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(Oslo, Norway) - Bitcoin (BTC) as we know it today emerged on the scene in 2009, but as part of a trial in Norway this week individuals testified that Dr. Craig Wright spoke of the digital currency prior to that time.
A Miami jury in December found that Wright played a role in the creation of Bitcoin. This week's witnesses only serve to solidy these findings.
The anticipated two-week long trial is to determine whether Magnus Grath, a social media influencer in the crypto community, made tweets against Wright that were deemed as lawful, albeit cruel and heartless. In Norway, where the Granath v Wright case is being heard, proving slander is not enough to have an individual held liable for their actions. Those actions include allegedly mocking a man with autism, including the use of hashtags. The common thread of Grath's attacks appear to center around the notion that Wright is a fraud.
Stefan Matthews, chairman of nChain, testified that he first met Dr. Wright in the mid 2000s when working for the Australian online gaming company CentreBet.
The company contracted BDO to do a systems control audit on the company and Wright was the audit lead back in 2007. Matthews said that his team was highly impressed with Wright's work. Wright talked at length with Matthews about an electronic cash project he was working on. Wright then provided Matthews with a hard copy of a draft Bitcoin white paper before it had been released anywhere publicly.
Matthews told the court “it was like I’d seen a ghost” after seeing the white paper years later and knowing it was exactly what Wright had given him back in 2007-2008.
Rob Jenkins, an IT consultant who met Dr. Wright while working at Vodafone, also confirmed Wright discussed the concepts of Bitcoin prior to the emergence of that digital currency. Bitcoin itself was never mentioned during those conversations. Instead, Wright referred to such things as the concept of money, immutable ledgers, whether you could replace the financial system with technology and the concept of a ledger that would replicate across multiple systems.
The conversations left such an impression on Jenkins that when Wright was outed as Satoshi in 2015, he felt it was ‘without a doubt’ feasible that Wright was Satoshi based on their conversations.
Three witnesses brought forth by the plaintiff, Grath, were unable to support his tweets, though they themselves took shots at Wright while testifying. One referred to him as "pompous".
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
