
Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police - laex
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-founder-craig-wrights-home-raided-by-australian-police
======
Mtinie
From the article:

> Guardian Australia understands the raids are not related to the claims that
> Wright may have been involved in the creation of bitcoin, but are related to
> an Australian Tax Office investigation.

So the story is that the Australian Tax Office just happened to be running an
investigation looking into some facet of Craig Wright's finances. An
investigation that apparently revealed some sort of abnormality, resulting in
a raid on a property connected to Mr. Wright...

...18 hours after a major technology publication "outed" him as the possible
person behind "Satoshi Nakamoto".

Welp, that looks completely coincidental to me. /s

~~~
Cthulhu_
If I had an ongoing investigation into someone suspected of tax evasion and
suddenly the internet at large revealed his identity, I'd be sure to raid asap
- Wright was probably not aware that the tax office was investigating him, but
I'm sure that if he is Satoshi and sits on a million BTC, and his identity is
revealed, I'd try and GTFO. Which wouldn't be in the tax office's interest.

Not sure if the above makes sense. The two are probably related.

~~~
yc1010
I am thinking here is what happened

The guy seeing an opportunity and possibly having some early coins declared
himself to tax office as Satoshi, but maybe claimed he lost keys to majority
of coins. He then proceeded to have one of his companies claim tax back for
R&D of bitcoin. The whole thing probably backfired then.

------
epaga
Here is an Amazon comment left by Wright.
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVvsxDOVAAANOD-.png:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVvsxDOVAAANOD-.png:large)

"Silicone" Valley? "Assumed to the centre of everything"?

Color me skeptical that this guy is Satoshi.

(source:
[https://twitter.com/kashhill/status/674393417019883520](https://twitter.com/kashhill/status/674393417019883520)
)

~~~
kylebebak
Agreed...

Exhibit A ([https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf))

This paper, and the technology it proposes, are as eloquent and ingenious as
they come.

Exhibit B (from one of Wright's blog posts in the Wired exposé) "Well.. e-gold
is down the toilet."

The telltale 2 dot ellipsis... Imagining this semi-literate blowhard writing
that paper is a real stretch.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I think it's most likely that he was just involved in the early stages. If not
him then one of his associates wrote the white paper.

------
peterburkimsher
"I do not want to be your posterboy. I am not found and I do not want to be."

Why oh why can't journalists just respect his wishes!

"People love my secret identity and hate me."

It certainly seems that the Australian police aren't on particularly good
terms with him at the moment.

If the Australian government takes control of the Tulip Trust bitcoin stash,
the world has to deal with a cryptocurrency being managed by politicians.

Whoever gets them, I hope that the bitcoins remain off the market until at
least 2020 as Kleiman wanted.

Which makes me think - could the bitcoins from Kleiman be considered
"inherited", and thus subject to inheritance regulations?

Another hypothetical thought: when the original bitcoin creator mined the
first bitcoins, they were worthless. They only gain value if someone else
projects value onto them. They're not being used. Imagine they're a form of
trading derivative (e.g. stock options): the right to trade in future. Are
those taxed? Anyhow, it seems very complicated, and confiscating personal
computers with a whole host of other files seems extreme.

~~~
ebbv
> Why oh why can't journalists just respect his wishes!

Because it's their job not to. Lots of people don't want to be found but it's
in the public interest to find them.

I'd argue the same goes for the creator of Bitcoin. It's in the public
interest to find this person and see what they stand to gain from Bitcoin's
continued use and value, and what they are likely to do with the money. You
will respond that it doesn't matter, but it does.

What if Bitcoin came from Iran's secret service and it will be used to fund an
enrichment facility?

What if it came from a drug lord?

What if it came from Michael Bay and he's going to make yet another
Transformers movie with it?

All of these are in the public interest to find out and make people reconsider
their adoption of it.

A decision void of context is necessarily an ignorant decision.

~~~
wizeman
What if knives had been invented by a drug lord?

Who cares? What's important is whether knives are useful to us or not. If the
inventor is a drug lord, then the problem is that he is a drug lord, not that
he invented knives.

If someone invents something useful, then he should be rewarded, independently
of whether he then uses the resulting money to save starving children or to
buy Doritos all to himself.

If he does something illegal with that money, then we should come after him
because he did something illegal, not because he was able to do something
illegal (because he had earned a lot of money).

~~~
ebbv
You missed my point entirely.

The point is if we know he's a bad person, we can choose not to use Bitcoin as
is, and instead use a fork of it where he doesn't profit from it.

Also stop with the myth that Bitcoin was completely invented by one guy. It
was based upon ideas from a lot of people prior to Satoshi. If there's a moral
obligation to reward him (there is not) then there's a moral obligation to
reward all of them as well (there still isn't.)

~~~
maaku
And you've missed the point where lives have been ruined and people could
potentially be killed as a result of this nonsense.

~~~
ebbv
Lives have not been ruined. In my opinion Newsweek owes Dorian Nakamoto some
damages, but that will be decided in the courts. His life is not ruined,
though, and nobody else's has been. That's way over-dramatic.

~~~
maaku
I was not talking about Dorian.

------
theGimp
Once again, you have a journalist ruining a person's life by claiming they
created BitCoin.

Wired better be able to back it up.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
It's just as shitty whether it's true or false. Either way, they're
deliberately exposing someone to unwanted public attention to sell magazines
and ad impressions.

~~~
Retra
Everything they publish is for that purpose whether it exposes someone or not.
At least this is actual news if it's true and not mindless reprints of known
information.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _Everything they publish is for that purpose whether it exposes someone or
> not._

Obviously. It's okay to make money off of things that are helpful or at least
harmless. Not okay to make money off of hurting innocent people.

> _At least this is actual news if it 's true and not mindless reprints of
> known information._

So what? Facts are not inherently virtuous. If I published a report on your
intimate personal habits, would you feel better if everything in the report
was true?

------
cba9
[http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-australian-who-may-
hav...](http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-australian-who-may-have-
invented-bitcoin-claimed-to-have-landed-54m-in-taxpayer-funded-
rebates-2015-12)

"Under the scheme, a company which turns over less than $20 million is
eligible to apply for a cash rebate of 45 cents for every dollar spent on
research and development activity.

According to a press release in May, 2015, DeMorgan Ltd succeeded in its
application for the rebate.

That means DeMorgan were able to prove to AusIndustry that it had spent $120
million on R&D activities in the 2014/2015 financial year, all while turning
over less than $20 million. A 45 cent rebate on $120 million works out to $54
million."

~~~
Innercode
I'm a consultant in the R&D Tax space. The press release relates to an
advanced finding, which is an advanced approval of R&D activities. It does not
however guarantee approval for the amount of expenditure they would be
claiming. A tax refund of that size would naturally attract the attention of
the Australian Tax Office(ATO). The press release is also dated before they
could submit their tax return to obtain a 14/15 refund. A key problem with the
press release is that there is now a $100million cap on how much expenditure
they can claim in a financial year, so theoretically their maximum benefit
would be $45million.

$120million in software R&D is a very large spend in Australia for one year,
Google Australia for example claims about $40-$50million in R&D spend each
year. Atlassian and some of the larger banks would claim a similar amount. I
have not heard much about DeMorgan before, however if it all checks out they
would be one of the most significant powers in the Australian tech space.

~~~
robzyb
Fellow Australian here (albeit currently living in Tokyo).

The "We create tax refunds" part of your homepage says that a company can get
a tax refund even if there is no sales.

Does this mean that if I establish a company tomorrow, invest $100k of
capital, and spent $100k of capital on R&D, then the ATO will give my company
$45k?

~~~
ps4fanboy
Yes, you have to spend the money though so youll still be down 55K, it doesnt
count to things like capital purchases.

~~~
gordjw
Depends who owns the company you spend the $100k with.

They'd need to pay 30% tax on their income, leaving a net outlay by the
government of $15k (15%) overall.

~~~
robzyb
Their income would be less than the $100k. They would have incurred expenses
when they provided the services.

I paid $100k, the provider took the $100k and spent $60k. This means they
declare $40k income.

The company pays $12k tax.

The Goverment gives $55k to my hypothetical company.

------
kanzure
I fear gwern has gone off the deep end on this one, situation is getting
ridiculous:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3vzgnd/bitcoins_cr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3vzgnd/bitcoins_creator_satoshi_nakamoto_is_probably/cxsa9hs)

~~~
sillysaurus3
(EDIT: There are some good points in the ensuing discussion below. I don't
know what to think yet, but my comment here was unfair. Sorry, kanzure. And
thank you to everyone who responded.)

As far as I can tell, you're bullying gwern. Please stop.

If you have a point, then make it clearly. Leave out speculation about "what
would happen if it was a US no-knock raid."

What, precisely, did gwern do? Their replies address your points, from where
I'm sitting. What am I missing here?

~~~
nullc
Gwern has a long history of obsessive and misdirected behavior on this subject
which is likely to cause harm to others. This particular case is Gwern's N-th
accused "satoshi"... and this time the evidence consists mostly of counter
evidence.

For example, these pgp signed emails are signed with the key with short ID
5EB7CB21 which is not the well known key, does not exist in old keyserver
dumps, and has a pref-hash-algos list of "8 2 9 10 11", which is the list that
GNUPG started generating a year (commit
e50cac1d848d332c4dbf49d5f705d3cbbf074ba1) after the date on the key. The well
known key, which the new key claims to be generated within 24 hours of, has "2
8 3" which was an the prior list of hashes.

~~~
thebooktocome
> This particular case is Gwern's N-th accused "satoshi"

Not with this degree of certainty.

~~~
nickpsecurity
What certainty? Here's what they have: possibly backdated keys; edited blog
entries; leaked emails. All from same, untrustworthy source. That's not
certainty or concrete. It would probably be tossed out of court in the U.S.
the second the defense brought up the blog editing.

------
Uptrenda
[http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead-
frie...](http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead-friend-
invented-bi-1746958692)

It seems like when you put everything together that Craig Steven Wright + Dave
Kleiman + unknown associates = Satoshi. This honestly seems like a much
simpler conclusion to me than the alternative which is that someone (whether a
group or a person) went to the trouble of concocting extremely elaborate and
convincing evidence for the purpose of framing Wright as Satoshi.

Hopefully the media didn't out the wrong guy this time (although in
retrospect: I'm not even sure why Gwern thought it wise to send the leaks to
the press. I would have thought that he would sympathize with Satoshi wanting
to stay anonymous given that he writes under a pseudonym himself...)

------
sgt
I don't understand - why would they raid his house? Is he suspected of dodging
taxes? But as far as I understand, most tax evaders don't get their houses
raided at first. It makes sense to first contact the person and/or send a
letter.

~~~
hhandoko
From what I read on other sources, he is under investigation for tax issues by
the ATO for a number of years now.

Perhaps the ATO felt they need to move quickly when news broke out (suggesting
he is the BitCoin creator), to secure his assets before they are transferred /
moved.

~~~
AKifer
I doubt that this [very] clever person would put his bitcoins at risk of a
seizure at his/her home

~~~
imron
True, however I don't doubt that there _are_ [very] stupid people who think it
would be a good idea to break in to his house to steal hard-drives/computers
in case they have bitcoins on them.

And it looks like the ATO doesn't doubt that either and wants to protect
evidence from its ongoing investigation.

~~~
nickonline
The guy that put together silk road was found with all his stuff at the same
coffee shop every day.

------
tlrobinson
_> Guardian Australia understands the raids are not related to the claims that
Wright may have been involved in the creation of bitcoin, but are related to
an Australian Tax Office investigation._

Seems like a hell of a coincidence for these two things to happen on the same
day...

~~~
bro-stick
There is a strong _incentive_ for SN to stay anonymous now: extortion, GBH
threats, kidnapping, tax evasion, etc.

This could be some guy feigning humblebragging to fool prospective customers,
or the vaguest individual Wired decided to hoist the label onto because it
garners eyeballs in a Daily Mail way that's hard to repute.

The raid is explained because many governments want evidence for tax evasion
and evading the conventional banking system... control SN = control BTC.

~~~
snewk
Many governments are interested in finding Satoshi. They need a scapegoat to
pin this bitcoin thing on. They still believe finding him/her might be
effective method of getting rid of bitcoin. It's like trump wanting to go ask
bill gates about locking up the internet.

~~~
oh_sigh
Proof for these ludicrous statements please.

~~~
snewk
i admit i don't have conclusive proof. however, is it really 'ludicrous' to
speculate that those in power seek to destroy bitcoin in any way possible?
especially when taking into account how vocally anti-establishment the bitcoin
community has become.

~~~
krapp
> is it really 'ludicrous' to speculate that those in power seek to destroy
> bitcoin in any way possible? especially when taking into account how vocally
> anti-establishment the bitcoin community has become.

No one is that afraid of the bitcoin community, or of bitcoin itself. The
bitcoin fringe is only novel in their application of the blockchain towards
the problem of reducing the risk in organized crime. The world has heard the
anarchist, anti-bank rhetoric before, and for that matter, from groups that
actually blow up banks and murder people to further their goals.

There seems to be no evidence of any government seeking to "destroy bitcoin in
any way possible." One would expect there to be fewer bitcoin based companies
openly operating if that were the case. Rather, it appears that governments
have reacted to bitcoin by defining it in terms of their existing regulatory
frameworks, and deciding whether or not, and how, it can legally be used and
taxed.

So yes, it does seem a bit ludicrous.

------
sr_banksy
So... this was a tax raid? Quite a harsh response, considering the rules were
drafted 12months ago... What are the money laundering measures that caused
Aussie banks to disown Bitcoin? Maybe that could shed light on the motivations
behind the raid?

~~~
robzyb
> So... this was a tax raid? Quite a harsh response, considering the rules
> were drafted 12months ago...

You're making very ambitious assumptions that the tax raid is related to the
rules that were drafted 12 months ago.

I'd bet significant sums of money that he isn't in trouble for creating
bitcoin. Its more likely to be some other action he has done, possibly with
bitcoin.

------
catweasel
In case anyone is interested in the ATO's treatment of crypto currencies -
[https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Gen/Tax-treatment-of-
crypto-c...](https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Gen/Tax-treatment-of-crypto-
currencies-in-Australia---specifically-bitcoin/)

------
dang
Earlier, extensive discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10699846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10699846).

Since this story contains significant new information, it doesn't count as a
duplicate.

------
mxxx
So if the popular theory that he's faked a lot of the evidence to make himself
look like Satoshi is true, it would appear he didn't entirely think his plan
through...

~~~
o_nate
I think most likely Satoshi was a pseudonym jointly created by Kleiman &
Wright for their collaboration, but after Kleiman died, Wright went back and
faked emails to make it look like he alone was Satoshi.

------
mankash666
I see no mention of a crime in this article. If he did create bitcoin, he
should be celebrated.

~~~
peteretep
Tax-related investigation

------
tim333
The guy introducing himself - seems quite plausible
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&feature=youtu.be&t=57s)

~~~
AlexMuir
This guy is sending my bullshit detector off the charts.

I'll bet that the story here will turn out to be that he's built a backstory
around being Satoshi in either an attempt to get famous, or some fraudulent
scheme to profit from it.

On reading the tax stuff, I'm wondering if he's told the Australian Tax
authorities that he is Satoshi.

~~~
tim333
Yeah thinking about it the guys answers seem calculated to imply he's Satoshi
which seems something unlikely for the real Satoshi to do. There is also
evidence of faked PGP keys
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10706511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10706511)

------
facepalm
What a weird ass article, I mean from the guardian - writing paragraph over
paragraph of gossip from somebody who barely knows the man (their landlord),
because somebody has not paid their taxes on time?

------
shiado
Wasn't it the case that Satoshi Nakamoto published PGP keys early in the days
of Bitcoin? Shouldn't the issue of an individual claiming to be Satoshi
Nakamoto be trivial to solve?

~~~
daurnimator
It sounds like in this case he _doesn 't_ want to be Satoshi, but the ATO
investigators think he might be.

------
headgasket
cmon. Not a chance. Dorian had at least the name. I suspect this guy could not
write C++ that even compiles to save his life. He's an IT expert with a long
list of acronyms that sell threats models to the government. As to why the
fakery... no idea. My best guess for SN stays an alternate schyzo personality
of John Nash. He had prolly forgotten himself hence the lost bitcoins.

------
jv0010
Let's say there is a tax related issue or governmental issue with wright?
Still very coincidental now also what is interesting is that the government
has released In the last few days an innovation agenda where there are a few
benefits in the startup / tech sector. So much coincidence :/

------
bammmmm
statistics on the timing of satoshis original forum posts:
[http://i.imgur.com/58l7W05.png](http://i.imgur.com/58l7W05.png)

could be australia, no? probably the deadzone is a bigger tell than where he
posted. Ostralia is about UTC +10h? no posts between 4 and 8am is believable.

------
ketralnis
Whether he is Satoshi or not, the only rational thing to do at this point is
say he is not

~~~
cba9
At this point, if he _is_ Satoshi, he would probably be better off coming out
of the closet. If you read through the McGrath-Nichols documents about the
Hotwire bankruptcy and how the R&D tax credits dispute killed Hotwire, it's
clear the ATO has it out for Wright.

I bet that whatever this raid is about, it's about something like R&D tax
credits again ([http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-australian-who-may-
hav...](http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-australian-who-may-have-
invented-bitcoin-claimed-to-have-landed-54m-in-taxpayer-funded-
rebates-2015-12) says $54 million in 2015 alone!) or some sort of VAT rebate,
and it may kill _another_ of Wright's companies. There's not much you can do
against the ATO if they are determined to reach an adverse decision against
you... But if he's Satoshi, he can take the moral high ground and wage a media
campaign to shame the ATO into dropping the case and maybe finally correctly
treating Bitcoin as money.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
> _But if he 's Satoshi, he can take the moral high ground and wage a media
> campaign to shame the ATO into dropping the case and maybe finally correctly
> treating Bitcoin as money._

How does this help? If they treat it that way, wouldn't Wright have a huge
income tax debt?

~~~
cba9
> wouldn't Wright have a huge income tax debt?

Yes, but presumably he can pay it out of his Bitcoin fortune. He has to deal
with that at some point anyway, and by going public now, he gains additional
leverage on his VAT or tax credit or whatever the ATO has decided to get him
for this time.

~~~
randyrand
Bitcoin is still volatile.

Typically tax on volatile income is paid when you "cash out" to a more stable
currency.

~~~
girvo
I wonder if capital-gains tax applies to Bitcoin? I'd think it would. And it's
quite large, too.

~~~
mikeyouse
Yep, the Australian Tax Office recognizes it as a commodity that's subject to
capital gains taxes.

------
amix
The bitcoins that Satoshi Nakamoto own are worth about ~400 million USD. There
are also a ton of coins missing from Mt. Gox and Silkroad. Maybe it’s all
related somehow? Anyhow, it's clear why the authorities would be interested:
potentially there are hundreds of millions of USD on the line.

This said, this is horrible for Craig Wright if he is innocent...

~~~
obilgic
well he is (innocent), until proven guilty...

~~~
prawn
Which is irrelevant because the biggest threat is likely to be from those who
won't wait to find out.

------
hartator
Innovate they say.

------
transfire
Repeat after me "I will not disrupt the NWO."

------
gizi
What would be the problem if he were Satoshi Nakamoto? He'd rather deserve the
Nobel prize.

~~~
bmelton
I think the possible reason for raiding him is to catch up on tax obligations
from having accrued so much undeclared wealth.

I don't know if there are other crimes for which they intend to charge him,
but that's the first one that pops to mind.

Also, they've obviously had meetings in advance of "what do we do if we
determine the identity of Satoshi", because this raid was FAST.

~~~
aianus
You don't have to pay taxes on capital gains until you sell the asset. Satoshi
hasn't sold his hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin, they're just
sitting there on the blockchain where they were mined.

~~~
Angostura
Unless Australian tax law considers Bitcoin a currency.

~~~
NeutronBoy
It doesn't

