4 ms·

Guy Who Claims He Invented Bitcoin Loses $100M in Court, Calls It a Win

25 points by onychomys 5y ago

edm0nd 5y ago
Craig Wright is such a freaking fraud and fake, it's quite unbelievable. Satoshi would never act like that. Too funny that he deleted nearly all social media because he would get called out as a scammer and laughed out of any conversation he tried to have. F CW and F BSV.
- blockwriter 5y ago
  Honest question: is enough known about this Satoshi to understand how he would behave? What are you basing your understanding of his behavior on?
  - nullc 5y ago
    There are plenty of OG bitcoiners who interacted with Satoshi, and there are plenty of things that Satoshi wrote-- and wright's actions are strong contradictions to Satoshi's writing. For example, drawing a parallel with advent of personal access to strong encryption Satoshi described Bitcoin as creating money that was "secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what". When people on the forums asked about people losing their keys, Satoshi responded "Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.". By comparison, Wright has filed a lawsuit against a dozen current and former Bitcoin developers (including myself) demanding that they backdoor the software they distribute so that he can take coins he claims to have lost (but, in reality, really obviously never belonged to him)-- or if they fail to collude with him, he demands they pay him $7 billion dollars in damages. But one need not get tied up in archeology. Wright has provided many different kinds of firm disproof. For example, ordered by federal court to enumerate his 2013 Bitcoin holdings under threat of a contempt charge-- wright provided a list and as soon as that list was made public the owners of thousand of bitcoins included on it produced digital signatures attesting that the coins were not owned by wright and that wright is a fraud.
    - blockwriter 5y ago
      Ah, interesting. I did not realize there was any sort of background on the guy. I thought it was just a byline that showed up on the initial papers.
      - nullc 5y ago
        Ah, nah. As far as anyone can tell he didn't even know about Bitcoin until late 2011. His claims of being Satoshi appear to have arisen out of a 2013-2015 refundable tax credit scam in Australia. AU has a program where you can get a cash credit for performing qualifying R&D, like EITC in the US it's not just a deduction they can actually cut you a check. According to the Australian tax office Wright spun up a series of companies that conducted no business activity except claiming these credits. Across several years he claimed to conduct about $200 million in research and intended to obtain $65 million in tax credits. The first year they paid out, but he requested much more in later years and triggered audits. The ATO noted that these credits appeared to be his only source of income and asked how this $200m in research was funded. Wright then claimed to have been mining bitcoin since 2009 and that he funded the research through some complicated web of loans in foreign shell companies. He claimed the money was used to purchase an SGI supercomputer in panama. He produced piles of forgeries to support hit claims and eventually started claiming to be Satoshi. ATO found against him, demanded he repay the money. Wright then started selling shares of his claimed (but fictional) fortune in order to pay off the ATO and finance his lifestyle. He fled Australia while authorities were raiding his offices and since then seems to be engaging in one cover scheme after another to keep things going. This US federal lawsuit came about because as a part of the forgeries he provided to the ATO he claimed his recently deceased friend co-created and mined Bitcoin with him. This eventually resulted in the friend's estate asking for their share, and after wright jerked them around for a couple years they sued. The jury didn't seem to be convinced that any of the claimed mined bitcoin existed, but they did award $100 million dollars against wright for robbing his friend's company-- which he pretty much admitted to in court (but argued that it was an ordinary business practice to assume the identity of a friends company and file a lawsuit against it and represent both sides in court to agree to a judgement awarding all its assets to yourself...). The real mystery here is why the media keeps treating this guys claims with any credulity. They don't pass anything more than most cursory of examinations. It's particularly sad because there is a tremendous wealth of information available due to this trial. We don't have to speculate about a lot of what he's been doing as a result, the records are all there in the thousand and thousands of pages of materials attached as exhibits in the case.
nullc 5y ago
Refreshing to see more truthful headline after the flood of utterly false headlines and articles.

25 points by onychomys 5y ago

Craig Wright is such a freaking fraud and fake, it's quite unbelievable. Satoshi would never act like that. Too funny that he deleted nearly all social media because he would get called out as a scammer and laughed out of any conversation he tried to have. F CW and F BSV.

blockwriter 5y ago
Honest question: is enough known about this Satoshi to understand how he would behave? What are you basing your understanding of his behavior on?
- nullc 5y ago
  There are plenty of OG bitcoiners who interacted with Satoshi, and there are plenty of things that Satoshi wrote-- and wright's actions are strong contradictions to Satoshi's writing. For example, drawing a parallel with advent of personal access to strong encryption Satoshi described Bitcoin as creating money that was "secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what". When people on the forums asked about people losing their keys, Satoshi responded "Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.". By comparison, Wright has filed a lawsuit against a dozen current and former Bitcoin developers (including myself) demanding that they backdoor the software they distribute so that he can take coins he claims to have lost (but, in reality, really obviously never belonged to him)-- or if they fail to collude with him, he demands they pay him $7 billion dollars in damages. But one need not get tied up in archeology. Wright has provided many different kinds of firm disproof. For example, ordered by federal court to enumerate his 2013 Bitcoin holdings under threat of a contempt charge-- wright provided a list and as soon as that list was made public the owners of thousand of bitcoins included on it produced digital signatures attesting that the coins were not owned by wright and that wright is a fraud.
  - blockwriter 5y ago
    Ah, interesting. I did not realize there was any sort of background on the guy. I thought it was just a byline that showed up on the initial papers.
    - nullc 5y ago
      Ah, nah. As far as anyone can tell he didn't even know about Bitcoin until late 2011. His claims of being Satoshi appear to have arisen out of a 2013-2015 refundable tax credit scam in Australia. AU has a program where you can get a cash credit for performing qualifying R&D, like EITC in the US it's not just a deduction they can actually cut you a check. According to the Australian tax office Wright spun up a series of companies that conducted no business activity except claiming these credits. Across several years he claimed to conduct about $200 million in research and intended to obtain $65 million in tax credits. The first year they paid out, but he requested much more in later years and triggered audits. The ATO noted that these credits appeared to be his only source of income and asked how this $200m in research was funded. Wright then claimed to have been mining bitcoin since 2009 and that he funded the research through some complicated web of loans in foreign shell companies. He claimed the money was used to purchase an SGI supercomputer in panama. He produced piles of forgeries to support hit claims and eventually started claiming to be Satoshi. ATO found against him, demanded he repay the money. Wright then started selling shares of his claimed (but fictional) fortune in order to pay off the ATO and finance his lifestyle. He fled Australia while authorities were raiding his offices and since then seems to be engaging in one cover scheme after another to keep things going. This US federal lawsuit came about because as a part of the forgeries he provided to the ATO he claimed his recently deceased friend co-created and mined Bitcoin with him. This eventually resulted in the friend's estate asking for their share, and after wright jerked them around for a couple years they sued. The jury didn't seem to be convinced that any of the claimed mined bitcoin existed, but they did award $100 million dollars against wright for robbing his friend's company-- which he pretty much admitted to in court (but argued that it was an ordinary business practice to assume the identity of a friends company and file a lawsuit against it and represent both sides in court to agree to a judgement awarding all its assets to yourself...). The real mystery here is why the media keeps treating this guys claims with any credulity. They don't pass anything more than most cursory of examinations. It's particularly sad because there is a tremendous wealth of information available due to this trial. We don't have to speculate about a lot of what he's been doing as a result, the records are all there in the thousand and thousands of pages of materials attached as exhibits in the case.

nullc 5y ago

Refreshing to see more truthful headline after the flood of utterly false headlines and articles.