Craig Wright, the Australian academic and businessman who previously claimed to be pseuduonymous bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, is back in the news.
Reuters has today published a new investigative piece exploring the links between Wright and Calvin Ayre, a Canadian entrepreneur with ties to the online gambling industry. The news agency also details alleged plans by the pair to seek as many as 400 patents related to bitcoin and blockchain technology in what it calls a “land grab for intellectual property”.
In late 2015, reporters identified Wright as at least one of the people behind the Nakamoto moniker – a move followed months later by a broad media roll-out backed by interviews with the BBC, The Economist and GQ. Yet observers quickly cast doubt on Wright’s assertions, sparking him to promise the release of more proof. Just days later, Wright said that he would provide no such proof.
The latest report appears to confirm past rumors that major news outlets are once again pursuing leads in the story.
Wright, the report goes on to detail, is working out of the offices of a firm called The Workshop Technologies, based in the UK. He was reportedly seen there as early as September of last year, where, according to Reuters, he has been providing work leading to the development of bitcoin patent applications.
Among the other details to emerge in the report, Wright allegedly planned to pitch the government of Antigua on making bitcoin its official currency. A document obtained by the news outlet suggests Wright planned to argue that bitcoin is “a new backbone and commercial foundation for the internet”.
However, according to Reuters, no confirmable information exists that would suggest such a presentation took place.
Notably, Antigua is where Ayre set up a multi-million dollar call center, with the entrepreneur citing bitcoin gambling as a major trend moving forward. As the news outlet notes, bitcoin’s early code included support for a built-in poker lobby, using the digital currency as a medium of exchange.
Image via the BBC
