Australian computer scientist Craig Wright has generated quite a bit of media attention with his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the shadowy, anonymous creator of the Bitcoin digital currency. He's also garnered a mounting wave of skepticism, and it's warranted, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Steve Wilson.

"First, the one making the claim is Wright himself," Wilson says. "It's not a good look."

In December, a number of media outlets named Wright as Nakamoto. He fell from sight amid a raid by the Australian Tax Office for reasons that aren't entirely clear. 
As far as Wright being Nakamoto, "the evidence produced at the time was all circumstantial, consisting of emails that seemed to come from his computers, and seemed to be associated with Nakamoto's work from 2008," Wilson notes. "But it seemed that the digital trails had been hacked to look genuine."

To support his claim of being Nakamoto, Wright provided evidence to the BBC, the Economist and GQ. The last is an odd choice for the stridently anti-establishment Nakamoto, Wilson notes. In addition, Wright wrote "a rambling blog, consisting mostly of an awkward cryptography tutorial," Wilson says. 

"So here we have another problem with the claim," Wilson adds. "The original Bitcoin paper by Nakamoto was a work of genius. A short nine pages, elegant, eclectic, highly technical yet crystal clear. But Craig Wright's blog is turgid. I can't see how it's the work of the real Nakamoto.  Perhaps a forensic textual analysis can be done to compare the styles?"

But the biggest problem with Wright's evidence is that it remains indirect, Wilson says: "Wright has produced digital signatures he claims have been produced afresh with private keys that only Nakamoto could hold. But that's doubtful. Within a few hours, Bitcoin technicians had found the signatures have been cut and pasted from old blockchain entries."

"Now here's the thing," Wilson adds. "Public key cryptography—the engine room of Bitcoin—makes it trivial to prove possession of private keys. Wright could simply send someone a few Bitcoin from Nakamoto's original 'genesis block.'  Instead he's offered up an ambiguous cryptogram, created with a computer he won't let anyone see."

The Bottom Line

Beyond the human interest aspect of Nakamoto's identity, there are serious reasons to scrutinize Wright's claim closely. "Seriously, Nakamoto is a hero to many," Wilson says. "And he still holds enormous economic power, as holder of a quarter of the early bitcoin float. If he released that stash, it would crash the currency."

"For someone to claim to be Nakamoto is a serious matter," Wilson adds. "It's a claim to great genius. He could attract a lot of attention and resources. The possibility that the claim is fraudulent should be of grave concern. For me, the media response is almost craven.  Extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary evidence, and with crypto the definitive evidence should actually be extraordinarily simple."

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