When an Australian tech genius declared himself to be the inventor of Bitcoin this week, critics immediately began to question his claims.
Craig Wright, an obscure computer expert, stunned the world after confirming rumours that he was Satoshi Nakamoto – a pseudonym used by the creator of the virtual currency.
As the tech world anxiously waits for Wright to unveil further "extraordinary proof" to back up his assertions, naysayers have already begun to raise doubts.
The man who would be Satoshi has attempted to prove his claims by performing a complex mathematical trick that only the creator of Bitcoin could achieve – the "signing" of a very early Bitcoin transaction.
Internet campaigners immediately launched a drive to disprove Wright . Nicholas Weaver, a computer scientist at UC Berkeley, claimed Wright was "passing off an old signature as new" . Dr. Craig Wright, who has claimed to be the the founder of Bitcoin One other admitted: "Maybe I’m just skeptical because Satoshi having a public identity takes some of the magic away."
However, many prominent people have stepped up to back the Australian.
Craig Andresen, chief Scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, has met Wright, and was "convinced beyond a reasonable doubt" that he invented Bitcoin. "We love to create heroes – but also seem to love hating them if they don’t live up to some unattainable ideal," he wrote in a blog post .
"It would be better if Satoshi Nakamoto was the codename for an NSA project, or an artificial intelligence sent from the future to advance our primitive money."He is not, he is an imperfect human being just like the rest of us."I am very happy to be able to say I shook his hand and thanked him for giving Bitcoin to the world."Andresen later appeared to pull back a little in a subsequent statement, […]
