Did Craig Wright Fake His Supposed Bitcoin Meeting Notes?

9. Handwritten BDO Minutes (Reliance Document) {ID_004013} / {L2/159/1}

193. The document presents as a set of minutes of a meeting attended by Dr Wright and Alan Granger, dated “Aug 07”, at BDO. It refers to “timechain”, “P2p ecash”, and “write paper”, as connected concepts to Dr Wright’s purported creation of Bitcoin, and presents as if it concerns planning for work to be done by Dr Wright and Mr Granger throughout 2007 and 2008.

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

194. The document is handwritten on a pre-printed pad that was manufactured in China. Bird & Bird has obtained a copy of the original PDF print proof document of the pad directly from the manufacturer. The copy of the original PDF proof document is an authentic document. [PM5 [3-17 and 25]].

195. The handwritten document {ID_004013} perfectly matches the pre-printed template in the version of the PDF print proofs known as Exhibit MS1 (the first proof of the relevant notepad product). [PM5 [17-25]].

196. The PDF print proofs known as Exhibit MS1, which this document matches, date from no earlier than 6 November to 9 November 2009. [PM5 [3-17 and 25]].

197. The face-value date of August 2007 is therefore false and misleading.

198. Further, the purported notes of planning for work to be done throughout 2007 and 2008 are also therefore false and misleading.

(b) COPA’s Reasons for Inferring Dr Wright’s Knowledge / Responsibility

199. Dr Wright has positively asserted that this is a document on which he primarily relies as supporting his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

200. The effect of the tampering is to make the document appear to be supportive of Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto (i.e. as creating a document which suggests that Dr Wright was developing Bitcoin in 2007 and had shared details of his work with Mr Granger), contrary to fact.

201. Dr Wright has relied on this document in previous proceedings, including on oath.

202. The document is in Dr Wright’s own handwriting.

203. In the document, Dr Wright has named himself as present at the purported meeting, in his own handwriting.

204. Dr Wright purports to have attended a meeting and taken these minutes himself. Dr Wright must know from his own experience that the meeting, and the purported minutes of the meeting, are false.

205. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright relies on a purported discussion of Bitcoin between him and Alan Granger, among other work done with Alan Granger around 2007. [Wright1 [48-52]].

206. In his chain of custody information in these proceedings, Dr Wright claims to have drafted this document himself.

207. When disclosing this document, Dr Wright did not specify a date for the document. When requested to provide a date for this document, Dr Wright refused to do so.

(c) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal

208. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright insisted that the document dated from August 2007. He disputed the evidence provided by COPA to the effect that the Quill minutes pad in this form was not produced as a proof until 2009 and was not printed and shipped until 2012 (see confirmation letter of Mr Stathakis and Ms Li at {C/17/1}): {CSW/2/66}. In his oral evidence, he added a claim that Mr Stathakis and Ms Li had no proper knowledge of the matters they addressed, claiming that they played no role in the creation of the minutes pad product at the relevant time: {Day3/106:6} to {Day3/108:16}. Dr Wright also suggested that they were not involved with Bantex Pty Ltd, who were the party who produced the Quill notepads in 2012 saying that Mr Stathakis and Ms Li were from Hamelin Brands (which had purchased Bantex in 2015)

209. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright also claimed to have done his own analysis of parts of both his document and the proof (MS1) supplied by Ms Li. He claimed to have found differences in presentation: {CSW/2/67}.

210. During his cross-examination, Dr Wright claimed to have investigated the provenance of the Quill pad himself. He asserted that Ms Li had nothing to do with the production of the minutes pad at the relevant time and that the Chinese factory to which she referred was not involved in its production. COPA submitted that his assertions fly in the face of the evidence from Ms Li and it is clear that he was simply tarnishing her evidence by lying about the contents of it. The only basis he could give for claiming to know more about the production of this pad than the people who produced it was that he “used to work for Corporate Express, which is now Staples, and other family members still do” {Day3/107:19}. Accordingly, so COPA submit, Dr Wright’s evidence on these matters cannot be believed.

211. Dr Wright did not, in his cross-examination, refer to any documents or any details relating to his investigation, and no evidence or detail was forthcoming subsequently, although it is possible that what I discuss next was found by Dr Wright.

212. On the last day of trial, Lord Grabiner KC produced a document at X/83 which presents as a printout from The Wayback Machine dating from July 2009 for the website www.officeworks.com.au and the page concerning ‘Quill Minutes Planner 50 leaf’, ref QU01916, which appears under a header ‘Writing Pads’. Slightly unusually, X/83 does not include the normal footer showing when the Wayback Machine was accessed. The URL indicates this page is found in a section entitled ‘Notebooks-Pads-and-..(the remainder is cut off), within ‘General-Stationery’, within ‘Office Supplies’ within ‘products’ within ‘retail’. The print-out has a menu on the left-hand side and the product detail relating to the pad is indented on both sides. At the foot of the webpage (not indented) is ‘Copyright 2008-2009 Officeworks Superstores Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.’ Then on a second line: ‘Version 1.5.2 – retail (30-07-2009 12.06).

213. Without any evidence and purely on the basis of what the document indicated, Lord Grabiner KC submitted this showed that the Quill Pad must have been available before 2012. He said X/83 corroborated Dr Wright’s position that the hearsay evidence given by Mr Stathakis and Mr Lee is not correct. That hearsay evidence is contained in a letter dated 10 July 2023 (with its attachments) which was attached to COPA’s Amended First Hearsay Notice dated 28 July 2023, so Dr Wright’s team had plenty of time to investigate and mount a challenge to that hearsay evidence.

214. X/83 was not the subject of any evidence or analysis but, for what it is worth, my view is that the copyright notice at the foot of the page relates to the version of the (retail) website or webpage. It does not appear to relate to the indented section which is concerned with the actual product. Be that as it may, at best X/83 dates the Quill Pad to 2009 but not to 2007.

215. One additional point can be made. It is more likely that Dr Wright had this Quill Pad during his employment at BDO which ended in December 2008. It is just possible but unlikely that he managed to secure one of these pads after he had left BDO. Accordingly, I consider I must proceed on the basis that it was available in 2008.

216. COPA submitted that Dr Wright’s explanation should be rejected as dishonest, for the following reasons:

216.1. There is no basis to disbelieve the evidence of Mr Stathakis and Ms Li, and so Dr Wright’s account must be false (and deliberately so). It is plain from their letter that Mr Stathakis and Ms Li had made careful enquiries and checked the facts before providing detailed answers. They had no reason to lie or be mistaken.

216.2. Dr Wright’s claim that Mr Stathakis and Ms Li were not around at the time and not involved in Bantex is a lie. Mr Stathakis was managing director of Bantex from 2001, and Ms Li was the person involved in manufacturing the product in the Shenzhen factory. {C/17/1}

216.3. Mr Madden independently confirmed that the Quill minutes pad used for these BDO minutes was in the same layout as the MS1 proof provided by Mr Stathakis and Ms Li. He acknowledged that some elements of the proof (an electronic document) were crisper in outline than the lower-resolution scanned document, but that was to be expected given the nature of the two documents: see PM5 [para. 22.

216.4. Dr Wright adduced no expert evidence to answer Mr Madden’s analysis. Dr Wright’s own supposed analysis (at {CSW/2/67}) is of doubtful admissibility, and in any event Mr Madden answered it convincingly when he was crossexamined about it: {Day16/54:8} to {Day16/57:22}.

216.5. Dr Wright has suggested that the expert evidence of Dr Placks somehow cast doubt on the evidence from Mr Stathakis and Ms Li (see {CSW/2/66} [21.7] and {Day2/108:21}). Apart from the fact that Dr Placks’ evidence has been withdrawn by Dr Wright not calling him, Dr Placks’ evidence was entirely consistent with that of Mr Stathakis and Ms Li (as is plain from the experts’ first joint statement at {Q/2/9} (see the entry for this document).

(d) Conclusions

217. I proceed on the assumption that the Quill Pad was available before Dr Wright left BDO in December 2008 – after all, it seems likely that he obtained one of these pads during his time at BDO. Even on that assumption, I consider that Dr Wright’s writing on the page from the pad does not ring true.

218. Dr Wright’s manuscript notes suggest that the development and release of the Bitcoin White Paper and the Bitcoin Source Code was a project devised in August 2007 involving Dr Wright and Alan Granger of BDO with responsibilities divided between them. C – Craig was to ‘Finish Code’ by Aug 2008. The second entry requires a little discussion. In Kleiman, Dr Wright said the second entry was “Finish DOC” i.e. the Bitcoin White Paper by ‘Oct 2008’, even though it was suggested to him that it read POC (i.e. Proof of Concept). He accepted he was quite specific about that in his evidence in Kleiman, although in his cross-examination here he said he made a mistake: ‘I would say it’s ‘POC’. My own handwriting escapes me sometimes.'

219. I consider it is far more likely that Dr Wright meant to and did write DOC, i.e. indicating what became the Bitcoin White Paper (which, it may be noted, was first made public on 31 October 2008).

220. Meanwhile Alan Granger (AG) was tasked with the following actions: in Nov-Dec 08 ‘Run up test system’, ‘set timechain in action’ ‘have P2P ecash as paper’. The last two entries appear to be afterthoughts: Craig was to ‘write paper’ Jul-Aug08 and in or by Feb 08, Craig was to ‘????? Model’ (I cannot decipher the first word), with an arrow pointing to ‘MSTAT – project’.

221. Standing on its own, it might have been unsafe to conclude that this document was forged by Dr Wright, due to the possible uncertainty over when the Quill pad was first available which I can assume in Dr Wright’s favour. However, in view of his other forgeries, and the fact that all his documents which purport to evidence his activities in developing the Bitcoin White Paper and the Bitcoin Source Code before their release I have found to be either forged or, due to my limitation on the number of forgery allegations which could be made, inauthentic, it is far more likely, and I so find, that his writing is pure invention designed to fit with and back up other aspects of his invented story to be Satoshi Nakamoto. As I have indicated, the content of his writing does not ring true. It is inherently unlikely that Alan Granger would have agreed to participate, using BDO resources, in this private project. The timing of ‘Finish DOC’ conveniently coincides with the date of first publication of the Bitcoin White Paper. I consider it was most unlikely that this could have been predicted so accurately more than a year in advance. I therefore find his writing in this document is yet another of his clumsy forgeries.