Kevin Healy: Why I believe Craig Wright is Satoshi

Dr. Craig S. Wright is the inventor of BTC, the man behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto who is the author of the original BTC whitepaper. Despite significant evidence to substantiate this reality, some in the wider digital currency community have called for more proof to back up the claims of BTC’s founding father.

Now, California-based programmer and investor Kevin Healy has set out to dispel the myths around Satoshi Nakamoto, setting out the case for why he believes and knows Dr. Wright’s claim to being the founder of BTC to be true.

As a starting point, Kevin Healy is primarily known for his ETH-based content, which puts him naturally at odds with Dr. Craig Wright and his claim to be the inventor of BTC. ETH pioneer Vitalik Buterin has publicly doubted Dr. Wright in the past, a view often repeated by his followers within the ETH community. But despite Healy’s pre-existing involvement in the ETH community, he remains resolute that the evidence supports only Dr. Wright as the true Satoshi.

Despite the controversy, Healy notes that the limitless possibilities of BSV pave the way for “some really cool stuff,” providing a vision of BTC in keeping with Dr. Craig Wright’s original whitepaper. Facing a personal backlash, Healy sets out the comprehensive case in his YouTube video, “Why I Believe Craig Wright is Satoshi.”

Healy charts back to the first time Dr. Wright admitted to being the inventor of BTC, in a video for BBC News back in 2016. By this time, Dr. Wright was already a well-established presence in the BTC world, having given a number of high profile talks on BTC and digital currency—despite being guarded about his role in its original creation.

Healy describes these early interviews as “very telling,” and a clear sign of Dr. Wright’s inside knowledge on the workings and formation of BTC.

In an interview for The BTC Doco project back in July 2014, Dr. Wright was asked if he had bought or sold any BTC, and what the price was at the time he bought in. He responded that at the time of his first purchase, there “wasn’t a price.”

Healy says “awkward encounters” like this, with Dr. Wright giving a wry smile to camera, are littered throughout these early videos, years before Dr. Wright’s first public claim to be the founder of BTC.

But beyond these little details, Healy says Dr. Wright had a super deep understanding of BTC, and a profound vision of its future, far beyond that of his contemporaries at the time. In these early videos, Dr. Wright is already identifying the possibilities of BTC that are only beginning to be realized today—some seven years later—via BTC SV.

At the time, Dr. Wright was in fact setting out a 20- to 30-year vision for the development of BTC, something Healy believes would not be possible for someone with only a casual interest in the technology.

By 2015, Craig Wright was challenging the emerging view that ETH would allow new possibilities with blockchain via smart contracts, arguing that BTC could already handle those functions, and people assuming otherwise simply didn’t understand the technology. Again, video footage shows Dr. Wright speaking from a position of superior knowledge relative to other commentators, which is reflected in authoritative and insightful answers far beyond the standard of his peers—views at the time described as ‘unconventional’ by other experts of the time, which have since been vindicated.

By December of 2015, mainstream blogs and news sources were picking up on Dr. Wright as the frontrunner to be Satoshi, before his reluctant admission in 2016 for BBC News.

Healy notes that Dr. Wright felt compelled to come forward because of threats to his family and colleagues from the community, but did so reluctantly, telling the BBC, he “would prefer to be secret,” and that people “decided for me,” by making life difficult for his friends, family and staff.

When challenged on his role in formulating BTC at an event in 2017, Dr. Wright fires back with an impassioned response, saying that it is not his wish to take the glory of being Satoshi—but rather to destroy the concept of a single leader in the BTC community. Instead, it is the community, or the market, that will decide the best ideas moving forward for BTC, and in many respects, the original founder is irrelevant to that.

Further challenge came from Vitalik Buterin, who said Dr. Wright was “probably not” Satoshi, because there were easy ways to verify his identity indisputably, which Dr. Wright avoided—implying he was unable to verify them the easy way, instead choosing a “noisy way.”

However, as Healy notes, Dr. Wright is on record as being highly reluctant to step forward as Satoshi, which is consistent with his more private reveal to select individuals.

Healy says he continued to follow the work of Dr. Wright since, which has continued to back up his claims to be the original BTC founder. Over time, Healy has moved away from ETH, as his confidence in Dr. Craig Wright and BTC SV grew.

Healy notes that Dr. Wright has more recently changed tack, towards being more open about his role in creating BTC. While this has continued to flame controversy in some sub-communities online, Healy remains convinced by the overwhelming mass of evidence that suggests Dr. Wright is, as he claims, the original Satoshi Nakamoto.

New to BTC? Check out CoinGeek’s BTC for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about BTC—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.