Wright, an Australian entrepreneur, identified himself Monday as the bitcoin inventor nearly five months after he was outed in media reports as the man behind the virtual currency.
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In an interview with the BBC, Wright claims, “I was the main part of it, but other people helped me”, including the now deceased Hal Finney, a world renown cryptographer who received the first Bitcoin transaction of 10 bitcoins from Mr. Wright.
According to the BBC, Wright supported his claim to being the founder by signing digital messages using cryptographic keys used during the early days of Bitcoin. These keys had to be created by Nakamoto, the pseudonym used at the time by the currency’s creator, the broadcaster said.
Among those who are convinced is Gavin Andresen, the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Tech sleuths have also debunked Mr Wright’s claim in multiple Reddit threads outlining technical explanations of how Mr Wright made others believe he was Bitcoin’s creator. “It is my firm belief that Craig Wright satisfies all three categories”, he added.
By coming forward, Craig Wright hopes to put an end to media speculation about the identity of Nakamoto.
Bitcoin is a type of digital currency that allows people to buy goods and services and exchange money without involving banks, credit card issuers or other third parties.
In his Monday blog post, Wright did not make a clear-cut admission that he was Nakamoto.
At the Consensus 2016 conference in NY, attendees told the BBC they wanted to see more proof before they would be ready to believe the claims. In December Wright was named as the probable bitcoin creator by Wired and Gizmodo.
Wright made similar claims to the Economist magazine, which said on its website it still has “nagging” questions about Wright’s claim.
David Glance, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Western Australia, who has worked with Wright in the past, told the Guardian he remained “highly sceptical”.
“To me, he proved absolutely nothing”, said Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University. Now, a single Bitcoin is worth about US$460. Subsequent Australian federal police raids on Wright’s home which lent credence to the theory but the raids were later confirmed to have been about separate tax issues and unrelated to Bitcoin.
Bitcoins were introduced in 2009 by a person identifying himself as Satoshi Nakamoto, and quickly became an acceptable form of global currency despite not being backed by a government or central bank.
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Some online commentators suggested Bitcoin’s creator could help resolve a bitter row among the currency’s software developers that threatens its future.
