This week has seen a great deal going on in the Bitcoin community; however, what’s really dominating the news is yesterday’s investigative revelations by Wired and Gizmodo that out Craig Steven Wright as potentially (in part) Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin community has been rife with speculation and thoughts about the evidence presented and Wright himself. While this represents the best evidence ever seen in an “unmasking” of Satoshi, much of the community is still pervaded with doubts.

Bitcoin market price has also shot up quite a bit since the last Weekly. Bitcoin’s market price has risen to $414 today and exceeded $420 earlier today. Last week the price hovered around $360, then it rose slowly to approach $400, with a sharp snap upwards yesterday, December 8, 2015.

But is Wright actually (or in part) Satoshi Nakamoto? As with every previous unmasking, the evidence is already starting to unravel. Keep reading for the blow-by-blow of what’s happened since yesterday.

Craig Wright identified by Gizmodo and Wired as (in part) Satoshi Nakamoto

Another year, another “Satoshi Nakamoto” sighting. Yesterday, two Internet publications identified 44-year-old Australian academic and businessman Craig Steven Wright as the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Internet magazine Wired and tech blog Gizmodo both ran stories citing evidence that Wright could be involved with coding Bitcoin.

As Satoshi sightings go, this one has a lot more compelling evidence that Wright may have been involved with Bitcoin early on; however, doubts linger and continue to arise.

Wired’s evidence includes blog posts by Wright from 2008 mentioning interest in cryptocurrency, as well as a PGP key apparently connected to Satoshi Nakamoto. Although the e-mail address it is connected to is one character off, the address used to publish the original Bitcoin whitepaper, one character off is not the same as being the actual address. Wired also received leaked e-mails from Wright that appear to show him communicating about Bitcoin, its coding and release, and further his reactions when other “outings” of Satoshi Nakamoto have occurred. For example, one of the e-mails he leaked has him complaining when Newsweek’s now discredited report came out in 2014.

Gizmodo received the same leaks, however, believes that Wright is not the only part of Satoshi. Wright worked with an American computer forensics expert Dave Kleiman, who died in 2013. E-mails between Wright and Kleiman appear to show the latter’s involvement in early Bitcoin development.

The evidence is much more considerable than any other development identifying Satoshi Nakamoto in the past; however, doubts still proliferate.

In a Reddit thread, Bitcoin core developer Greg Maxwell (/u/nullc on Reddit) casts doubt on the PGP keys connecting Wright to Satoshi. Maxwell also expressed concerns that Wright does not know very much about the underlying code and structure of Bitcoin. As for the PGP keys, the ones that connect Wright to Satoshi appear to be backdated and use a cipher that was not in broad circulation at the time they were apparently minted. Motherboard has an excellent article up already about why this could point to them being part of a hoax.

The above revelations (especially the summation in the Motherboard article) are particularly damning.

Curiously, WikiLeaks decided to weigh in as well:

We assess that Craig S Wright is unlikely to be the principal coder behind Bitcoin. e.g during 2011 CSW authored https://t.co/nRnftKPjm9

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 9, 2015

Much of the focus so far is on Wright, and very little is directed towards Kleiman’s involvement. His death in 2013 complicates matters, of course, but so far doubts raised about Wright do not speak to Kleiman.

Yawn. Gawker-style "journalism" in the tech sector. I'm waiting for the Nakamoto sex tapes.

— Andreas (@aantonop) December 9, 2015

Meanwhile, Andreas Antonopoulos, host of the Let’s Talk Bitcoin podcast is simply not impressed.

Proving Wright is Satoshi

It is possible for Wright to prove that he is Satoshi. First he could sign something with the same PGP key used to submit the original whitepaper or, possibly better, Satoshi was the first person to mine bitcoins, meaning that he should be sitting on coins from the very beginning of the protocol. Satoshi could sign a message with the private key of one of those coins or, even more dramatically, move one of those coins.

Jeff Garzik, also a Bitcoin core developer, suggests exactly this in a tweet he sent shortly after the Wired and Gizmodo articles:

9/ tl;dr Demand mathematically sound Proof of Satoshi or GTFO.

— Jeff Garzik (@jgarzik) December 8, 2015

Wright has not yet claimed to be Satoshi.

However, by leaking his own e-mails to Wired and Gizmodo, he is obviously seeking some sort of attention or recognition. But, until there is some way to better connect him to Satoshi or as Satoshi, it is still too early to accept his role in Bitcoin’s invention and development.

As for Kleiman, a PGP key or moving bitcoins would be impossible (due to his death); however, Wright seems to suggest that he is in possession of a sizable number of bitcoins that seems to match the same number that would have been mined by Satoshi.

… and then the Australian police raided Wright’s home and business

Within hours of Wright being identified as potentially Satoshi, Australian police descended on his home and place of business.

The police commented to The Guardian that the move was unrelated to this news, but did say, “The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney.”

At this point it is hard to tell if the police raid and connected tax issues that Wright may have been involved in are related to his involvement with Bitcoin. Across the world, Bitcoin has seen growing pains with regards to regulation, especially with regards to taxation. It is not unlikely that Wright’s tax issues, if Bitcoin-related, could be related to earnings from trading in the cryptocurrency.

In 2014, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) ruled that Bitcoin is an asset for capital gains purposes.

From documents obtained by Wired and Gizmodo per attempting to unmask Satoshi Nakamoto as Craig Wright, it seems that he has been in a dispute with the ATO for some time regarding regulation and one of his Bitcoin businesses. In fact, one of the leaked e-mails seems to suggest that he has sought to bring Satoshi’s name out of retirement as a sort of leverage regarding that regulation.

Featured image credit: Bitcoin Logo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/12350379324.