One of the cryptocurrency experts who backed Australian Craig White’s claim that he is the inventor of Bitcoin has said that he shouldn’t have shown support for the claim until proof had been publicly posted.
Answering questions from security researcher Dan Kaminsky, Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, said it was a mistake to set his statements live before knowing what proof Wright would provide in his own post.
I was as surprised by the ‘proof’ as anyone, and don’t yet know exactly what is going on.
It was a mistake to agree to publish my post before I saw his– I assumed his post would simply be a signed message anybody could easily verify.
That’s not to say that he’s altogether backing away from the idea that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, just that if he is, there’s a far easier way to prove it than he’s provided so far.
Andresen says Wright should simply move bitcoin through the key tied to one of the first blocks. Kaminsky, similary, says it would be a trivial enough task to prove without a doubt.
He can actually sign ‘Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto’ with Satoshi’s keys, openly and publicly. Or he can’t, because he doesn’t have those keys, because he’s not actually Satoshi.
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For Wright’s part in this, since his announcement and the subsequent backlash, he’s published another post on the matter, essentially saying that some people will never be happy regardless of the proof provided, and that they shouldn’t be.
Gavin was in a unique position as we dealt with each other directly while we nurtured Bitcoin to life in 2010. I knew Gavin would remember the content of those messages and discussions and would recall our arguments and early interactions. I wanted to speak with Gavin first, not to appeal to his authority, but because I wanted him to know. I owed him that. It was important to me that we could re-establish our relationship. Simply signing messages or moving bitcoin would never be enough for Gavin.
And it should not be enough for anyone else.
So, over the coming days, I will be posting a series of pieces that lay the foundations for this extraordinary claim. […]
For some there is no burden of proof high enough, no evidence that cannot be dismissed as fabrication or manipulation. This is the nature of belief and swimming against this current would be futile.
As yet, Wright hasn’t started to reveal the additional evidence he claims to have, but the bitcoin world waits with bated breath.
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