December 9, 2015 – 6:00PM
John McDuling, Jessica Sier, Rachel Olding and Ben Grubb
Police and tax investigators have raided the Sydney home of a man that members of the Australian bitcoin community say might be the mastermind behind the controversial cryptocurrency, just hours after reports emerged in the United States suggesting that he may be its secretive creator.
However, Fairfax Media has been told the raid at the property of Craig Steven Wright relates to an “individual taxation matter” involving Mr Wright, rather than his apparent role in creating the encrypted currency.
The alleged creator of Bitcoin, Australian Craig Steven Wright. Photo: soldierx.com
The Australian Federal Police attended Mr Wright’s home in Gordon, on Sydney’s north shore, on Wednesday afternoon to assist the Australian Taxation Office in carrying out a search.
US report
In a report published on Wednesday morning, US tech publication Wired said it had uncovered enough evidence to suggest that bitcoin’s mysterious founder, who operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, was actually 44-year-old Mr Wright.
The AFP and tax investigators raid Craig Wright’s home in Gordon. Photo: Nick Moir
Wired acknowledged that its report was based on “unverified leaked documents” that it admitted “could be faked in whole or in part”.
Fairfax Media attempted to contact Mr Wright for comment but received no response. The Australian Federal Police referred matters to the ATO. The ATO declined to comment.
Mr Wright is listed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as a director of Hotwire and another company, Panopticrypt, which are both registered at a residential address on Sydney’s North Shore. He has been a shareholder and director in a range of other enterprises, the ASIC database shows.
This Sydney property owned by Craig Steven Wright was searched by police on Wednesday.
He is also listed as chief executive on the website of a company called DeMorgan, which describes itself “a pre-IPO Australian listed company focused on alternative currency, next generation banking and reputational and educational products.” Calls to this company went straight to voicemail.
‘He was a bit weird’
At about 4.15pm, the real estate agent managing the Gordon home leased by Mr Wright entered the house after being told by a neighbour, who knew the owners, that it was being searched.
The AFP and tax investigators raid Craig Wright’s home in Gordon. Photo: Nick Moir
Federal Police and the ATO officers were then later seen leaving the property, at 4.50pm. Asked why the federal police were at the house, they offered “no comment”.
Neighbours, who didn’t wish to named, said Mr Wright was an elusive man who had two children and a partner. He had an expensive taste in cars, they said, having seen him pull up to the house in a Toyota Land Cruiser, a Lexus, and a Jaguar.
Mr Wright, his partner, and children were not seen within the vicinity of the house.
Apart from owning a dog, which one neighbour described as “noisy”, he also owned hens, which could be seen out the back of his house.
“I thought he did something with insurance or was an entrepreneur or something,” said one neighbour, who described Wright as a “daggy dad” often seen exercising in his garage gym. “He was a bit weird.”
Another neighbour said Mr Wright apparently had three-phase, 450-volt power — normally used for industrial applications — installed at the home.
The same neighbour said he recently heard that Wright had packed up the house as he was apparently off to go live in London. None of the neighbours interviewed said that Wright had told them he was the creator of Bitcoin.
Plausible candidate
Chris Guzowski, founder of ABA Technologies and a regular on the Bitcoin conference circuit, said Wired had uncovered enough circumstantial evidence for Mr Wright to be a plausible candidate.
“It certainly makes sense,” said Mr Guzowski. “He’s definitely been in Bitcoin from the very start and has accumulated a really big stash of Bitcoin. He’s also been in this huge stoush with the ATO for a long time.”
Andrew Sommer, a partner at Clayton Utz and who testified at last year’s Senate Inquiry into digital currency, is reputedly Mr White’s lawyer.
But Mr Sommer said he couldn’t comment on any client when contacted by Fairfax.
Zhenya Tsvetnenko, founder of bitcoin remittancy company Digital BTC, has discussed business with Mr Wright previously and was struck by his understanding of Bitcoin and his long history with the protocol.
“It could definitely be him, I remember thinking this guy could be Satoshi at the time,” Mr Tsvetnenko said
“I asked him how many Bitcoin he had and he said enough to buy a pizza. Which is a joke because it’s well known in the Bitcoin community the first thing bought with the very first Bitcoin was a pizza.”
The Wired story was not the first time a media outlet has claimed to reveal the true identity of bitcoin’s founder.
Last year, US magazine Newsweek said it had found the mysterious person behind the cryptocurrency t. However the man it named, Dorien Nakamoto, unconditionally denied Newsweek’s claim, and subsequently sued the publication.
The Wired report cites archived blog posts from as far back as 2008, purportedly written by Mr Wright, which discuss aspects of the distributed ledger that is a key element of bitcoin, as well as leaked emails and a liquidation report by Australian corporate recovery firm McGrath Nicol involving one of Mr Wright’s companies.
McGrath Nicol confirmed the veracity of the liquidation report, which states that the company, called Hotwire Preemptive Intelligence, was backed by $30 million in capital that was “injected via bitcoins”.
Potential hoax
Wired acknowledged that the trail of evidence leading to Mr Wright could be part of an elaborate hoax.
Asher Tan of CoinJar, Australia’s largest bitcoin exchange, said he was skeptical of Wired‘s claim, pointing out the bitcoin community relies on mathematical proof.
Solid technical proof should be given more weight than speculation, he said.
“There are some methods of doing this,” Mr Tan said. These would include “moving bitcoin attributed to Satoshi’s personal stash or utilising his personal encryption key (PGP) to communicate.
“These aren’t foolproof methods of identifying him, but anyone who publicly stakes a claim to being Satoshi would be expected to demonstrate either of these methods.”
The New York Times, which conducted an inconclusive investigation of its own into the matter, has described Mr Nakamoto’s identity as “one of the great mysteries of the digital age”.
But many in the bitcoin community believe that the identity of the person (or people) behind Nakamoto is irrelevant, since the virtual currency is an open source and community driven technology. It sure is a fun story though.
Do you know you Satoshi Nakamoto? Email our reporters.
Source : Sydney Morning Herald
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