Satoshi Confusion: Ripple’s David Schwartz Dismantles Craig Wright's Argument

CW doesn't have the best record with price predictions, however. But really who does.

There's a sharp prediction in one of Schwartz tweets, that CW will not sue for defamation in the US. Per the scientific method, the outcome of that prediction will measure Schwartz's handle on reality. If the prediction is anything like those we've seen from CW antagonists in the past, it'll be wrong.

Nobody can predict market prices unless they somehow have direct control over the price. The best traders in the world have a very loose grasp on direction and timing, and that's on a good day.

Anyway, Craig didn't predict $1,200, he said there's a 97.8% probability of that price. We'll never know if he was right or wrong, although there's a 99% chance he had the odds wrong, imo.

Comparing Craig's statement to Schwartz's is apples to oranges. Schwartz is not stating odds, he's saying something won't happen because of an existing condition. If that something happens, we will know for sure he has no grasp on the subject.

I think the point you're trying to make is that CW has been as wrong (more wrong?) as his antagonists, but you chose a bad example to make the point. I agree with you though -- CW has some major blind spots, and they're made obvious by his failures. However, if you follow him closely, you'll find he makes many predictions, that nobody else is making, which come true. They're usually limited to the technical and economic functionality of crypto (eg bitcoin is turing complete, Lightning Network will fail), so that's the only area I pay him any mind.

Also, don't forget that CW likes to talk shit when he gets drunk, which is often. When approaching a CW post, you have to first determine if he was drunk. That particular post you're referencing doesn't sound like sober Craig.

Technically, the Norway case was about libel. Hodlonaut brought the case against CW, and won because his tweets were in line with general sentiment. The Norway court went out of their way to say they weren't making a Satoshi determination, and that their ruling was based on Hodlonaut's statements as compared to common knowledge. Ie the internet says CW is a fraud, so it's not libel to say it yourself.

What the?!? Maybe that was the headline on crypto sites, but if you actually watch the trial you'd know KPMG got torn up in this case. It was BDO vs KPMG, and KPMG lost the credibility.

I'm not making a dig at your research skills, I'm saying you didn't watch the trial. The whole thing is on Youtube, you know that right? I watched every minute of it. Every witness, many twice. I watched Craig's cross exam five times. Overall I invested the time it'd take to read a long book. I'd love to debate the trial with you, but that's hard to do when you haven't read the book. The quotes you're zooming in on are at the expense of hours of context. This was a long and complex trial, it cannot be properly debated in a Twitter format.

The KPMG report that you didn't read, and couldn't understand if you did, cannot be debated at all because neither of us is qualified. It was debated by qualified experts in the trial. My take was that KPMG got blowed out by BDO. You might have a different opinion after watching the trial, but you definitely won't be thinking about it in the over-simplified terms you're posting.

The KPMG vs BDO battle was interesting, but it was barely a significant part of the trial. There were so many witnesses called I felt like we could have had the same trial, with the same conclusion, without either of the accounting firms.

Like I said, I'd love to debate the trial if you can find the time to watch it. It's hard to justify the time if you aren't long 20K coins, so I'll understand if you don't.

Btw, for the record, I think it was fair that Hodlonaut won the case. He's a prick troll with internet muscles, but how can it be libel for him to say what the whole internet is saying? For this reason I can't see Craig winning a case against anyone for libel.

Dude, read carefully what you posted. The court is not saying Wright lied and cheated, they're saying Granath had enough grounds to believe he lied and cheated. Ie the internet says Craig is a fraud, so it's reasonable for Granath to believe the same. Come on bro you're zooming in so far on these statements that you're not even reading them right.

I'm all for leaning on insiders and experts. That's usually the fastest way to find the truth. But in some cases that doesn't work for whatever reason.

The reason it doesn't work with CW/Sathoshi is simple and obvious to me:

1. The crypto industry prays to Satoshi
2. Satoshi turns out to be a brash asshole
3. Crypto industry cannot accept that they've been praying to an asshole
4. Crypto industry rejects CW
5. Crypto industry is the primary source of crypto information

This creates a state where all information about CW says he's a fraud. The truth is buried deep, and to find it you have to do a lot of homework, and be unusually wise.

I don't give a damn about Satoshi or CW, and I'm not here to convince anyone. I'm doing all this homework because that's how you make a shitload of money on a counter-trend trade. If there was no BSV to bet on, the case of CW would be a passing curiosity, and I too would be getting my answers from the crypto industry.

Not trying to make a point - I just got a chuckle out of it, nothing more. As you said, not even the best traders can make reliable price predictions.


I didn't really think twice about Schwartz's prediction until now:
Even though he's a shitcoiner, from his standpoint the prediction comes from real data:

First, why can't he prove it: CW already attempted and failed to prove his Satoshiness in Norway. During Hodlonaut his stash of evidence was given to KPMG forensics for analysis, and was deemed all forgeries. So unless he forges new stuff, it's not logical that he was withholding the actual smoking gun that proves who he claims to be. Additionally, moving coins is not possible because he claims they were stolen in a hack. Hence the lawsuits to all the devs, and the birth of their new Proof-of-Court-Order consensus on BSV that he'll use to take ownership.

Second, why won't he prove it: He came out and tweeted that he's done trying to prove to the world he's Satoshi:
Although what he says and what he does are two different things. He's already appealing Norway, and from what I understand according to their law the entire case has to be re-tried. So there goes that.

I skipped Saturday video games to write this, lol.

You probably know this since you go deep into these, but to bring full transparency to that statement for readers of this post, Hodlonaut brought the case several days after being doxxed by Calvin Ayre (for a $5K bounty). It was a defensive move to get ahead of the inevitable case that CW would bring in the UK. It was a good prediction and move by Hodlonaut’s lawyers. If he were to win Norway, it becomes much easier to win in the UK - whose defamation laws are known for being hard on the defamers, even if they’re not in the wrong.

I don’t know if I’d agree with the take about general agreement with internet opinion. From the summary judgment, the Judge said it’s not unlawful to call him a fraud because he employed fraudulent tactics to further his claim.

Summary judgment, Section 3.4.4, page 22:

I appreciate the subtle dig at my ability to research on the internet, but allow me to respectfully re-write your comment:

Maybe that’s what CoinGeek is trying to sell, but if you actually read into the KPMG report, Judge Engebrigtsen’s summary judgment, and the crypto financial media's overall sentiment, you’d know that BDO and Cyfor largely had the same findings as KPMG. It doesn’t really get any clearer than this:

Summary judgment, Section 3.4.4, page 21:

Here are some select quotes from Norbert, amateur Norweigan-speaking trial documentarian. He copiously documented every day of the entire trial on Twitter:
...and there are many more that I’ve read months ago but don’t want to re-dig up again as it’s available freely on the internet.

But what was in KPMG’s ‘extensive and thorough’ report? If you don’t want to read into the report, here’s some of the TL;DR:
- Fonts that didn't exist at the time of creation (eg, Calibri which is from 2012, lol)
- Missing symbols due to symbol code changes in later software versions (eg, the lambda symbol on the coffee-stained white paper didn’t exist in 2008)
- 2008 documents produced in Windows 8 which was released in 2012
- 2008 XML data pointing to document creation in 2010
- 2008 email between Kleiman and Wright was really from 2014, found to be sent from CW to CW
- 2008 meta-data PDF doc with a flowchart, but was created with Adobe Distiller 15, from 2015. The font from the same doc was copyrighted in 2015.
- They caught re-compiling of the original bitcoin code, re-dated to 2007, but included a bug-fix that didn’t happen til much later.

There is much more to digest here… summarized by Norbert here, but the source material can be found in the KPMG official source document, which is a great read, btw.

Like Judge Engebrigtsen, I’m not rendering a verdict on CW’s Satoshiness, but my point goes back to the above post about Schwartz’s prediction: he’s got valid ground to stand on. If the BSV figurehead has to forge all those documents, then it’s logical to conclude he’s got no real documents available to him, and he’s unable to prove he’s Satoshi.

I think this boils down to a fundamental difference between how you and I arrived at this conclusion.

What I respect about your approach is that you will dedicate 60 (?) hours to watching the trial, and you form a conclusion on your own. That approach is not for me, as I'm not smart enough, do not have the legal expertise, the time, nor the patience to be quite honest. Hence, my approach is to rely on, and aggregate, opinions and summaries from people like you who put in the work, so long as I deem them to be trustworthy. Then I cross reference with source materials to confirm or deny that output. This is how I came to the conclusions I did.

Two approaches, and 9 out of 10 times I expect you and I would be on the same page... This just happens to be an instance where we're not, and I'm cool with that. It's approaches like yours that will allow you to pull off a Michael Burry once in awhile and see something that the rest of the world missed. And believe me, I'll be cheering you on when that happens.