Dr Wright’s first public reference to Bitcoin
The Developers made a pertinent point about Dr Wright’s first public reference to Bitcoin. To set the scene it is necessary to go back to a thread started by a user called genjix on bitcoin.org in November 2010 about using Bitcoin to make payments to Wikileaks. Robert Horning responded in a lengthy post {L19/168/35} concluding with the suggestion: “Basically, bring it on. Let's encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I'm willing to face any risk or fallout from that act”. Satoshi Nakamoto responded to that suggestion on 5 December 2010 {L19/168/49}, stating:
“No, don't "bring it on".
The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way.
I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy.
You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.”
A few days later an article was published in PC World questioning whether the Wikileaks scandal might lead to a new virtual currency, and specifically naming Bitcoin {L6/493}. That led to a further thread on the bitcoin.org forum, concluding with Satoshi’s response on 11 December 2010 at {L19/49/2}, which was one of his final postings on the forum.
“It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.”
Dr Wright’s first public reference to Bitcoin was on 28 July 2011. It was a response to some comments posted on an article that he had published for an online media outlet known as The Conversation. The article, entitled “Are Anonymous and LulzSec about to hack PayPal for WikiLeaks?”, questioned whether PayPal’s decision to withhold funds from WikiLeaks might lead to it being hacked.
In the comments beneath the article Dr Wright advanced the argument that, as a business, PayPal was entitled not to transact with WikiLeaks. Some of the commenters challenged that view on the basis that WikiLeaks did not have an alternative payment provider. Dr Wright observed that he knew of over 50 alternatives to PayPal and that WikiLeaks could have selected “BitCoin”, but it did not. He noted that “If you want to look at anything to blame, look to WL’s stupidity in selecting PayPal as a provider over BitCoin and others like them when PayPal is known to shy away from contraversy [sic]”.
Dr Wright wrote a follow-up piece for the same website on 9 August 2011 entitled “LulzSec, Anonymous … freedom fighters or the new face of evil?” in which he referred to the vandalization by Anonymous of the home page of the Syrian Ministry of Defence. Dr Wright turned the conversation back to the position of PayPal, who he suggested represented freedom far more than groups such as LulzSec and Anonymous.
On the point about whether there were sufficient alternatives to PayPal he argued that there were. He responded to one commenter stating that “WikiLeaks can get payments from other sources. It CAN get money transfers. It can get bit coins it can do many things if it wants. There are MANY options that allow people to send money to WL” (emphasis added) {L7/391/13}. He responded to another commenter as follows (again, emphasis added) {L7/391/17-18}:
“Bit Coin (Bit Coin) is a digital currency. Bit Coin offers a full peer-to-peer currency solution. P2P transfer of funds is available using methods that can even be untraceable. They’re a ways using this technology to transfer funds that cannot be intercepted or stopped.
…
That said, there are alternatives available in the marketplace such as Bit Coin that offer solutions to the problems that WikiLeaks faces.….”
The Developers submitted these exchanges showed the following:
First, that Dr Wright’s first public foray into Bitcoin took a diametrically opposing view to Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi was seeking to discourage Wikileaks from adopting Bitcoin. Dr Wright seemed to think this would be a good idea.
Second, that by late July 2011 Dr Wright was aware of Bitcoin but he was uncertain about how it was spelled. On whether it should be one word or two, Dr Wright suggested in cross-examination that his use of two words was the consequence of auto-correct but this explanation is unconvincing in view of the fact that the ‘error’ appears three times in just 10 words in his post at {L7/391/17-18} – the point being that he was bound to spot the ‘error’ if he had meant to write a single word, whether BitCoin or Bitcoin.
On whether the c of coin should be capitalised or not, the Developers pointed out that the first release of Bitcoin was accompanied by a readme.txt file which referred to BitCoin. However, Satoshi Nakamoto moved the content of that readme file to build-unix.txt on 5 November 2009, see https://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/code/32/, in which the equivalent text referred to Bitcoin (without a capital “C”). All further releases of the Bitcoin Software referred to Bitcoin without capitalising the “C”.
Faced with those inconsistencies on Day 8, Dr Wright was unable to explain them:
“189:11 Q. Dr Wright, more pertinently, you did not know that
12 Satoshi was keen to discourage WikiLeaks from using
13 Bitcoin, right?
14 A. Again, I wanted people not to use the other. I'd seen
15 all the sites, I'd gone through everything with people
16 multiple times, so, no, I knew what I said. What you're
17 trying to say is because, on a site, it comes up that
18 way, which, "Bitcoin" and then "Bit Coin". It was meant
19 to be cut and paste as a hyperlink and somehow that
20 ended up funky.”
In July 2011, there is no reason to believe that Satoshi would have reversed his original view, having only relinquished his use of the pseudonym in April 2011. Furthermore, Satoshi would have had no reason to use any expressions other than ‘Bitcoin’. He would not have used two words or capitalised the C. I also agree with the Developers that these posts show that Dr Wright had no significant familiarity with Bitcoin in July 2011, and that it is reasonable to suppose that all his familiarity was gained subsequently by careful study of the materials which had been made public.