- A purported draft of the Bitcoin whitepaper was presented in court yesterday during the Hodlonaut v Wright case
- The document, presented by Wright as evidence, was handwritten and hand dated ‘Aug 2007’
- The response to the revelation was one of scorn and general derision
The libel trial concerning Hodlonaut and Craig Wright took a sensational twist yesterday when what was purported to be an early draft copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper was presented to the court as evidence on behalf of Craig Wright, although it seems that the Bitcoin world is less than impressed with the revelation. The draft copy, photographed by a court reporter and put on Twitter, was treated with derision rather than being revered, with certain elements of the document raising more questions than they answered.
‘Early Draft’ Posted to Twitter
Wright was taking the witness stand on the third day of the trial when the document was posted to the courtroom screen. One court reporter, who works for BSV shill shop Coingeek, took a quick photo and posted it on Twitter (which may have been against Norwegian court laws):
Aug 2017 written note draft.
Attny: How many versions?
SN: IDK. Maybe 30, maybe more… pic.twitter.com/vPzofVrKr4— Kurt | GorillaPool.com 🍌🍌 (@kurtwuckertjr) September 14, 2022
The response was perhaps not what he expected. The image was picked up by the Twitter account for the Wright-busting podcast Dr Bitcoin and reposted, with the responses picking out some of the most contentious parts. The most egregious of these was the crossing out of ‘electronic cash’ and the replacement in red with ‘bitcoin’, as well as the clearly, and bizarrely, labelled date of ‘Aug 2007’:
Who dates their notes usually? And then doesn’t put the actual date but just a rough estimate like Aug 2007?!
— Thomas Verstreken (@ThomasFarstrike) September 14, 2022
Others focused on the fact that it was even submitted as evidence in the first place:
I can’t believe his legal team are leaning on that handwritten copy of the whitepaper… it holds very little weight
— Peter Scott-Morgan (@PeterScottMorg1) September 14, 2022
One of “30” Draft Whitepapers
Wright claimed in court that the draft was one of about 30 he produced before writing the final thing, adding that the later versions were produced on Microsoft Word, even though Satoshi Nakamoto was known to have used Openoffice. Wright also told the court he was intentionally dragging the issue of final proof through the courts rather than simply signing an early block because he wanted to do it his way not the way other people wanted him to, which is a fair way of admitting you’re unnecessarily clogging up the court system.
He also claimed that he had agreed that an interview in 2016 with BBC TV would not involve the use of a camera, something the interviewer denied:
The idea that a Tv reporter would have agreed to an interview without a TV camera is laughable
— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) September 14, 2022
How the judge will take Wright’s handwritten, undateable documents and blatant lies remains to be seen, but if this is the level of evidence that Wright is relying on to win his case then his followers may be in for a very rude awakening come the day of the verdict.
