Craig Wright's Tangled Web of Lies in Bitcoin's Origin Story

1. An illustration of the intricacies and depths of Dr Wright’s forgeries

18. When Satoshi was operating, the email address satoshi@vistomail.com and the web domain bitcoin.org were associated with him. The address and website were apparently purchased from the organisation Anonymous Speech.

19. The first strand of the saga derives from Dr Wright’s claims (in Wright4) to have used the vistomail account as Satoshi in 2008 {Wright4 [13] {E/4/8}}. These claims were a necessary part of his claim to be Satoshi.

20. On 12 April 2019, Dr Wright published an article entitled “Evidence and law”. (In passing, I note that this article was a key step in him backtracking away from his previous position that he would prove his claim by a signature linked to an early block. He says that signing merely shows possession of private keys, not ownership (or creation of Bitcoin)). Of course, this supposed stand on principle follows his failure to provide a proper signature in public). In the article he wrote that “Bitcoin was birthed using a credit card payment” {L14/451/2}. He then went to on claim specifically that the “source of the funds that went to pay for the bitcoin.org domain registration on AnonymousSpeech.com derived from my credit card” {L14/451/5}, finishing the article by saying he would provide that evidence and would do so by using the “courts and law.” In this article, Dr Wright was telling the world that he would prove his creation of Bitcoin, not through signing with a private key but through tangible proof such as bank statements. His position was made even clearer in an interview two weeks later (27 April 2019), when he stated:

“Proof is something simple, like a credit card statement saying that you actually bought the Bitcoin.com – sorry, Bitcoin.org domain… and paid for the Satoshi email account.” {O4/25/34}.

“I’m an evil little prick, I’ve got bank statements and credit card statements and all of this stuff and, you know, the bank has to keep those for 25 years… So I can’t fundamentally change them… The bank issues a statement… the court checks, that’s it.” {O4/25/36}.

21. Dr Wright followed up on that promise by producing screenshots of his NAB banking records (discussed above). He sent these to Jimmy Nguyen (then CEO of nChain Group) in an email dated 10 June 2019 {ID_003455, L15/100/1}. These two screenshots appear to be NAB banking records showing two transactions: AU$ 687 to Anonymous Speech; and an AU$ 8 transaction fee (both dated 30 August 2008). The covering email said: “Anonymous Speech is vistomail. [Number] is my old credit card. All the credit card shows is ‘Anonymous’. You need to have the Vistomail document as well.”

22. In Madden1, Mr Madden showed that these documents were inauthentic, because the screenshots were taken at a time (in 2018) when the records (from 2008) could not have been accessed. Dr Placks agreed with this conclusion {Q/2/9}. Following the service of Madden1, Dr Wright admitted that these bank records are not authentic (via the letter from Travers Smith dated 27 September 2023 {M/2/205}). They were then pleaded by COPA to be forgeries and I have found them to be forgeries in section 39 below.

23. Dr Wright’s excuse was set out in his third witness statement in the BTC Core claim, where he said that these screenshots were sent to him by Amanda McGovern (his lawyer in the Kleiman litigation from the firm Rivero Mestre) on 9 or 10 June 2019. As to how Ms McGovern obtained these, Dr Wright says they were sent to her by a pseudonymous Reddit user whose “identity remains undisclosed”. Ms McGovern has passed away, so that the account cannot be checked with her.

24. Dr Wright then said that, at that time, he did not think that the records were genuine and that he emailed them to Mr Nguyen to check. However, the email did not suggest that they were inauthentic, and its short text indicates that he regarded them as genuine. It is also implausible that Dr Wright would send the documents to Mr Nguyen to check (and there is no suggestion in the evidence of what checks were to be made or even could have been made, given that the records purported to be Dr Wright’s financial records). Furthermore, Dr Wright went on in that statement to say that he used other payment methods for the domain name {Wright3 in BTC Core, [7] {E1/4/3}}, and then he added in Wright4, [16] {E/4/10}, that he could not remember what methods he used. It must follow from this evidence that he was lying in his article and interview of April 2019 when he said that he could remember and prove what payment method he had used. It must also follow that he disclosed documents in this action which he knew to be fakes, supposedly planted on him (presumably a memorable event), but did not inform COPA or the Court when giving disclosure.

25. The reality is that Dr Wright announced that he would prove his Satoshi claim with bank records, forged the records and sent them to Mr Nguyen (all in mid-2019). When the forgery was exposed in the Madden Report, he concocted his tale of the anonymous Reddit user planting fake documents.

26. The other strand of the saga starts with the MYOB accounting records {ID_004077, ID_004078 and ID_004079} which purported to evidence a series of transactions by Dr Wright, dated to 2009, connected to mining of Bitcoin and transfers of Bitcoin to Wright International Investments Limited, incorporated in the Seychelles. (These records said nothing about the acquisition of bitcoin.org). In Madden1, these documents were found to be inauthentic (see his Appendix PM7 {H/47/1}). They were then pleaded as forgeries by COPA. I have found these MYOB accounting records to have been forged by Dr Wright in section 35 below.

27. This strand then continues in Dr Placks’ first report. Dr Wright tried to provide replacement MYOB records by directing his expert, Dr Placks, to MYOB databases containing records which supposedly supported aspects of his claim (including a supposed entry dated 19 August 2008 for purchase of the bitcoin.org domain hosting {I/1/35) {Placks1 [9.15]-[9.42] {I/1/32}}, albeit these turned out to be entirely different copies of accounting records over the period which did not show the same transactions. However, Mr Madden showed in his Second Report (notably Appendix PM42) that the “new” database records were forged in May / June 2023 – in the course of this litigation – by person(s) using the email addresses of Dr Wright and his current wife (Ramona Ang) {see Appendix PM42 at {H/209/7}, especially [31ff]}. This finding was agreed by Dr Placks in the first joint statement {Q/2/9}.

28. Dr Wright tried to answer this point in Wright11 by claiming that both Mr Madden and Dr Placks had failed to understand how MYOB works, and that Mr Madden’s findings of entries being associated with very recent versions of MYOB software were explained by system updates. This evidence did not account for all Mr Madden’s findings, because (for example) he had found clear evidence of backdating of entries by simply producing a log showing entries in the order in which they had been committed to the database. Mr Madden explained this clearly in his fifth report, produced during trial {G/9/4} - {G/9/10}. In addition, Dr Wright’s account did not make sense even on its own terms. If system updates caused previous entries misleadingly to be associated with the most recent version of software, all entries would naturally show the same version. When cross-examined on these points, Dr Wright insisted upon his version, asserting features of MYOB for which he had no supportive evidence {Day15/20:16} - {Day15/43:25}. Quite apart from all the expert evidence ranged against him, it would be very surprising if accounting software caused such misleading and confusing entries to be committed to logs as he suggested MYOB routinely does.

29. Dr Wright’s final excuse for not being able to show his acquisition and ownership of the bitcoin.org domain and the vistomail email was that control of the domain passed to others after Satoshi withdrew from active involvement in Bitcoin. This, of course, is true, but it is no answer to Dr Wright’s original claims to have proof that he was the original registrant of the domain. Beyond that, as far as I am aware, Dr Wright’s attempts to show that he had acquired the bitcoin.org domain in 2008 were not pursued further, perhaps in the hope that the issue would be quietly forgotten.

30. However, reverting to the original MYOB accounting records and picking up the story from [26] above, Dr Wright suggested that these documents are inauthentic, but did not indicate when he became aware of that fact and why he deployed them in the first place. He suggested that the documents were produced by his former solicitors, Ontier, and in the Tulip Trading case he suggested that Ontier is somehow responsible for unreliable records being proffered (although it is not clear that he was accusing Ontier of falsifying the records) {Dr Wright’s fifth statement in the Tulip Trading case, at [39] {S1/1.13/13}}.

31. Dr Wright’s account of these documents developed in Wright11 and at trial, as set out in section 35 below. He maintained that the entries in the security logs for 6 and 7 March 2020 reflected entries he had made on a local version of MYOB to record the contents of a QIF file he had had somebody extract from the online version. Meanwhile, he said that the screenshots had been taken before 6 March 2020 by his solicitors, Ontier, from a live version of MYOB to which they had been given login access in late 2019. He thus maintained that the entries he had made had not affected the records shown by the screenshots.

32. This convoluted story was shown to be false when Ontier told the parties and the Court that they had been provided with login details on 9 March 2020 (and not before) and had taken the screenshots in the days that followed, a position further supported by the point that a related screenshot which showed the date of capture was taken on 9 March 2020. Dr Wright then forged the MYOB Ontier email (see section 40 below) in a last desperate attempt to back up his story. It is clear that the responsibility for all and any of these forged or unreliable documents being put forward lies with Dr Wright. No blame attaches to Ontier.