](https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900068203/does-utah-deserve-
the-title-fraud-capital-of-the-united-states.html)

~~~
darkteflon
I’ve lived in Tokyo for 14 years and think that this characterisation also
applies here. Comparatively low Gini coefficient, very high level of community
trust and susceptibility to endemic fraud.

------
carlosdp
> And a font copyrighted in 2015 appeared on an another email supposedly
> dispatched in 2011.

This keeps happening in court, mostly with Microsoft Word Calibri. It's kinda
funny how effective such a simple oversight is at proving document forgery.

~~~
geekone
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri)

It looks like it was released to the public in 2007

~~~
carlosdp
Yea, it wasn't Calibri in this particular case. It just happens with Calibri a
lot.

------
naveen99
Long read, hopefully movie comes out at some point:
[https://www.docdroid.net/5LZMLHb/06-28-19-ber-
kleiman.pdf](https://www.docdroid.net/5LZMLHb/06-28-19-ber-kleiman.pdf)

So keys to satoshi’s Bitcoins are possibly going to be available in 2020
according to Wright.

------
lgeorget
I'm starting to wonder if Wright could actually be pathologically delusional
and convinced to be Satoshi, despite the accumulated evidence against it. I'm
no psychologist but it reminds me of how paranoid schizophrenia is typically
presented.

At the beginning, it looked like an elaborate fraud but now, he barely makes
any sense at all in his declarations.

~~~
CamperBob2
If I were a fraudster and I knew I'd gotten in over my head, I could easily
see myself mounting a mental-incapacity defense. It's almost unassailable.

That aside, I was pretty sure Donald Trump was going to develop a sudden case
of Alzheimer's at some point, but so far I've been wrong about that. If the
fraudster believes strongly enough in his own fraud, all bets are (literally)
off.

------
eof
Can someone explain the public address thing? The courts seem to demand he
list the public addresses where all Thai early mines bitcoin lies.

He says he cannot produce it because of this splintered trust.

But, the addresses are available for all to see on the blockchain itself, it
is the private keys which are hidden away.

How is this basic fact just ignored in all these proceedings?

~~~
plondon514
I think he cannot produce proof that he is owner of these address. The list is
well known. He could spend, or even sign a message, with any of the private
keys from an early address. That would prove he is satoshi. He has not done
this. Therefore he is not satoshi.

------
tim333
The case seems a bit nuts in that Wright isn't Satoshi so his business
partners estate won't achieve much by suing him for coins he can't have stolen
from the business partner because he doesn't have them.

~~~
AJ007
But, they could get a judgement on whatever other assets he actually does
have.

------
dnprock
Bitcoin is evil in some aspects. Its enigmatic origin triggers religiosity.
Bitcoin consumes those who learn about it. It's like a spell. When price goes
down, you'd come into its defense. When price goes up, it occupies your brain.
Bitcoin can be a source of good. But it comes with a lot of evil. Craig Wright
fell for its evil.

------
chx
Roux being Satoshi is the only plausible explanation I heard in a long time.
This clown is not.

------
curyous
The article presupposes that Craig is not Satoshi.

If Craig is Satoshi, then the article and these comments on it, read very
differently.

~~~
bredren
If a guy who behaves like this was satoshi or one of them, it would be an
embarrassing revelation.

------
clemensley
I do not understand why everybody is hating the guy so much. Listen to what he
sais. He does not want Bitcoin to be used for buying drugs and child
pornography. He wants to use it to make companies more accountable towards
their users and governments more accountable towards their constituents.
What's so terrible about that?

Then there is his claim to be Satoshi. At this point, nobody knows if that is
true or not. Yet everybody is acting as if they _knew_ he is a liar and a
fraud. That seems to be the justification for hate. What happened to innocent
until proven guilty?

My take is: I do not know if he is Satoshi or not. I also do not care. I
listen to want he thinks about Bitcoin and I like what I hear.

~~~
jnbiche
There are very few situations in which a person who claims to be a previously
anonymous individual could prove their bona fides without a shadow of a doubt.

And this is one of those situations. There are _multiple_ ways that the real
Satoshi could prove their identity, but somehow, Craig Wright has either lost
of of them, or they're locked up in some strange escrow with a super-secret
board of lawyers or some such nonsense.

Occam's Razor. If ever there was a good application of the principle, it's
here.

Also, Craig Wright doesn't have the technical understanding to have written
the Bitcoin implementation. Listen to him speak. If you're honest with
yourself, and if you code, you'll realize that he's likely never written much
running code at all, much less a full implementation of a complex
cryptographic and network protocol.

But these are the kinds of guys who unfortunately make it past interviews on
the strength of their "dazzle'em with bullshit" approach to interviewing, and
that have caused the current situation where most of us have to spend months
reviewing our DS and algorithms notes before new interviews.

~~~
SkyMarshal
_> Also, Craig Wright doesn't have the technical understanding to have written
the Bitcoin implementation. Listen to him speak. If you're honest with
yourself, and if you code, you'll realize that he's likely never written much
running code at all, much less a full implementation of a complex
cryptographic and network protocol._

This is an important observation. Craig gives himself away every time he
presents at a conference. His talks just throw up a bunch impressive technical
jargon and graphics, but then completely fail to weave it all together into a
coherent whole, leaving only a disjointed mess.

It fools people who aren't watching closely and thinking critically. But
Satoshi Nakamoto being possibly one of the greatest connectors and integrators
of disparate technical ideas in our time, Craig Wright he is not.

