Shady shady buyer of "vistomail.com". He sends emails as satoshi@vistomail.com without any disclaimers, Godlike.
He or someone with the same name is having some fun with the SEC: dockets.justia.com/docket/florida/flmdce/8:2023cv01638/416506 for "Securities Fraud".
The complaint: www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2023/comp25785.pdf (archive). Some pearls:
41. Elbanna told investors several other lies to gain investors’ trust. These included his claim that he had served in the U.S. Marines, when in reality he was discharged after just fifteen days of their thirteen-week recruit training. Elbanna claimed that he had worked at the U.S. National Security Agency (“NSA”). He further claimed that the NSA was aware of and participating in the Digital World Exchange enterprise. All of these claims were false.42. Perhaps most incredibly, after claiming that he had “been in blockchain technology since the beginning” and “in the cryptocurrency space almost since its inception” in the May 2018 and March 2019 Whitepapers, respectively, Elbanna told investors in a chat program in April 2019 that he “was one of the first 4 creators of BTC.” He went so far as to tell another investor that he was the pseudonymous inventor of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto himself. These statements were also false. Elbanna later admitted that he was not involved in blockchain technology from its beginning, and that he “didn’t even really know much about crypto” in 2018, the year he launched the Digital World Exchange enterprise.
www.law360.com/articles/1803299/bogus-nsa-worker-to-pay-sec-2-2m-in-crypto-scam-case says he had to pay $2.2M to the SEC.
The documentary Bitconned from Netflix comes strongly to mind, www.imdb.com/title/tt30317302/. It is unbelieveable people would fall for that kind of thing, the founders are not even sophisticated. And on top of that he agrees to appear on a documentary!!! OMG.
This dude actually managed to convince a brain-dead British court that he was Satoshi and force a takedown of the Bitcoin whitepaper from bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf where it had been for many years prior: coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/bitcoin-org-ordered-to-take-down-bitcoin-whitepaper-because-of-copyright-infringement The page was updated to simply display the following Satoshi quote:
It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. - Satoshi Nakamoto
The mere thought that Satoshi would attempt to copyright takedown the Bitcoin whitepaper, and not be able to back his identidy with any cryptographic keys, makes one shrivel to the bones.
Also, kids, this is why you put a fucking license on everything you release to the public, and especially when doing so anonymously!!! A quick CC BY-SA on that paper would have prevented all this bullshit.
The existence of this outrageous fraudster has had two good effects on the world however it must be said:
- the release of Adam Back and Martti Malmi early email history with Satoshi: www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/02/23/new-emails-reveal-staggering-clues-to-the-mystery-of-bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto
- the memes: Craig Steven Wright memes
Timeline:
- 2015-12-08 Wired article claims he may be Satoshi: www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is-probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/. A few days later, evidence of foul play emerged, and on 2019-04-30 Wired retracted the article altogether
- 2016-05-02 publicly claims he is Satoshi www.timesofisrael.com/australian-entrepreneur-craig-wright-says-he-created-bitcoin/
- 2024-05-20 British judge James Mellor fisting the fuck out of Craig: www.reuters.com/technology/self-proclaimed-bitcoin-inventor-lied-repeatedly-support-claim-says-uk-judge-2024-05-20/
An Australian computer scientist who claimed he invented bitcoin lied "extensively and repeatedly" and forged documents "on a grand scale" to support his false claim, a judge at London's High Court ruled on Monday.
Dr Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person. However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.
Social media:
Interesting
- www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4i7k9a/strange_edits_on_craig_wrights_wikipedia_page/ "Strange edits on Craig Wright's Wikipedia page made two days before the revelation, from an IP address in Barbados (possibly made by Craig himself?)"