In this episode, Sam Parr and Shaan Puri discuss the ongoing mystery surrounding the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. They explore the legal battle involving Craig Wright and the potential that Hal Finney, an early cryptographer, may have been the true creator.
Topics: Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright, Hal Finney, Cryptocurrency, Legal Battles, Technology History
The Craig Wright Lawsuit [00:00]
Sam Parr: So, recently, this Bitcoin thing, um, Craig Wright, I don’t know much about it other than like one article I read. I guess he’s an Australian guy and he was being sued by this person who wanted a share of the money for, what’s the story?
Shaan Puri: Uh, I don’t know about his lawsuit, but I know about Craig Wright and that he basically for a long time has been claiming to be, uh, Satoshi Nakamoto. And so, he he claims to be the creator of Bitcoin and then people who are smart in the community are like, “There’s no fucking way.”
Sam Parr: So, people, but the this lawsuit basically, he’s being sued by the spouse of someone. This this Craig Wright had a partner, the partner died, and the spouse of the partner sued Craig Wright and Craig Wright won the lawsuit. And in winning, the lawsuit for what?
Shaan Puri: [inaudible]
Sam Parr: Uh, she said that, “You owe me money because of this reason and that reason. We created this, you and my husband created this thing together. You owe us some money.” And in winning, I forget exactly how it worked, but in winning the case, the jurors said, “Well, no, you’re Satoshi and you worked on this alone.”
Shaan Puri: And so, uh, like in order for him to win, in a weird, I don’t know the exact details, but in order for him to win, they were basically saying, “Yes, we believe you’re Satoshi and Satoshi worked alone.”
The Kleinman vs. Wright Case [01:12]
Shaan Puri: So, okay, here’s the here’s the story. So, uh, Kleinman versus Wright. Uh, the jury ruled that David Kleinman’s relationship to Craig Wright did not constitute a business partnership, meaning the estate was not entitled to a share of the Satoshi Nakamoto fortune, which Wright claims to have control over as the self-purported creator of Bitcoin. The jury the jury ruled against Wright on the conversion count awarding awarding $100 million to Kleinman. What?
Sam Parr: A ruled against Wright. Yeah, so so they got $100 million out of it?
Shaan Puri: I don’t know, because I thought he was celebrating. It was a little confusing. But the point was is that this like this legal team.
Shaan Puri: So, okay, they wanted billions. They didn’t get that, but they got $100 million against him for the unauthorized use of funds from Kleinman and Wright’s shared venture, W&K Info Defense Research LLC. Okay, I don’t know. This is from something else.
Who is Satoshi? [02:02]
Sam Parr: So, did is this guy the guy who started it? That’s what I want to know.
Shaan Puri: So, so basically, um, so he claims to have invented Bitcoin. Then, um, there’s a great clip by the way of Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, uh, co-creator of Ethereum, uh, on stage and he goes, uh, there they’re they were talking about it. And usually people like, you know, like in a in a conference panel, people are usually pretty like, you know, they don’t take shots at people like live there. And he just he just pipes up and he goes, “You want to know what I think?” And they’re like, “Yes, we’d love to know what you think.” He goes, he goes, um, he gives this like quick like two-minute rant that just destroys Craig Wright where he’s like, “I think if you were the creator of Bitcoin, you have a very and everybody was saying you’re not, and you keep trying to tell people you are, all you have to do is one simple thing. You just have to sign something with with Satoshi’s wallet and that will just show that you’re him.” And the fact that you’re not doing that, like the you know, he he calls some like some like, you know, oxam razor, oxam’s razor, whatever, like just some term like that. He’s like, “The simplest explanation here is that you’re not Satoshi, because if you have a simple way to prove your claim and you do not prove your claim using the simple way, you cannot prove your claim.” And, um, so he kind of just like shit on him right there and the crowd went wild.
Sam Parr: So who who So who is this? You think is he he’s he’s just died or he’s still quiet?
The Hal Finney Theory [03:14]
Shaan Puri: Um, the best theory is that it’s uh that it’s this guy Hal, I forgot what his name is, Hal uh Hal Finney. Um, this was so Hal Finney was like a cryptographer. He received the first Bitcoin transaction. He was the like the the second wallet. And normally like what does a developer do when they test something? They’re like, “Oh, I send it from like Sean A to Sean B, like my test account, basically.” Like that’s how I do the first transaction. And, um, he was like very active in the forums and then he died right around the time, he got ALS and died around the time that the last known time that Satoshi ever posted anything. Um, so, you know, it seems like Why wouldn’t he tell Do you think he Why wouldn’t he like tell his wife or his family or, you know, like because it looks like he has a wife in these pictures.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, well, A, maybe he did, and B, um, like, you know, some people are so mission-driven in their thing in their thinking. And like, you know, there was a there was a real genius of the idea of being like, “I’m going to have this as a pseudonymous name, Satoshi Nakamoto. I’m not going to use my real name,” which means I’ll never get the credit for being a genius if this works. But also, it like it’s kind of like the parent dies so the child can survive. It’s like the only way a currency like this could have really worked is if you couldn’t point to the creator, because then they would just attack the creator. They would say the creator has too much, they’d say this guy has a ulterior motives, he has control, he is he’s too powerful to, you know, he’s just the new the new bad guy. You know, okay, you’re bad at the Federal Reserve and the governments, uh, you know, now you’re bad at this guy for for private citizen being in control of this.
Sam Parr: And you think this is him?
Shaan Puri: I personally think it’s him. Um, like I’ve looked into a couple times about like what who are the most likely candidates. Um, you know, is it a group of people? Uh, was it the government themselves? Was it one person? And it does seem like it was uh like, you know, I guess like I shouldn’t say it does seem like it. There’s really no evidence. Of the existing evidence that’s there, this kind of like speculative data points you have, Hal Finney fits the story in my worldview the best. So, I think it’s him.
Sam Parr: God, that’s I love these mysteries. I I Which would mean that it’s it’s sort of gone. Like his coins are locked up. Um, Unless he gave them to his wife. Unless he gave her the keys, uh, and like, you know, and she and told her, “Don’t touch it because it hasn’t moved.” No, not a single coin has moved, uh, ever. And, um, you know, I think if he did, let’s say he did give her instructions, how would I give instructions? I would say, um, I would probably not actually let her have it. I would say, “This file is going to be available to you on this date, um, 20 years from now,” and I would say, you know, follow the instructions inside. So I wouldn’t even give her the opportunity to make a bad decision. Because I would say, “If these move before Bitcoin wins, um, then it’ll be this will be very destructive for it.” Like if the creator of Bitcoin starts to sell Bitcoin, that will trigger like a huge sell-off in the market, because it’ll be like, “Oh, the creator’s alive, they don’t believe, they’re selling their coins, who is it?” It’ll create this like whole drama, it’ll hurt the project.
Sam Parr: But has any money ever left his account?
Shaan Puri: No. Not a single Satoshi has ever left his account.
Sam Parr: So then he would have had to have create a different account for her to live on or something.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, which could have easily happened, right? Um, you know, at some point. But I, you know, people can also see the ledger, so they know who all Satoshi sent the they know which wallets Satoshi sent coins to. And, um, some of them are like known identities, like the other people that were in this like crypto like the Cypherpunk community that wanted to test out the project early on. Uh, but like, you know, he very easily could have just had her set up mining, a mining rig. So it didn’t even have to come from his account. He could just say, because he didn’t give himself the coins, he mined the coins. Uh, it’s just that mining was so easy at that time. So, you know, she could be miner number eight, um, you know, that mined some coins and that’s it.
Sam Parr: That’s she can live off that. Yeah. God, how Well, we should see like, you know, how’s Finney what how she living? Is she like in a in a $40 million home in Venice?
Shaan Puri: I I don’t even know if he I I mean, there’s a woman with all these pictures with him like it looks like a wife. I don’t even know anything about her. I just Googled. It doesn’t say anything about Wikipedia about his wife. Um, but oh yeah, his wife raised Yeah, so he does have a wife.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, I’d be curious. I’m looking at pictures of his house when he’s dying, like pictures of him dying and he’s in his home. It does not look fancy.
Shaan Puri: Yeah. Yeah, also ALS just looks so brutal, man. He’s completely debilitated. Uh, that’s really tough.
Sam Parr: Yeah, so anyway, that’s fascinating. We should do like an entire episode on that. That’s this shit is so interesting to me.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, I agree. We should we should just do the research of like, okay, what is all the research that’s out there and like what’s the conclusion? I think people are I’m fascinated by like this story. I think it’s one of the coolest fucking out of straight out of a movie, but it’s actually real life things that has ever happened, you know?
Sam Parr: I like that and Silk Road. But I think the Silk Road case is far more cut and dry than anyone thinks. I think Ross did it. I think Ross did everything.
Shaan Puri: Right.