Craig Wright Will Not Present Cryptographic Proof He’s Satoshi, His Lawyers Say At Hodlonaut Trial

The Norwegian trail is one of two coexisting cases based on  a series of tweets since March 2019 in which Hodlonaut expressed doubt about Wright’s note to be Satoshi and called him a “fraud” and a “scammer.” In real life, Hodlonaut, known as Magnus Granath, began the case in Norway to get a judge to rule that his tweets were shielded by the Constitutional right of freedom of speech and prevent Wright’s defamation case in the U.K from moving forward.  

On Tuesday, during his opening statement, Halvor Manshaus, the defending lawyer Wright informed the court that establishing Wright’s ownership of Satoshi’s private keys- a move many of Wright’s doubters would settle the years-long argument over his claims- isn’t enough.  

Manshaus informed the court that “Craig Wright is of the perception that to sign … with the private key, one block or the other … is not conclusive evidence of whether he is Satoshi or not.” adding more, he said, “It’s never one thing, or the other is sufficient, you need several elements, you need the whole package.”  

Manshaus also read numerous excerpts from Andrew O’Hagan’s 2016 article “The Satoshi Affair” to show that not feeling like cryptographic evidence would be enough to silence his critics. Wright has also struggled emotionally with the burden of “proving” his identity as Satoshi.   

Using a passage from “The Satoshi Affair.” Manshaus argued that Wright has “difficulty trusting people” and suffered extreme emotional pain and “exhaustion” after a private signing session intended to prove his ownership of Satoshi’s Private keys with Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen in 2016 that caused him to break down in tears.  

Instead of presenting cryptographic proof, Manshaus attempted to convince the court of his client’s identity as Satoshi with other evidence, including a personal history allegedly in line with the creation of Bitcoin. Manshaus’ opening statement also leaned heavily on Andresen’s 2016 assertions that he believed Wright to be Satoshi following the private signing session.   

KPMG Report 

During their opening statement on Monday, Hodlonaut’s lawyer told the court they’d commissioned multinational auditing firm KPMG to authenticate Wright’s evidence submitted in the case. The report is expected to show that many documents submitted by Wright are either manipulated or unverifiable and will be discussed when a KPMG representative testifies on Friday.  

The support of former Bitcoin Foundation director Jon Matonis who wrote a blog post called “How I Met Satoshi ” in 2016 after a private proof session with Wright, also featured heavily in Wright’s legal team’s opening statement. 

Satoshi has many meanings in several different languages; Satoshi in Chinese means “Sage” or “Enlightened one.” Satoshi in Japanese means ‘Wise’, ‘an intelligent history’, and Satoshi is described as “Freedom” and “Reason” in Hindi.     

Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.

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