EVEN AS HIS face towered 10 feet above the crowd at the Bitcoin Investor’s Conference in Las Vegas, Craig Steven Wright was, to most of the audience of crypto and finance geeks, a nobody.
His name hadn’t made the conference’s list of “featured speakers.” Even the panel’s moderator, a bitcoin blogger named Michele Seven, seemed concerned the audience wouldn’t know why he was there. Wright had hardly begun to introduce himself as a “former academic who does research that no one ever hears about,” when she interrupted him.
“Hold on a second, who are you?” Seven cut in, laughing. “Are you a computer scientist?”
“I’m a bit of everything,” Wright responded. “I have a master’s in law…a master’s in statistics, a couple doctorates…”
“How did you first learn about bitcoin?” Seven interrupted again, as if still trying to clarify Wright’s significance.
Wright paused for three full seconds. “Um. I’ve been involved with all this for a long time,” he stuttered. “I—try and stay—I keep my head down. Um…” He seemed to suppress a smile.
At that point, I knew he was Satoshi Nakamoto. Some may not believe he is the inventor of Bitcoin. Craig Wright will need to prove this identity to his disbelievers.
still to be proven!