COPA Presents Evidence of Forgery in Wright's Bitcoin Network Theory Doc

25. “Block diffusion within bitcoin” (Reliance Document) {ID_000367} / {L3/185/1}

470. The document purports to be precursor work to the Bitcoin White Paper relating to network theory and mentioning “bitcoin”. It is dated to the period 15 August 2008 to 8 September 2008.

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

471. The document has been backdated. [PM30 [21-24]].

472. The document contains content taken from a third-party source available online which was published not before 29 April 2012 (the “2012 ResearchGate Article”). [PM30 [8- 13]

473. The document includes a reference section that closely matches the 2012 ResearchGate Article. However, five references which would have been anachronistic to 2008 have been deleted from the document. Although the five references have been removed from the references section, the main body of the text still mentions 4 out of 5 of them. [PM30 [14-18]].

474. The document contains text formatted in fonts which are not typical for Microsoft Windows and MS Word documents, but which fonts are included in the 2012 ResearchGate Article. Not only the text, but also its font formatting, has been copied from the 2012 ResearchGate article. [PM30 [19-20]].

475. The document was created within 1 minute before {ID_000371}, another “Lynn Wright document” bearing independent indicia of tampering. [PM27 [17b]].

476. ID_00367 has an implausible edit time in excess of 24 days. During that time it was saved only once, implying that it was left unsaved for 34,881 minutes before being saved. [PM30 [5-8]].

477. The document contains passages of red text and placeholder brackets apparently indicating that the document was in the process of being edited with a view to changing the references, but without that process being finalised before disclosure. [PM30 [24]].

478. The document was emailed from Dr Wright to Lynn Wright on 18 January 2020. The email contains several manipulated documents purported to be in the custody of Lynn Wright. [{ID_003930}, PM30 [1], PM 26 [25-38]].

(b) COPA’s Reasons for Inferring Dr Wright’s Knowledge / Responsibility

479. Dr Wright has positively asserted that this is a document on which he primarily relies as supporting his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

480. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright relies on purported work of the type referred to in this document as “foundational” for Bitcoin. [Wright1 [53-54]].

481. The effect of the tampering is therefore to make the document appear to be supportive of Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto (suggesting work by Dr Wright on a subject of interest to him, but with reference to Bitcoin), contrary to fact.

482. In these proceedings (and previously), Dr Wright has claimed that his development of Bitcoin was influenced by work on networks as covered by this document. It is to be inferred that this forgery was done to support that aspect of his claim. [Wright1 [54]].

483. Although the document metadata presents Lynn Wright to have been the only author, it was actually created by Dr Wright in the name of Lynn Wright after February 2013, and sent from Dr Wright to Lynn Wright by email long after they were separated, contained in a zip file along with many other files bearing evidence of backdating and tampering including several documents on which Dr Wright relies. The metadata of that zip file is itself also irregular. [{ID_003930}, PM30 [1], PM26 [25-38]].

484. In his first witness statement in these proceedings, Dr Wright lists this document as a document to which he has been referred when preparing his evidence.

(c) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal

485. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright sought to explain away the presence of content from the 2012 ResearchGate Article by claiming that he had engaged in academic exchanges in which it was commonplace to share working notes: {CSW/2/36}. When pressed in oral evidence, he doubled down by saying that he had received one or more prior versions of the Chinese academics’ article: {Day2/147:14} to {Day2/153:7}.

486. Dr Wright sought to explain the presence in his document of non-standard fonts which appear in the 2012 ResearchGate Article by saying that they were imported from an unidentified Word document: {CSW/2/39}.

487. COPA submitted that this explanation should be rejected as dishonest for the following reasons:

487.1. The document replicates whole sections from the 2012 ResearchGate Article. Dr Wright’s story therefore assumes that he had an advanced pre-publication paper from Chinese academics working in a field different from his own, and that he had this document years before those academics actually published their work. That is simply incredible.

487.2. Dr Wright has been unable to provide any evidence of ever having had contact with these academics and has not disclosed the supposed pre-publication paper.

487.3. The text which Dr Wright copied contained references to at least four works which themselves post-dated the supposed date of Dr Wright’s document. His story therefore assumes that either (i) the Chinese academics themselves happened to have pre-publication versions of all those other works while they were writing their pre-publication draft or (ii) he himself had pre-publication versions of the other works and happened to cite them in the places where the Chinese academics would later cite them in their own paper. Each of those possibilities beggars belief.

487.4. On Dr Wright’s account, either it’s a coincidence that his document happens to contain non-standard fonts which also feature in the ResearchGate article or the Chinese academics had produced a draft including those fonts years before its ultimate publication. This is another implausible but essential feature of the story.

487.5. On any view, Dr Wright’s document copies extensively from text which appears in the 2012 ResearchGate Article, but it does not reference the Chinese academics whose work is being copied. It is difficult to see why Dr Wright would produce a document in this way for legitimate research purposes.

487.6. Dr Wright’s document is a very strange one, for example because (at p3) it includes a scheme of notations (taken from the 2012 ResearchGate Article) for equations which are themselves omitted. It gives every impression of a work which has been created hastily, based on the 2012 ResearchGate Article, as part of the false trail of supposed academic work leading up to production of the Bitcoin White Paper.

(d) Conclusion

488. In my judgment, this document is plainly a clumsy forgery created by Dr Wright.