At the Deconomy 2018 conference in Seoul, South Korea, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin called out Craig Wright, who claims to be bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, for allegedly being a “fraud,” and questioned why he was allowed to speak at the conference.
A video of the event has been circulating social media, and has already garnered over 25,000 views at press time. Most of what Buterin says during the 19-second long clip is unintelligible, but at the end it’s clear he questions why Wright is allowed to speak at the conference, after calling him a “fraud.”
Props to @VitalikButerin for calling out that complete fraud Craig Wright. #faketoshi #bitcoin thanks @the_hopemeister for the video. pic.twitter.com/NlqusmgVMH
— Xiongniu (@taidi_ji) April 3, 2018
Buterin’s words came during Wright’s presentation at the conference. How the self-proclaimed bitcoin creator reacted is unclear, as the crowd quickly started cheering the Ethereum founder’s words.
On Twitter, most users who agree Craig Wright isn’t who claims to be cheered Vitalik’s move. Wright himself reacted to the situation on Twitter, by implying Bitocin Cash (BCH) – the cryptocurrency he supports as the ‘real bitcoin’ – will render Ethereum useless.
Vitalik has one issue…
When we demonstrate what BCH can do, he knows that ETH will wither and die.
— Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) April 3, 2018
Vitalik Buterin had in the past claimed he doesn’t believe Craight Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, as he could’ve easily proven his identity by making a signature from the very first bitcoin block and putting it out in public. Instead, Vitalik argues, he made a complex blog post, and showed said signature to a few people.
Buterin argues that signaling theory shows those who don’t go with the simply way of doing things and instead take the hard path, like Wright did, probably couldn’t go with the simply way to begin with.
Controversy Surrounding Craig Wright
In early 2016, after various media outlets published articles pointing to Craig Wright being Satoshi Nakamoto, the chief scientist at nChain posted a blog post claiming it was him. That same day, journalists from the BBC and The Economist claimed to have seen Wright sign a message with a private key associated with the very first bitcoin transaction.
Later on, in an interview with the BBC, he stated:
“Some people will believe, some people won't, and to tell you the truth, I don't really care.”
After analyzing Wright’s blog post supposedly containing proof he was Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin developer Peter Todd clarified there was no proof there. Bitcoin Core later on released a tweet informing the community:
There is currently no publicly available cryptographic proof that anyone in particular is Bitcoin's creator.
— Bitcoin Core Project (@bitcoincoreorg) May 2, 2016
Whether Wright is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto is so far unclear, although some in the community believe he isn’t.
Featured image by TechCrunch | Flickr | CC by 2.0
