nChain Departure Blows New Holes In Wright Satoshi Claim

Ever since Australian computer scientist Craig Wright stated he was Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto on live TV in 2016, a large percentage of the crypto community has viewed him as a charlatan and a fraud. A smaller subsection has vigorously defended him, and his vision for Bitcoin: The Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) fork.

Cracks Appear

Now, a series of events and a leaked email suggests that support for Wright might be crumbling, even within the ultra-loyal clique and within nChain, where Wright is Chief Scientist. The catalyst was the departure of nChain CEO, Christen Ager-Hanssen (CAH), after he discovered what he says is new evidence that Wright misled investors. Wright, he says, presented him with "new evidence" for his claim that was clearly fake, casting doubt on earlier evidence that CAH had believed.

Following his departure, an email came to light that suggests Calvin Ayre—a vocal supporter of Wright and BSV—might be having second thoughts. Ayre, whose gambling company Bodog has made him a billionaire, has repeatedly staked his reputation on Wright being Satoshi.

The leaked text is as follows:

"Sign Or It's Over"

TL;DR: Wright is out of legal options. If he wants to prove he is Satoshi, and salvage what is left of his reputation, he needs to sign a message with the private key to the Genesis block (or another very early block), thereby proving beyond doubt that he launched Bitcoin. Ayre appears now to be undecided whether he truly does have the keys, and threatens to leave Wright out in the cold, financially and legally.

Ayre has confirmed the email is real, but claims it was a strategy to get Wright to sign.

CAH is now busy on Twitter apologizing to community members who have suffered legal action for stating that Wright is a fraud, and providing further evidence to back up his own claims, such as a report detailing how Wright had researched how to forge backdated documents.

CAH also alleges that Calvin Ayre has paid witnesses to throw court cases in order to support the Craig=Satoshi case, and that his payment for helping Wright was to be half of all the Satoshi coins. Expect more information on this in the coming days.

All that Wright, or anyone needs to do to prove they are Satoshi is sign a message with one of the keys to an early block. This is trivially simple to do if they possess the keys, and impossible if they do not.

For now, though, the seven-year car crash that is the saga of Craig Wright continues.

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