Like MacGregor, Calvin Ayre is Canadian. His father, a pig-farmer, was convicted in 1987 of smuggling large amounts of Jamaican marijuana to Canada. When Calvin left college he went to work for a heart-valve manufacturer called Bicer Medical Systems and was later charged with insider trading, agreeing a deal where he was fined $10,000 and barred from running a public company listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange until 2016. ‘I clearly made some
mistakes,’ Ayre told the Vancouver Sun, ‘but it was not a criminal issue and nobody got hurt from anything I did.’

Ayre later started a software development company intended to help offshore betting companies take online bets. He relocated to Costa Rica in 1996, where he worked with two online casinos, WinSports and GrandPrix. Unlike most bookmakers, Ayre would send cheques directly, without using Western Union or an equivalent. He then set up
Bodog, which would become the biggest name in the online gambling industry. (It’s the company Matthews worked for after Centrebet.) Bodog was a huge success. In 2005, it
handled more than $7 billion. Ayre appeared on the Forbes billionaires’ list in 2006. In the same year, Bodog moved its global headquarters to Antigua. The IRS had started following the company in 2003 and US Customs and Immigration were also on his tail. A joint inquiry was started in 2006 and, in 2012, Ayre, along with two of the website’s operators, was indicted on money-laundering charges. He entered no plea, but he maintains his innocence,..."

Pag. 31

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"Matthews said, ‘and I’ve been having some sledgehammer conversations with Craig. I said to him: “Time for straight answers on this one, my friend. How many coins are left under the control of the Seychelles trust? And don’t tell me you don’t know because you’re a grown man, and don’t lie to me.” And his answer was 100,000. I know that 650,000 was taken out to fund all the research and development stuff. And 350,000 is on Dave’s hard drive. “Why has Dave got 350,000 of your coins on his encrypted hard drive?” Because he gave them to him. They’re Dave’s. Those wallets are encrypted on his hard drive, with three or four keys to his trust. Now, why did Dave die in squalor?’"

Pag. 31

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"‘And you don’t think Dave mined coins himself?’

"‘Of course he did. No doubt.
(Answer from Stefan Matthews)
But how many? Who knows … We know they ran a business together based in Florida. They did stuff for contractors. We know that they lost money jointly in Liberty Reserve. And they would both have lost money in Mt Gox."

Pag. 31

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

Ross Ulbricht News
https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAE43D07PuY3QgGIHcw

"As I was paying the bill, Matthews reared up. ‘You know Craig has gone out and bought himself some cars? One hundred and eighty thousand dollars’ worth of cars.’ (When I checked this with Wright he said the cars were leased.) ‘One of them stands out like the dog’s balls in the proverbial moonlight, and this is from the man we’re trying to keep fucking secret. How many custom BMW i8s are going around London? He’s spending every fucking penny that we’ve paid him … Does he think this is just a game? You know, these guys have gone from being backyard scrappers and they’ve suddenly found themselves in a high-stakes poker game.’ Matthews said he wouldn’t take any rubbish from the Wrights, and that they’d end up on a plane back to Australia and jail if they didn’t fulfil their end of the bargain, to reveal Satoshi. ‘The people that I work with are capable of deciding this was a $30 million bad decision and write it off,’ he said. I thought this a curiously revealing line, and wondered again just how he expected me to use such information".

Pag. 32

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"Wright’s mother had told me about her son’s long-standing habit of adding bits on to the truth, just to make it bigger. ‘When he was a teenager,’ she said, ‘he went into the back of a car on his bike. It threw him through the window of a parked car. That’s where his scar comes from. His sister accompanied him to the hospital and he’s telling the doctor that he’s had his nose broken twenty or so times, and the doctor is saying “You couldn’t possibly have had it broken.” And Craig says: “I sew myself up when I get injured.”’ What his mother said connected with something I’d noticed. In what he said, he often went further than he needed to; further than he ought to have done. He appeared to start with the truth, and then, slowly, he would inflate his part until the whole story suddenly looked weak."

Pag. 33

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

Craig Wright | Financial Times

MAY 2, 2016
FT Alphaville
Izabella Kaminska
Oh my! Craig Wright’s ‘Keys of Revelation’


MARCH 31, 2016
FT Alphaville
Izabella Kaminska
Craig Wright’s upcoming big reveal


DECEMBER 11, 2015
FT Alphaville
Izabella Kaminska
Doubts grow over Craig S. Wright’s connection to Satoshi Nakamoto


DECEMBER 9, 2015
FT Alphaville
Izabella Kaminska
So, Satoshi is an Aussie?


Craig Wright | Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/stream/0cc7bf50-ea3a-3db7-97d7-c510df0235f3?format=&page=1

"...., but someone seems to have blabbed to the Financial Times, which ran an article on 31 March. ‘After nearly four months of silence,’ the FT blogger Izabella Kaminska wrote, ‘and a bitcoin community mostly resigned to the notion that the story was an elaborate hoax – conditional approaches are being made to media and other institutions in connection to an upcoming “big reveal” of Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto.’ Her source was clearly inside the project. ‘Wright will publicly perform a cryptographic miracle which proves his identity once and for all,’ she wrote. MacGregor was outraged, and the LSE was sacked from the project. But the first and biggest of these proofs was to involve Wright using Satoshi’s private encryption keys in sessions with key members of the bitcoin community. Jon Matonis, former head of the Bitcoin Foundation, agreed to take part. So did Gavin Andresen, one of the most respected bitcoin core developers, someone who had been there since its inception.
These proof sessions would begin the denouement of this search for Satoshi".

Pag. 34

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"The address was 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX. I could see that people had left messages – ‘public notes’ – for Satoshi: ‘Hey satoshi, change my life, send me some bitcoins!’
‘God bless you, China.’ ‘If you are reading this, please take some time to remember those who died 12 years ago today in the WTC attacks.’ ‘The bitcoin blockchain can be used as a trusted timestamp for arbitrary messages,’ Wikipedia said.

If you scroll back to the very first transaction associated with this address –
12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX – you find that it is the first bitcoin transaction
recorded. It was for 50 bitcoin and remains unspent. Anyone can enter that bitcoin address
into a search engine and inspect the history of transactions associated with it. ‘The Genesis block was hardcoded on 3 January 2009,’ Wright said to me, ‘and that was the first run. There
was no previous block.’ (Under the heading ‘Previous Block’, there is a line of 74 zeros.) ‘Then the code was reworked,’ he continued, ‘and fired up and the first address that was ever
created from the hardcoded Genesis block – the first mined address – is the one I’m sending you a message from.’ He was about to use the original cryptographic key to sign a message to me and it was as if he was dropping a sugar lump into my tea. He typed the words, ‘Here I am,
Andrew,’ and rested his fingers. ‘This gives us that little block there,’ he said, before verifying
the signature. He looked sheepish and resigned in his blue checked shirt. ‘Welcome to the bit I was hoping to bury,’ he said. He leaned back and I noticed a samurai sword by the desk."

Pag. 35

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

Genesis address & block
https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAEebkWWBRB9f62hjMw

"The question of how to
take bitcoin forward has been riven with opposing views, and after Satoshi disappeared there was no central authority to lead the discussion or calm the waters. By increments, the task fell to Gavin Andresen, a Princeton graduate with experience in Silicon Valley. Andresen only gradually accepted the role of lead core bitcoin developer. This is not an official designation and he appears to have got none of the thanks and all the flak, but by general consensus he is the most level-headed thinker in the bitcoin world. One insider said there was an irony in Andresen’s situation that few people realised. ‘The word is that Satoshi passed the torch to Gavin before he retired in 2011,’ he said. ‘In fact, it was more like Satoshi threw the torch at
Gavin and ran away leaving him holding it.’"

Pag. 37

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

Pag. 37

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

The proof session.

"There were long silences. ‘He was on the edge,’ MacGregor said. Matthews was practically holding his breath. He didn’t want to say too much out loud, so he texted MacGregor. The text said: ‘He should call Ramona.’ While MacGregor was out of the room Wright phoned his wife, and she said: ‘Do it.’ Everyone waited with bated breath as Wright used the new laptop to open the Satoshi wallet and set about signing a new message to Andresen. It failed. It wouldn’t verify. He tried it again and again, until Andresen remembered that Wright hadn’t typed ‘CSW’
at the end of the message the way he had in the original, the one he was seeking to verify.
When he put ‘CSW’ at the end of his message to Gavin it said: ‘Verified’. Wright had demonstrated, on a brand-new laptop, that he held Satoshi’s private key. They stood up and
shook hands and Gavin thanked him for all he had done. There were tears in Wright’s eyes.
‘His voice was breaking,’ MacGregor told me. ‘Gavin could see he was going though something.’ Both MacGregor and Matthews later said that Wright was turned inside out by the session. ‘I didn’t want to just put him in a taxi,’ MacGregor said. Andresen was wiped out, so he went to get some fish and chips, and then headed to bed. ‘Craig broke down,’ MacGregor told me. ‘He said he thought he’d never have to do this. He said he never knew how to trust people in his life.’ Wright and Matthews and MacGregor went off to find a bottle of wine. ‘He was semi-apologising for being a pain in the ass,’ MacGregor told me, ‘but I understood more than ever, at that point, how hard the whole thing was for him.’

Pag. 40

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

(And in the Podcast)

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

‘I’ve got people mudslinging,’ Wright said. But that wasn’t true: he wasn’t feeling forced because of what people said. He felt forced, or obliged, to come out because he’d signed the deal with nCrypt in June 2015. And he deepened the lie when Cellan-Jones asked him why he hadn’t revealed himself before. ‘I liked to go to conferences, put out papers,’ he said. ‘I can’t do that now. I can never just be Craig again.’

.... the tax office pressure was the real pressure in his life, the thing that forced the outing. I said this later to the nCrypt guys and they agreed.

Pag. 44

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"Rob removed his glasses. ‘The first meeting we had with him yesterday ended with: “You’re
fired. Buy a ticket to Sydney. You fucked us. Good luck with the ATO.”’

‘He didn’t sleep last night,’ Matthews said. ‘He looks fucking terrible.’

‘He risks destroying his entire reputation.’‘

His and ours,’ MacGregor said. ‘I’ve been taking meetings with investment bankers for the last two months. I’ve pulled every string I know to get meetings with Google and Uber. If he goes down in flames, I’ll go down with him. I mean, he’s fucked me. Millions of dollars out of my pocket, nine months out of my life. But what we have now is a very pliant Craig Wright. We’re going to drag this back from the brink.’

‘It’s a big task, Rob,’ I said.

‘We finally beat him to a pulp today. No more decisions. This is what we’re going to do,
because he knew the next move was pack your toothbrush and get on a plane and good luck in Australia.’ MacGregor told me he’d started Monday morning on an unbelievable high. ‘I can’t believe we kept all the puppies in the box this whole time,’ he’d thought to himself. ‘Nobody
broke embargo, holy shit this is going to work. And then …"

Pag. 51

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"The next day, Wednesday, 4 May, Matthews was at Wright’s house organising the movement of coin. The new (and final) proof session was intended to blow away the doubts created by the first. Many commentators felt it was too late, that Wright was beyond the pale, but
Matthews and MacGregor had agreed with Andresen that the movement of coin, to Andresen and also to Cellan-Jones at the BBC, would undo the damage. Wright spoke to Andresen on the phone from his house – Andresen was in New York – and told him he was worried about a security flaw in the early blockchain, a problem in the way those first blocks were constructed that would make it dangerous for him to move coin, exposing him to exploitation or theft. My sources say that Andresen understood the problem and confirmed that it was all right, it had been fixed. But Wright continued to worry and was showing great reluctance about offering the final proof. Then he left the room abruptly and didn’t come back".

Pag. 51
(And in the Podcast)

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair

"The next day, Craig sent me an email. It linked to an article headlined ‘UK Law Enforcement Sources Hint at Impending Craig Wright Arrest’. The article suggested that the father of bitcoin might be liable, under the Terrorism Act, for the actions of people who used bitcoin to buy weapons. Under the link, Wright had written an explanation: ‘I walk from 1 billion or I go to jail. I never wanted to be out, but if I prove it, they destroy me and my family. I am the source of terrorist funds as bitcoin creator or I am a fraud to the world. At least a fraud is able to see his family. There is nothing I can do.’".

Pag. 52

The Satoshi afaire.
Andrew O’Hagan
30 June 2016

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair