COPA Sues Craig Wright for Forging Bitcoin White Paper Metadata

26. The SSRN Submission (Particulars of Claim at [30]-[35] {A/2/10}) The Fourth Pleaded Example

489. On or about 21 August 2019, Dr Wright uploaded to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) a document which he asserts to be the ‘final’ version of the Bitcoin White Paper, in which he is named as the author. The post claims that the document was written on 21 August 2008. Dr Wright posted two versions of what he claims to be his original version of the Bitcoin White Paper within SSRN.

**(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery
**

490. The metadata of the actual Bitcoin White Paper has a creation date of 24 March 2009. The first version Dr Wright submitted to SSRN has discrepancies in the document properties. Examination of this first version reveals that its metadata was tampered with - supplemental metadata was added to this version to superficially indicate a creation date of 24 January 2008 and a “modified” date of 21 May 2008. This added metadata displays as the creation and modified date in the user interface of standard consumer software, i.e. the tampered dates are what would appear to a layperson upon cursory examination. However, a forensic examination of the metadata of this first version reveals another “creation date” entry embedded within the metadata, specifying a creation date that corresponds exactly to the creation date of the Bitcoin White Paper, specifically “/CreationDate (D:20090324113315-06:00)".

491. The metadata of this first version includes an entry indicating that the original creation date is 29 March 2009, which is at odds with the creation date of 24 January 2008 that shows up in other parts of the metadata. In the premises, it is averred that this first version posted to SSRN is actually a copied version of the Bitcoin White Paper with alterations to its metadata (at least that the dates of 24 January 2008 and 21 May 2008 were added to the genuine metadata of the Bitcoin White Paper) to make it appear that it was created in 2008. It is averred that the dates of 24 January 2008 and 21 May 2008 were added to the genuine metadata of the Bitcoin White Paper by Wright to support his attempt to claim that he had drafted the Bitcoin White Paper.

492. The second version that Dr Wright uploaded to SSRN, which is the version he has currently uploaded there, had further changes to the metadata compared to the first version. However, the original creation date of 24 March 2009 from the actual Bitcoin White Paper still exists within the second version’s metadata. COPA allege that Dr Wright again sought to manipulate the metadata a second time but failed to remove the original creation date.

493. The genuine metadata in the actual Bitcoin White Paper and metadata contained within the two versions posted on SSRN by Dr Wright all state the 24 March 2009 date as being the creation date, with the dates/times agreeing to the millisecond.

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

494. In his Defence, Dr Wright admits that the two versions of the Bitcoin White Paper which Dr Wright uploaded to SSRN were not created in 2008 or 2009, but in 2019. He claims that his purpose in uploading these versions was not to prove that he was the author of the Bitcoin White Paper but “to assert [his] authorship of the White Paper”: see Defence, [55-56] {A/3/16}. In his Defence, Dr Wright gives no explanation for the uploaded versions having metadata creation dates of 2008 and 2009 respectively.

495. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright repeats the account given in his Defence. However, he now adds the assertion that he prepared each document in LATEX and that he set the metadata in LATEX to refer to creation dates of 2008 and 2009 respectively. See: {CSW/3/8}.

496. COPA submitted that Dr Wright’s explanation should be rejected for the following reasons:

496.1. As established by the evidence of Mr Rosendahl (which was agreed in the joint statement by Dr Wright’s expert, Mr Lynch), Dr Wright’s account of the Bitcoin White Paper being authored in LATEX is false. There is equally no basis for saying that the versions of the White Paper uploaded to the SSRN in 2019 were created in LATEX.

496.2. Accordingly, the only conclusion to be drawn from these versions having been created by Dr Wright in 2019 (as is admitted) but containing metadata referring to 2008 / 2009 creation dates is that the metadata information was deliberately backdated.

496.3. In summary, Dr Wright in 2019 posted publicly two versions of the Bitcoin White Paper which he presented as his work and which contained metadata timestamps backdated to 2008. In the context of Dr Wright claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto and to have written the Bitcoin White Paper, the only plausible explanation is that he was presenting these to the world as early originals of the paper written by him.

(c) Conclusion

497. In addition to the points set out above, I refer also to the analysis in the main Judgment at [489]-[495] of what Dr Wright did with the pdfcreationdate command and how those commands were added to the White Paper LaTeX files in November 2023.

498. Accordingly, Dr Wright’s latest explanation, based on the assertion that the Bitcoin White Paper was created in LATEX, is plainly false. The document was deliberately backdated by Dr Wright, in an attempt to present those two versions of the Bitcoin White Paper as early originals written by him. This was all lies.