BDO
Dr Wright's period at BDO from 2004 to 2008 is the time when his story really begins to describe him planning out the Bitcoin system. He claims that his education by Allan Granger (a BDO partner) in triple-entry accounting played a pivotal role in Bitcoin. Dr Wright says that, in 2007, he introduced Mr Granger to what would become Bitcoin, though without that name. He also claims he discussed Bitcoin with Neville Sinclair. He has said on other occasions that he tried to interest BDO in investing in his nascent cryptocurrency project.
In his evidence in the Granath case, Mr Sinclair said that he had no recollection of discussing a prospective electronic cash system with Dr Wright while they worked together. Dr Wright has never had any supportive evidence from Mr Granger or the other two supposed attendees at BDO meetings. Dr Wright has repeatedly relied upon a set of BDO minutes of one meeting to back up this story (“the Handwritten BDO Minutes”), but I have found the manuscript minutes are a forgery (see Section 9 in the Appendix).
Dr Wright’s time at BDO also raises the point (see 5(d) above) about his proposal made to Mr Matthews at Centrebet. The only document purporting to support the claim is a supposed pitch document (not taken forward) {L5/48} which was found by Mr Madden to be unreliable {Day11/88:25} - {Day11/89:17}; {Day11:107:8}. In view of my finding as to Mr Matthews’ credibility, I dismiss the suggestion that this alleged proposal was a founding part of Bitcoin.
More generally, it can be seen that the points relied on in paragraph 5 quoted above are put no higher than being ‘relevant or related to the technology and concepts underpinning Bitcoin’. Even taking these points at face value (i.e. assuming there is no exaggeration in them), I observe that, with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, it is relatively easy to reach back into prior projects to pick out elements which might have something to do with what was utilised in either the Bitcoin White Paper or the Bitcoin system. These points therefore carry very little weight on their own. Furthermore, when viewed against the evidence of forgery pointing in the other direction, they are nothing more than unsupported assertion, from unreliable witnesses.
Drafting, sharing and releasing the Bitcoin White Paper
‘7. On the drafting and sharing of the White Paper, Dr Wright’s evidence is that the White Paper was drafted in LaTeX (this distinct issue is addressed in Section IV below). The evidence of Mr Matthews, Don Lynam and Max Lynam support Dr Wright’s evidence on sharing drafts of the White Paper prior to its release in October 2008.’
This point is put at about the highest that Counsel for Dr Wright could realistically put it, bearing in mind the evidence of forgery.
By way of background, I have already addressed the submissions in Section IV of Dr Wright’s Closing. I refer to my conclusion above that the Bitcoin White Paper was drafted in OpenOffice 2.4. There is no evidence that it was drafted using LaTeX. It is likely that the first time that the content of the Bitcoin White Paper encountered LaTeX was in September 2023 when Dr Wright set about trying to create a forgery or forgeries which he thought (mistakenly) would not suffer from having metadata which would reveal it or them to be forged.
By way of further background, I refer to the following sections in the Appendix which contain my findings that the following documents, relevant to these matters, were forged by Dr Wright:
Section 7: which concerns two documents presented by Dr Wright as precursor work to the Bitcoin White Paper.
Section 9: the handwritten BDO Minutes which purport to set out a timetable for the development and launch of Bitcoin.
Section 10: ‘A Competing Transaction or Block Model’, presented as precursor work to the Bitcoin White Paper.
Section 11: The King2.rtf, also part of the alleged precursor work.
Section 13: ‘Hash Based Shadowing’, further supposed precursor work.
Section 14: ‘Secure and Trustworthy Voting’, further supposed precursor work.
Section 15: ‘Internal Controls and Immutable Logging in Auditing Backend Operations of Messaging Systems.rtf’, supposed precursor work on immutable logging.
Section 16: ‘NG3.tex and related files’, purporting to represent work on the Bitcoin system and/or Bitcoin related concepts.
Section 17: ‘LPA.tex’ and ‘LP1.tex’, two LaTeX documents on quorum systems, said by Dr Wright to have influenced his development of Bitcoin.
Section 18: ‘ESDT.tex’, further supposed precursor work created during Dr Wright’s time at BDO.
Section 20: Backdated White Paper PDF.
Section 21: OpenOffice 2.4 Document, a supposed precursor to the Bitcoin White Paper.
Section 22: the 12 March 2008 emails.
Section 23: Email: ‘I need your help editing a paper I am going to release’, a supposed email to Dave Kleiman in advance of publication of the Bitcoin White Paper.
Section 24: Timecoin ODT Whitepaper, purporting to be a precursor draft of the Bitcoin White Paper.
Section 25: ‘Block diffusion within bitcoin’, another supposed piece of precursor work.
Section 26: the SSRN submission, purporting to be a copy of the Bitcoin White Paper written on 21 August 2008, in which Dr Wright is named as the author.
Section 28: ‘Economics of BitCoin Nodes’, purported related work, supposedly created in September-October 2008.
Section 29: ‘Noncooperative finite games’, purported precursor work, dated to 10 September 2008.
Section 30: Coffee-stained printout of Bitcoin White Paper.
Section 31: ‘Economic Security.doc’, purported associated development work, referring to BitCoin in the future tense and dated to 5-7 November 2008.
Section 32: ‘BitCoin: SEIR-C Propagation models of block and transaction dissemination’, purported precursor work to the Bitcoin White Paper, dated 12 December 2008.
The number of those documents demonstrate that Dr Wright expended a good deal of effort in his attempts to lay a foundation in supposedly contemporaneous documents that he was Satoshi. There were also further alleged precursor documents which Mr Madden found to be inauthentic.