‘Bitcoin Creator’ Craig Wright Won’t Provide Public Evidence
The Australian who claims to be the creator of bitcoin will not release public evidence to substantiate that claim. Wright writes in a post on his website that he is “broken” and cannot muster the courage to publish the cryptographic evidence.
Wright begins his post with an apology: “I’m sorry. I thought I could do it. I thought I could put years of anonymity behind me. But as events unfolded this week and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the first keys, I broke. I don’t have the courage. I can’t.”
The Australian does not disprove his earlier claim. However, he refuses to provide public proof that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. Under that pseudonym, the first bitcoin client was released and the bitcoin whitepaper published. Wright can prove he is Nakamoto by signing a message with the same key that Nakamoto used in the early days of bitcoin. There are more than one million bitcoins in the name of Satoshi Nakamoto, which at the time of writing represent a value of around 400 million euros.
On Monday, the BBC, The Economist and GQ published articles in which Craig Wright claims to be the creator of bitcoin. He provided proof of this during a closed meeting in the presence of journalists and two experts: Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. The latter is chief scientist of the bitcoin Foundation and, based on his meeting with Wright, believes that it is indeed the inventor.
The evidence Wright presented during the secret meeting has not been made public. The Australian promised after his claim that he would provide the cryptographic proof on his website. However, he published a message signed with a signature that turned out to be copied from a transaction from the blockchain, which is publicly available.
Wright apologizes to Matonis and Andresen, believing his actions will harm the two experts. Because they believe him, while he doesn’t make the evidence public, their credibility is at stake. Wright writes that he has not cheated on the two, but also says that the world will never believe that.