[samcday]

The whole story seems so bizarre. As far as I understand it, some kind of fraudster got caught up in a bunch of his own lies, of which being the inventor of Bitcoin happened to be one. We're only reading about it because "Bitcoin" happens to be a frothy buzzword that gets the clicks. Otherwise this would just be some local news case about a wacky person saying the darndest things.

It's funny how we decide what's news.

[striking]

He's not a wacky person who says the darndest things, he's suing other people over their saying he's not Satoshi. As the article states, this case might affect a number of cases he's raised.

He's also made a new cryptocurrency (Bitcoin SV), and may be profiting off of a consultancy he helps run (https://nchain.com/en/).

I don't think he's just some random small fish.

[gwern]

Don't forget that Nchain is filing for hundreds of blockchain-related patents. That could be a serious problem.

[keymone]

i bet it's nothing but CSW's marketing trick. he's driving his diplomas in a cartwheel and bragging about publishing a thousand papers a year, but what is any of it worth? were they granted any of the patents they filed for? if i recall some filings were for things with obvious prior art like threshold signatures.

[gwern]

If you trust the patent system to not grant any bogus patents, then you are far more optimistic than I am. And a bogus patent is just as useful a weapon.

[seibelj]

There is a multi-billion dollar asset known as Bitcoin SV that is valued highly on the belief Craig Wright invented bitcoin. He is not just a local crank.

[smcl]

Then it’s valued highly by a lot of extremely gullible people. The first time I heard about Craig Wright was that debacle where he was desperate to prove he was Satoshi, hand-waved his way through a very staged proof and then when called on it he subsequently refused to do an extremely simple proof that would’ve beyond doubt proven what he claimed (lamenting that no one would be happy with it). Everything I’ve read since then has confirmed he’s just a grifter, this article is no different.

[tryptophan]

>multi-billion dollar asset

[number of coins] * [ price of coin] =/= value.

I hate this ridiculous trend of "valuing" currencies by the above formula.

I sold myself 1 HackerNewsCoin™ for 1$(featuring decentralized freedom© and proof of steak®). Since there are 1e13 coins, I am now the world's first trillionaire! I own a currency valued at 1$ * 1e13!

It makes much more sense to compare currencies by their transaction volume, or possibly even better by the volume * days destroyed metric.

Bitcoin SV probably has very little real "float" and so it appears far more valuable than it actually is.

[ericb]

> He is not just a local crank.

Agreed, he's gone global.

[lanrh1836]

You’re underestimating the story here. CSW is the creator of Bitcoin SV, which today has a market cap of $3.5 billion. A lot of people stand to lose or gain a lot of money depending on his claims.

[keymone]

market cap numbers actually aren't meaningful, especially in low liquidity assets like bsv.

[lanrh1836]

How does that change anything? The point is CSW is relevant in the sense that if the #9 token by market cap collapsed it should be “news” in the crypto world. He isn’t just some crazy bystander whose supporters have nothing to lose.

[bitxbitxbitcoin]

It doesn't change anything - it just provides some color and context as to why that number doesn't mean as much as many think it does.

[keymone]

you argument that bitcoin sv is relevant stands on that market cap number.

[xorcist]

The Craig Wright story is interesting because Gavin Andresen, who probably interacted more with Satoshi than anybody else, was dead set on Wright being Satoshi. He referred to evidence shown in private that he was unable to share the details of.

Later after Wright couldn't (or didn't want to) prove the Satoshi connection in public Andresen later expressed regrets going public with these statements, but never really took them back. It's hard to know, really. Andresen was release manager of the reference implementation for several years and widely regarded as trustworthy.

Other people made business investments based on these statements. Well known investor Roger Ver now seems to regard Wright a fraud, but not before headlining conferences with him and releasing a cryptocurrency together. So Wright has been quite influential, at least with some select people, and is absolutely newsworthy.

[dunkelheit]

Seems newsworthy enough to me. First, the sum in question is north of $10B and even if nobody involved probably has access to it, it is still entertaining to watch. And though the guy is most likely a conman, nobody has put the final nail in the coffin yet so the scam lives on, fueled by large sums of money from his "business partner". It is interesting to watch how long will they be able to carry it on.

[keymone]

no matter how skeptical you are of cryptocurrencies, they are no small thing and bitcoin is by far the largest. CSW is being sued for billions of dollars^, so that's also not a small thing. i don't understand, why be dismissive of things in a way that completely rejects the objective reality?

^ of course CSW is a fraud and doesn't actually have access to satoshi's stash. it's quite comical how if he proves he isn't a fraud he will owe somebody billions of dollars, assuming klein wins the case.

[csomar]

The funnier thing is that he potentially embezzled investors out of many millions of dollars for his bogus claims.

It's a wonderful world we are living in.

[anm89]

There is also a pretty substantial amount of money wrapped up in this case. Billions of dollars. I would say that's somewhat newsworthy for a lawsuit involving individual people.