The various articles arising out of the interviews described above were initially embargoed, then released on 2 May 2016. On the same day, a post on Dr Wright’s blog was released entitled “Jean-Paul Sartre, signing and significance” {L18/257/1}. The post began by acknowledging the significance of him signing messages as Satoshi. It then described a process of verifying cryptographic keys by signing a quotation from Sartre. The issuing of this blog post was a key part of the plan for the Big Reveal of Dr Wright as Satoshi. The articles by the Economist and GQ referred to the blog post and indicated that its purpose was to demonstrate possession of the private key linked to block 9 (a block associated with Satoshi because of the Hal Finney Bitcoin transfer).

Within hours of the Sartre blog post being issued, articles were published making the point that the post had not presented any proof at all, since the signature provided had been of 2009-era Bitcoin transaction that was publicly available on the blockchain (see for example a post by Dan Kaminsky at {L13/171/1}. As is explained in the post, it required analytical work involving special software to search the public blockchain and establish the falsity of the “proof”). The Economist immediately published a piece saying that his proof had come under fire and that it had requested a corrected version. Dr Wright now accepts that the blog post did not prove his possession of any private key, but says that (contrary to what others plainly expected) it was not an attempt to prove he was Satoshi {Wright 1 [219] {E/1/37}}. Dr Wright also said in {Wright1 [223-224] {E/1/38}} that his version of the Sartre post was edited by Mr MacGregor and that the version posted differed from what he had intended. Dr Wright’s draft post (attached to an email of 29 April 2016) is available. Although the introduction is different, the technical content appears to be virtually identical.

When the blog post was issued, Dr Wright was on a brief trip to Paris, and he travelled back to London that day. Meanwhile, his own team went into a panic. In a series of communications, Mr MacGregor, Mr Matthews and Mr Ayre pressed him to provide a proper, verifiable proof that he controlled keys to addresses linked to Satoshi. The email traffic shows that Mr Matonis and Mr Andresen reacted with a sense of betrayal. In his evidence in the Kleiman litigation, Mr Andresen said: “He certainly deceived me about what kind of blog post he was going to publish, and that gobbledygook proof that he published was certainly deception, if not an outright lie.” {E/17/154}.

In cross-examination, Dr Wright for the first time disavowed his part in the emails which followed the debacle of the Sartre blog post. He claimed that, because the emails attributed to him came from an email address at nCrypt, they could not be relied upon. He said that “my email at nCrypt was actually taken over and I was excluded from it”. As with his unheralded disowning of the emails from him at a Tyche Consulting address, it is easy to see why he disputed the authenticity of these emails. They tell a story of him reacting to the discrediting of the Sartre blog post by claiming that the wrong copy had been uploaded, whereas he now says that the blog post had never been intended to provide cryptographic proof that he was Satoshi. The emails also tell a story of him committing to provide further proof in various forms and then failing to make good on those promises.

It is convenient for Dr Wright now to disown these emails. However, as explained below, it is also wildly implausible. The other participants in the emails (including Mr Matthews and Mr Andresen) have accepted them as genuine, and the idea that some enemy of Dr Wright took over his email and made false communications with Mr Matthews and Mr MacGregor on 2 to 4 May 2016 (when the three men were speaking regularly) without anyone finding out is absurd. Furthermore, Dr Wright disclosed all these emails without suggesting that any of them was unreliable. Finally, and remarkably, the very email which Dr Wright told me was not from him and had been sent by an impostor (the email of 2 May 2016 at {L13/97}) was and remains nominated as one of Dr Wright’s Primary Reliance Documents ({ID_002261}). It was also a document which Dr Wright reviewed for his first witness statement and which he did not think to mention featured false emails from someone impersonating him.

According to Dr Wright, he had a meeting that afternoon (2 May 2016) at his house in Wimbledon, with Mr MacGregor and Mr Matthews, with Mr MacGregor pressing him to make a public transfer of Bitcoin associated with Satoshi. Dr Wright’s position is that he told Mr MacGregor he was not prepared to make such a transfer and that any public signing process would be, in his eyes, “selling out”. However, Mr Cellan-Jones of the BBC was told that this transfer would be performed, and small sums in Bitcoin were then transferred by himself, Mr Andresen and Mr Matonis to an address associated with Satoshi, with a view to Dr Wright having them transferred back. Moreover, contemporaneous emails show that Dr Wright was aware of this plan and at least initially appeared to support it.

On 3 May 2016, Dr Wright attended a brunch in central London with Mr MacGregor and Mr Matthews. That afternoon, a blog entitled “Extraordinary Proof” was published under Dr Wright’s name on his blog. This blog stated that, over the following days, Dr Wright would “be posting a series of pieces that will lay the foundations for [his] extraordinary claim, which will include posting independently-verified documents and evidence addressing some of the false allegations that have been levelled, and transferring bitcoin from an early block”. Dr Wright now says that this blog post was drafted by Mr MacGregor and that he did not himself review it before it was published. However, it was enthusiastically approved by an email from his wife, who was with him at the time. She wrote: “Ok Satoshi. Your writing is REALLY impressive.” She also mentioned that Dr Wright had emailed to suggest a modest addition to the blog post, making clear that he had read Mr MacGregor’s post as well and had approved it, subject to the addition.

Under cross-examination, Dr Wright disowned these emails, claiming that his wife’s nCrypt email had been taken over just as his had been. However, in my judgment, it is simply incredible that (a) this happened while remaining undiscovered at the time, despite this group of people being in contact face to face and by telephone regularly over these days and (b) Dr Wright never thought to mention in his statements or in the extensive correspondence about disclosure that a whole series of relevant emails over this critical period which appear to come from him and his wife were written by an impostor.

During the afternoon and evening of 3 May and the morning of 4 May 2016, email exchanges continued about various forms of proof which Dr Wright might provide. On 4 May 2016, there were further discussions at Dr Wright’s home in which, according to Dr Wright, Mr MacGregor repeatedly sought to pressure him into moving Bitcoin from block 9 {Wright1 [231] {E/1/39}}. Mr Matthews describes Dr Wright speaking over the phone to Mr Andresen and to suggest that there was a technical reason why the Bitcoin transfer transactions could not take place. However, Mr Andresen is said to have replied that the suggested problem should not arise {Matthews1 [108] {E/5/23}}. At that point, Dr Wright apparently went up to the bathroom and cut his neck with a knife. He was taken to hospital and treated with the record showing that he suffered “bilateral abrasions” with “no blood loss” and that he was released later that day {L13/360/1} and {L13/361/1}.

At this point, the plan for a staged revelation of Dr Wright as Satoshi came to an end. On 6 May 2016, a short piece was posted on Dr Wright’s blog saying that he did “not have the courage” to “publish proof of access to the earliest keys”. As explained above, the EITC Agreement which laid the groundwork for that plan was later amended and then terminated. Mr MacGregor ceased to have any association with Dr Wright and his companies.