On a number of occasions, when confronted with evidence of anachronistic metadata, Dr Wright sought to explain the anomaly by reference to his use of a metadata command in LaTeX. For present purposes, these points are only concerned with the relevant command used in the White Paper LaTeX Files.

Dr Wright provided evidence about that at Wright11 [358-367] {CSW/1/68}. In particular at Wright11 [365] {CSW/1/69} he suggested that he has used the following LaTeX command: pdfcreationdate={D:20090324103315-07:00}.

Counsel for the Developers suggested there were three problems with that evidence.

First, that command would not have produced the Created date that appears in the Bitcoin White Paper pdf. The CreateDate in the relevant version of the Bitcoin White Paper is 2009-03-24T11:33:15-06:00 {G/7/17}. Dr Wright had identified the wrong time zone in his supposed LaTeX code. As the Developers noted, Dr Wright may have been in a muddle arising from the fact that the October version of the Bitcoin White Paper used a -7 hours time zone: PM3 [22] {H/20/8}. When presented with that error on Day 15, I agree that Dr Wright dissembled, including in response to questions from me:

“167:18 Q. What is the point of putting in a witness statement

19 a description of a PDF creation date command if it

20 wasn't a PDF creation date command that Satoshi made?

21 What's the point of mentioning it?

22 A. One, I am Satoshi. Two, the command that I put in there

23 is going to change over time as I'm working on

24 the files.

25 Q. So if you're Satoshi, was that the PDF creation date

168: 1 that you put into the Bitcoin White Paper or not?

2 A. The original White Paper has changed many times and

3 there are multiples.

4 Q. Right.

5 A. So your problem is that you keep saying, "The paper".

6 One, there are multiple versions of the paper, and there

7 are multiple versions of what I've done.

8 Q. No, the problem isn't mine, it's yours.

9 A. No, it's not mine.

10 Q. And the reason the problem is yours is because

11 the relevant version of the Bitcoin White Paper that

12 you're talking about here had a minus six hours time

13 zone.

14 A. No, it had a minus six because of changes in location.

15 Q. We can see it at {H/20/11}.

16 A. Minus seven goes to minus six when you add summer time.

17 Q. Dr Wright, we can see here that the creation date was

18 20090324113315 minus 6, right?

19 A. Minus 7, in the statement, when you add summer time

20 becomes minus 6, plus one hour, so minus 7 plus one is

21 minus 6.

22 Q. Dr Wright, I perfectly well understand that if you were

23 trying to state the relevant time at a minus seven-hour

24 time zone that you would have put 103315, but actually,

25 Satoshi didn't use a minus 7-hour time zone for this

169: 1 version of the White Paper, did he?

2 A. No, you're incorrect once again. Time zones. If you

3 compile it and you change, like, that not to be that

4 part of the year, it will be different.

5 Q. Dr Wright, the whole point of this section of your

6 witness statement is for you to describe the -- is to

7 describe what you were saying was the way in which you

8 could configure the metadata properties, right?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. But you put in duff metadata properties in your 11th

11 witness statement, didn't you?

12 A. Again, time zones. I know you seem not to understand it

13 on purpose, but when you have a plus one on a time zone,

14 it changes. So time zone plus one means negative 7 plus

15 one, which comes out on the final document as

16 negative 6.

17 Q. If you're manually configuring the Bitcoin White Paper

18 to identify -- and you're doing it in LaTeX, which

19 Satoshi did not do, if that's what he had done, he would

20 have had to put minus 6 to get the output that we're

21 seeing here as the creation --

22 A. No, if you did it on minus 6, because of plus 1, you'll

23 actually get negative 5. So again, it's like London

24 time. We keep adding an hour, subtracting an hour,

25 making people change clocks --

170: 1 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Hang on, Dr Wright. As I understand

2 your evidence, in LaTeX, it's nothing to do with any

3 clock, you put in these numbers.

4 A. Ah, but the system will still use the timestamp

5 information. So you put in those numbers --

6 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: How? Which bit of this creation date

7 field does the system change then?

8 A. You still have to put in the time zone information if

9 you want it not to change naturally on the system clock,

10 my Lord. So the system clock, when it compiles, will

11 recognise if it's a plus one and add that and modify it.

12 So, when you do this, unless you do something like

13 specify GMT, or Eastern Standard Time specifically, then

14 it's going to take the natural sort of changes and

15 drifts.

16 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Mm. I think I've previously asked you

17 about whether there was a default or whether you had to

18 put all this in manually.

19 A. If --

20 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: And I recall you answered it's manual.

21 A. Yes, but what I'm saying here is the difference between

22 the negative 7 and the time zone information, my Lord.

23 They're actually two different settings.

24 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Yes, I mean, I'm afraid, Dr Wright,

25 I simply don't understand that answer. So if you want

171: 1 me to understand it, you're going to have to explain

2 precisely how this works.

3 A. Yes, my Lord.

4 All right, so what happens is you set a default, and

5 if you put negative 7 and the --

6 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Where do you set the default in LaTeX?

7 A. In a command.

8 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: In this command?

9 A. Yes.

10 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: But I thought you said earlier it's just

11 what you type in?

12 A. The negative 7, though, is different to the time.

13 The time is what you type in. Now, you also either set

14 explicitly whether you have time zones changing for

15 summer time, etc, or not. If you don't, then it goes to

16 your clock time, as you're doing it.

17 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Okay, but I don't understand why you

18 would be worrying about summer time, plus 1, minus 1,

19 etc.

20 A. That's why it comes out, if you put 7 in --

21 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: No, no, no, why wouldn't -- okay, we'll

22 assume Satoshi is putting in the creation date.

23 A. Yes.

24 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Why would he worry about whether it was

25 summer time or not?

172: 1 A. No, it's a time zone negative 7. At the time, I was

2 doing a lot of work with American and Caribbean

3 companies, so my default when I printed things was

4 negative 7. The reason for that is, in Antigua, various

5 other islands, a lot of gaming happens. So when I was

6 doing, you know, documents, etc, I used standards for

7 either South American or Caribbean time. Now, that

8 comes with certain plus 1 minus or plus 10 type

9 adjustments. Now --

10 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: Adjustments from when?

11 A. I'm not exactly sure when summer time does or doesn't

12 start.

13 MR JUSTICE MELLOR: No, no, no, but if you're talking about

14 Antigua and Caribbean saying plus 1/minus 1, that's

15 adjusting relative to which time zone?

16 A. To the negative 7. So it will take negative 7 and add

17 one. So when it compiles, it becomes negative 6. So,

18 the document here says that date, but then it becomes

19 negative 6 in the PDF, because the PDF will display plus

20 summer time, etc.

21 MR GUNNING: Dr Wright, the last time I looked, the time

22 zone difference in the Caribbean was minus 5 hours,

23 but ...

24 A. As I said, also Belize, other places. I did

25 South American and the others.

173: 1 Q. You had a sort of travelling time zone then, did you?

2 A. I did. I had dealings with a variety of

3 Central American and Caribbean areas. I still do.”

The second problem with Dr Wright’s evidence was that the supposed pdfcreationdate command to which he referred was not present in the White Paper LaTeX Files at all at the time of the Maths (OLD) project. It was introduced into the main.tex file in the Bitcoin project in two stages. On 22 November 2023 at 18:58 he entered a pdfcreationdate of 20241122010000: see row 746 of {L21/4}. He then changed the date to 22 November 2006: see row 755 of {L21/4} (where the characters “06” were added at character 5525). Finally, he replaced the then resulting characters “61122010000” with the characters “90324173315”: see row 769 of {L21/4}. As a result, when the White Paper LaTeX Files were produced to the Developers on 20 December 2023, they showed a pdfcreationdate of “20090324173315”: see {L21/9.1/4}.

The third problem with Dr Wright’s evidence was that the command to which he referred had been entered by him, but only 1 December 2023, as part of the adjustments that he continued to make to the White Paper LaTeX files. The change was made in two rows. First he entered 20090324173315: see row 953 of {L21/4}. He then added the –06:00 time zone at row 955 of {L21/4}. When confronted with these changes, Dr Wright denied them:

“173:19 Q. …..

20 And we know how you came to put this command into

21 the White Paper LaTeX files; it was something that you

22 did not do until 1 December 2023.

23 A. No, that's incorrect. I'd already demonstrated files

24 set in the future, set in the past, and I've done that

25 multiple times.

174: 1 Q. It's a matter of record. There is no PDF creation date

2 command in the Maths (OLD) project, right?

3 A. I've no idea.

4 Q. It's the PDF creation date that's entered in the Bitcoin

5 project up to 24 November is not the -- doesn't include

6 the time and time zone that you've provided there.

7 A. The one that I demonstrated when they were over at my

8 house in October had all this, and when I demonstrated,

9 I demonstrated how that worked.

10 Q. And we can see where it comes in by looking at

11 the chunks file and this command goes in on 1 December,

12 right?

13 A. No, you can see the demonstrations I did after they'd

14 already come out to my house.

15 Q. Dr Wright, we can take that up in closing, but you're

16 lying.

17 A. No, I'm not.”

The conclusion is inescapable in my judgment. Dr Wright was lying.