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The LRB Podcast

Andrew O'Hagan: The Satoshi Affair

The LRB Podcast

London Review of Books

Society & Culture

4.4581 Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2016

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andrew O'Hagan watches Craig Wright show Gavin Andresen, one of the most respected bitcoin core developers, that he holds the Satoshi key. Read Andrew O'Hagan in the LRB: https://lrb.me/ohaganpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the London Review of Books podcast. You can unlock the entire LRB archive for free for 24 hours by visiting lrb.co.uk

0:09.0

forward slash open.

0:11.0

In December, after Wired magazine published the story about Craig Wright, possibly being Satoshi Nakamoto,

0:19.0

Gavin Anderson, Bitcoin's core developer, told the magazine

0:23.5

he'd never heard of Craig Wright. But he began to believe in Wright once he started corresponding

0:29.6

with him by email in early April. At one point, Wright sent him two emails, one written in his own Craig Wright way, and another one,

0:41.2

with essentially the same content written as Satoshi would have written it.

0:46.5

They discussed maths and the history of the invention, and the problems it had faced.

0:52.0

Within a week, Anderson was sufficiently convinced to get on a plane to

0:56.5

London. He was ready to see Wright sign a message to him using the original Satoshi

1:03.0

cryptographic keys. At this point, I began talking to Anderson. He told me he had written an email to write before getting on the plane,

1:14.2

asking for a little more of his backstory and for his thoughts on the state of Bitcoin in 2016.

1:21.4

He replied with a longish email, Anderson told me,

1:25.5

on the state of Bitcoin and why he decided to reveal his secret now,

1:29.8

then followed up with a couple of in-progress research papers. The email sounded like the

1:36.3

Satoshi I worked with, and the papers matched his academic, math-heavy voice too.

1:42.9

Anderson crossed the Atlantic overnight, arriving at the Covent Garden Hotel at 11am

1:48.0

on the 7th of April.

1:50.6

He went to his room, which had been booked as had his flight by Encript, and had two

1:56.0

hours sleep, after which McGregor and Matthews turned up.

2:00.9

They gave me a lot of the background and explained their involvement, Anderson told me.

2:06.4

When Wright turned up at the hotel, Anderson found it easy to talk to him,

...

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