Clash of cultures

At the time of writing, we are about halfway through the COPA v Wright trial, and a few things have stood out to me. Solicitor Hough can’t seem to get past the fact that there could be people interested in Bitcoin as a system or a technology while not being greedily obsessed with the value of Bitcoin as an asset. He tears his glasses off in disbelief every time it comes up and blinks confusedly at Judge Mellor, looking for validation that no person could lack the greed that Hough would expect any person to have in such a situation.

He keeps asking things like, “You wouldn’t have seen the price and thought to ask if your contributions were worth a lot of money” or “You expect us to believe you didn’t know the price was going up in 2014?” And the fact is that the witnesses he has been asking have been almost unanimously Australians who really seem like genuine people who worked with Dr. Wright and wanted to see his ideas work because they cared about watering trees that might grow fruit that they themselves would never harvest.

COPA is trying to prove that Dr. Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, and they are doing it by trying to show that his life’s work and documents are all fantasies or forgeries and that if he was Satoshi, he would have the same eccentricities and values as a modern BTC developer. But this is a red herring.

In reality, Dr. Wright’s papers, his known work, his alleged work, and the testimonies of multiple family members, business partners (current and former), work colleagues, and clients of Wright have all said the same thing: “he cared so deeply about our security, immutable logs, honest record keeping, and revolutionizing payments.” And they all talk about his passion and his wisdom. You can see it nauseating COPA’s solicitors and the viewers on that side of the aisle. Their faces and body language show that they seem to think that the judge and anyone on earth must agree that Wright’s words and values are disgusting and/or fake. This is why they are already celebrating victory in this case. They can’t even fathom someone who wouldn’t see the world other than the way they do.

Some of Wright’s witnesses have even said unequivocally that they knew he was working on things to do with forward-only cryptographic key validation, hash chains, and alert systems based on forward-only logs. One even specifically recalled seeing the “Timecoin” white paper. Of course, more disdain, scoffs, wide-eyes, and confused stares from COPA and their supporters…

What’s the point?

Solicitor Hough, for COPA, is asking us to believe that Dr. Wright and what feels like a dozen Aussies from every walk of life are all liars because of their proximity to Wright. In reality, their testimonies and their demeanors, without exception, came across as very sincere and credible. Sadly, Hough, Gunning, and Moss can’t even fathom that such sincerity exists outside of fairy tales because these poor solicitors are themselves greedy and insincere participants in an economy where they have justified making a career out of working for greedy and insincere clients.

But every single person giving testimony has shown that they were impressed with the
ideas of blockchain technology and the honesty it would bring to the world. And that’s what sets us all apart.

Sincerity

As a big blocker, I have also been criticized for only doing the work I do in advocacy, infrastructure development, and management because I am paid. I must somehow be corrupt to not be pursuing profits and power the way they do. And yet, I am here doing my honest work as an honest man and an honest node. And they hate me for it! Because they don’t think it’s real.

They hate when CoinGeek pays for my content.

They hate when I share sponsors for my content.

They hate when people subscribe on X for my content.

Why do small blockers have:

A: So much hate in general?
B: Crippling fear of my content?
C: Disdain for the free pursuit of… pic.twitter.com/KgLuTCG6eO

— Kurt Wuckert Jr | GorillaPool.com (@kurtwuckertjr) February 19, 2024

Vitriolic classism

This also needs to be said: Monday’s first witness, David Bridges, had a particularly strong Aussie accent and a kind demeanor. The British solicitors couldn’t stop audibly snickering at his accent. As an American, I feel like this is how things might go if someone with a thick West Virginia accent had to testify in New York City to the disbelief of the northern court. It was a nauseating display of elitism.

Bridges was wearing a fine suit, sitting in a classy office, and has had a long career as a bank executive with a penchant for fintech futurism. He wasn’t some kind of backwater bartender or something. Still, the Londoners made it very clear that his testimony wasn’t to be taken seriously despite the fact that he was the fifth or sixth witness from a serious Aussie tech or financial company to have had first-hand experience working with Wright on both IT security, forensics and seen proposals and systems for futuristic payments technologies that sounded a whole like Bitcoin in the era directly preceding the launch of the Bitcoin system.

I always wondered what it would be like if Satoshi came back. As we approach spring, I’m reminded of Jesus of Nazareth. He was a poor boy, born in a backwater town with no business being in Jerusalem. When he arrived, the people cheered, but by the end of the week, they decided to just kill him for challenging their class systems and their sensibilities. Why should we assume it would be any different with Satoshi Nakamoto? Born in the wrong place, arrived at the wrong time, said the wrong things, and challenged the wrong pillars of power.

Remember, they chose to free Barabbas.

They will *always* choose to free Barabbas.

♟️ pic.twitter.com/JrxiuQrdX9

— Kurt Wuckert Jr | GorillaPool.com (@kurtwuckertjr) January 24, 2024

In conclusion, there’s a major clash of cultures in this case. These Londoners who can’t relate with people who don’t reflexively claw their way up a ladder of filth in pursuit of perpetually more money and power. And the Aussies are significantly more humble and hard-working but no less successful, and they seem like they genuinely just want to make the world a better place. It’s pretty fateful that they just so happened to have been in Craig Wright’s life during the era when he might have been trying to make the world a better place with an electronic cash system.

Check out all of the CoinGeek’s special reports on the Satoshi Trial (COPA v Wright).

Watch: Here’s how Bitcoin works as the base layer for other blockchains