In Wright1, Dr Wright said he began working on the source code in 2007 using C++. He said he initially engaged in web testing and then progressed to coding a minimum viable product prototype. He then went on to work on the parameters that would govern the functioning of the Bitcoin network, which included the creation of the Genesis block. He said he created a repository on SourceForge to provide a centralized location for Bitcoin Source Code. All his evidence about writing the Bitcoin Source Code was expressed at a high level of generality.

He maintained that he kept up his full-time position at BDO whilst developing Bitcoin in parallel, saying that he dedicated around three hours each day to Bitcoin during the week, with eight to ten hours at the weekend. He claimed that, by early 2008, he had what he regarded as a preliminary version of the code. He said that he coded alone but sought input from others in this early stage, and that when engaging with others he used both his real name and the Satoshi pseudonym. He said that in early 2008 he discussed the code with Mark Turner using his real name, and that Mr Turner gave candid feedback on the UI calling it ugly. Mr Turner has never given evidence for Dr Wright.

COPA produced a “scatter plot” and a bar graph showing the times of day when the Satoshi emails, forum posts and code check-ins (from August 2008 until April 2011) were sent or posted, based on the time zone for Sydney, Australia, where Dr Wright was living over this period. Both show Satoshi’s communications focused in the period from midnight through to 5pm / 6pm in Sydney time, with the greatest concentrations in the period from 2am to 11am (highest at 4-5am, Sydney time).

When the scatter plot was put to Dr Wright, he claimed that he was working these hours, citing current supposed Audible listening times between 2am and 6.30am and boasting of listening to Audible on average 8.3 hours per day, seven days a week. This was just assertion on his part, and I did not find it credible, not least because it is highly improbable that, having in December 2008 taken redundancy to dedicate himself to work on Bitcoin full-time (as he says he did), he made almost all his communications at these peculiar times of day. He could give no particular reason for such a bizarre working pattern.

It is notable that Dr Wright identified only a few documents which supposedly evidence his creation of the Bitcoin Source Code. In addition to those documents I found to have been forged in sections 33, 34 & 35 in the Appendix, there are {ID_004014} and {ID_004015}. The latter appears to be an edited version of the Bitcoin Source Code dating from 16 November 2008, which has been publicly available since December 2013 {see {L20/206/1}}. The former is not a piece of source code at all, but set-up notes apparently based on the original “readme” notes released publicly by Satoshi in January 2009 {L4/15/1}.

Dr Wright said that the first email account he set up was the Satoshi GMX account in around December 2007, before later acquiring the Vistomail account. He also claimed to have acquired the domain name bitcoin.org in August 2008 and that Martti Malmi approached him to run the site in February 2009. As explained elsewhere, there are serious problems with Dr Wright’s account of having acquired the Satoshi email account and web domain. Also, Mr Malmi said he first contacted Satoshi in May 2009, not February 2009 {see Malmi1, [4a] {C/24/2} and email of 2 May 2009 {D/487/1}}.

Dr Wright’s Counsel challenged Mr Malmi in cross-examination suggesting there were other, undisclosed, emails or communications between him and Satoshi from before May 2009. Mr Malmi denied that and was firm that their first communication was in May 2009 {{Day13/6:19} - {Day13/6:24}}. This line of questioning descended into speculative suggestions of earlier communications between Satoshi and Mr Malmi (under the name of Trickstern) on the anti-state.com forum. There are two short answers to this suggestion. First, Mr Malmi denied it in evidence which was clear, consistent and credible. He was able to link the timing of his first communications with Satoshi to a move of house in late April / early May 2009. Second, Mr Malmi only registered on the anti-state.com forum (in the name of Trickstern) on 9 April 2009 – so still two months after Dr Wright claims that Satoshi and Mr Malmi first communicated.