Bitcoin and cryptocurrency devotees have been gripped by the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto—bitcoin’s anonymous creator—for more than a decade as bitcoin has rocked the worlds of finance and technology.
Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared shortly after publishing bitcoin’s white paper in 2008 and the name has since been linked to various coders, developers and so-called cyberpunks—with Australian computer scientist Craig Wright orchestrating an elaborate but unconvincing demonstration that he is Nakamoto in 2016.
Now, after Wright has spent years claiming to be Nakamoto and dragging naysayers through the courts, a leaked email has suggested one of his biggest backers has lost faith.
Bitcoin’s historical halving that’s expected to cause crypto price chaos is just around the corner! Sign up now for the free CryptoCodex—A daily newsletter for traders, investors and the crypto-curious that will keep you ahead of the market
Christen Ager-Hanssen, the former nChain chief executive, has quit the bitcoin SV infrastructure company, going on to leak emails suggesting former gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre who has heavily backed the company doesn’t believe Wright, nChain’s chief scientist, is Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin SV, which stands for Satoshi’s vision, is a fork of the payments-focused bitcoin cash, itself a fork of bitcoin that split from the original bitcoin blockchain following the so-called blocksize war of 2017.
“I can confirm I have departed from nChain Global,” Ager-Hanssen posted to X (Twitter). “I have also reported that I have found compelling evidence that Craig Wright has manipulated documents with the aim to deceive the court that he is Satoshi. I’m today myself convinced that Craig Wright is not Satoshi.”
Ager-Hanssen followed up his resignation with a leaked email he claims Ayre sent to Wright that appears to show Ayre is poised to pull his support for Wright’s various lawsuits, calling it “shocking evidence.”
“I have been operating under the assumption that you … have the keys and you were simply pretending not to have them as part of some strategy,” the leaked email purports to show Ayre writing, referring to the private keys that would prove Wright has access to bitcoin known to be mined by Nakamoto. “But now we are looking at a situation where continuing to deny you ruin your life and damage your supporters.”
Ayre appeared to warn that Wright will lose an upcoming case brought against Wright by the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), something that “will set a precedent that you are not Satoshi in law.”
In 2021, the COPA filed a U.K. civil suit against Wright, challenging him to prove he authored the bitcoin white paper, with the expected trial date last year pushed out to the beginning of 2024.
Earlier this year, Wright told Forbes his legal strategy will hinge on the movement of the bitcoin codebase to Github and the alleged circumvention of his administrator control.
Last month, a U.K. court dismissed Wright’s lawsuit alleging crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken had infringed on his copyright by using the name “bitcoin.”
Follow me on Twitter.
