Craig Wright speaking to the BBC in his first interview. Photograph: BBC news Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin, has backtracked on a pledge to provide proof of his earlier claims.
Despite promising on Tuesday that he would be offering “extraordinary evidence” to verify his claim that he is really Satoshi Nakamoto, Wright wiped his blog on Thursday, replacing it only with a message headlined: “I’m Sorry.”
In the new message, Wright continues to maintain that he really is Nakamoto, but accepts that the total absence of credible evidence means few are likely to believe him. “I believed that I could do this,” he writes. “I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.”
Initially, Wright attempted to prove his claim by posting what he said was a digital signature, signed using a private key that could only have been held by the real Satoshi Nakamoto. In fact, while Wright did post such a signature, it emerged that it had been directly copied from a 2009-era bitcoin transaction and was not freshly created, as he had claimed.
That discrepancy led to Wright’s claims being dubbed a “scam” and “cryptographically verifiable fraud” by security researcher Dan Kaminsky. Wright initially promised to provide further evidence, but has now reneged on that, seemingly permanently.
Wright’s post continues: “When the rumors began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this.”
He also apologised to the two senior bitcoin figures who had backed […]
