Gavin Andresen, the former lead Bitcoin developer appointed by Satoshi Nakamoto himself, now regrets that he once supported the controversial Australian computer scientist Craig Wright.
Writing on his personal blog earlier this month, Andresen called it “a mistake” to trust Craig Wright, and said he regrets “getting sucked into the ‘who is (or isn’t) Satoshi’ game.”
“I don’t believe in rewriting history, so I’m going to leave this post up. But in the seven years since I wrote it, a lot has happened, and I now know it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright as much as I did,” Andresen wrote on his blog.
The new statement was added on top of the original post from 2016 where Gavin Andresen announced his support for Wright.
The original statement from 2016 came after Wright during a meeting in London had provided what Andresen called “cryptographic proof” that he was Bitcoin’s creator, including a digital signature that Andresen believed could only have been made by Satoshi.
Worth noting, however, is that Andresen in his original interview at the time also admitted that he could be wrong.
“As more evidence comes out…it’s possible I’m wrong. I don’t think I am, but we’ll see,” Andresen said after his first meeting with Wright.
Community reacts
Judging from comments on Twitter, the admission from Andresen that trusting Wright was “a mistake” has already left a significant impact, with some now coming out and saying they no longer believe Wright has anything to do with Bitcoin’s creation.
Others also questioned the timing of Andresen’s admission, with for instance the popular bitcoiner Hodlonaut pointing to how the staunch Wright supporter Calvin Ayre linked to Andresen’s original statement in a tweet just days earlier.
Meanwhile, some also speculated whether the reason why it took Andresen seven long years to come to the conclusion that most of the community arrived at a long time ago is because he signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before the private meeting with Wright.
Earliest Bitcoin developer
Andresen was declared by Satoshi to be the lead developer of the Bitcoin protocol after the inventor himself stepped back from the project in 2011.
In his final known email, Satoshi wrote that he had “moved on to other things” and that Bitcoin was “in good hands with Gavin and everyone.”
Following the email, Andresen continued as the lead developer of the Bitcoin network’s client software until 2014. He then stepped back from active development to focus on his work with the Bitcoin Foundation.
