Craig Wright goes ‘full billionaire mode’ and doesn’t care what you think: The Modern Consensus Interview The man many believe to be Satoshi Nakamoto opens up to Modern Consensus November 14, 2018
Craig Wright Skyping with Modern Consensus’ Brendan Sullivan. Note the suit of armor.
On November 15, 2018 the biggest names in crypto will square off over how Bitcoin Cash (BCH) will operate going forward. While it’s not surprising that Dr. Craig Wright would step into the ring: it is surprising that he would Skype with us for the afternoon and let us ask anything we wanted.
Since Satoshi Nakamoto released the original Bitcoin white paper in 2008, arguably no one has been more involved than Wright. Many documents show that if Nakamoto does exist , then he worked closely with Wright both before and after the launch.
But if Nakamoto does not exist, then he might be a creation of Wright and/or his early partners. Wright won’t say either way and the last time news of him as Nakamoto leaked, his home in Australia got raided by the tax authorities . So he has little incentive either way.
One thing is for certain: Wright is still involved with Bitcoin, specifically BCH which he often reminds folks: “ Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin .” If he really were the elusive founder of Bitcoin, then surely he wouldn’t have to worry about the day to day operations of a decentralized system. And yet this week he has declared war on Jihan Wu’s Bitmain and the conspiracy to change how BCH gets mined. Either everything you read on crypto-Ponzi chat sites is wrong or Wright is onto something.
Wright often gets referred to as “prickly” by the crypto press, but we had quite a nice conversation with him.
We covered the basics of the hash war, but also found time to chat about Adam Smith, wine collecting and, briefly, his suits of armor.
Modern Consensus: Jeez, what a wild week for crypto.
Craig Wright: What we’re seeing right now is just prefork paranoia. Basically, the way Bitcoin is designed to work is the problem with the cap. Bitcoin should be the base system and everything else gets built on top of that. When we start the game, the rules don’t change halfway through. People don’t understand how critical that is.
You’re something of a libertarian. In choosing a side in the hard fork, is that what you would call societies working on their own?
I’m stepping in because this could have dramatic effects down the line.
Take something like smart contracts, they’re not really all that legal.
Code is not law. Law is law. Just because you have a smart contract no one cares. A court can overturn it. In the case of real property, you need the blockchain in a mortgage to last 25 years.
But code can change over 25 years. So what happens to the smart contract locked up in that code? Part of the problem is that the moronic idea that code is law .
We’re starting to see the SEC realize that blockchain means nothing. The peer-to-peer is you and I doing a transaction. I hand you cash.
Bitcoin allowed us to do an IP-to-IP transaction.
But we are still in the early stages here.
Bitcoin is not outside the state. It’s sound money. Technology is irrelevant to fungibility. If my coin came from something that is traced back to gambling, who cares? It doesn’t matter where it came from. If you’re talking ZCash or Monero with privacy, the fact that it is privacy sourced means you lose the ability to use it as money.
It is basically an illegal token for illegal goods.
So part of your defense is in keeping Bitcoin as money within the law?
Money acts within the law. If you believe in money, then you believe in law. If everyone has their own version of law and if no one says fraud is bad, then you don’t have society.
Why shouldn’t Bitcoin Cash be open for changes? Everything else in crypto looks much different than it did in 2008.
Capitalism is not about greed. Any business can be greedy.
If you look at Nazi ideals, they are the business form of socialism. Capitalism is a form of businesses and trade. Where people have self interest is in long term investment. We’re looking at things like our families and communities. That’s what capitalism is all about, not about the short term.
Ah, so much of crypto is people trying for short-term gains, which they hope to hold in a fiat bank account.
And it is still nothing.
They are going to have huge problems with their pump and dump schemes going forward. I’ve seen it before. In the ‘90s—even in 1996—we had freeipos.com and webpaper.com . Tokens are nothing new. We’ve always had toilet paper value tokens popping out.
Do you realize the value of Nasdaq peak? The entire crypto market at peak is only 19 percent of the Nasdaq just before it collapsed. We are small.
We are not being considered. People look at billions. They are not going to really get off their ass until it gets to real carnage.
The Nasdaq Composite Index in all its glory (via Google).
Then let’s talk capitalism.
What happens on Tuesday if you win but the ABC people can get miners more money and people switch?
There’s nothing from stopping that from happening now anyway. ABC enables proof-of-stake sidechains.
But BCH is already giving miners 31 percent less than BTC. I don’t want to see Bitcoin just becoming gas for Vitalek. Capitalism.
When you make it, there is what some call “Fuck you money”
This is where you can tell the soy boy cucks to stick their head up their ass and leave you to build.
Welcome to the world of the 21st C pic.twitter.com/ZsACjOhSHd
— Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) November 13, 2018
I do enjoy watching you and Ethereum Founder Vitalek Buterin duke it out online.
I guess I benefit from having what you’d call “Fuck You Money.
” Some people have the lazy idea that that means private jets to the beaches and catered parties. I have that. But all that’s just the lazy idea of Fuck You Money. This is what the money is for: to have the ability to turn your ideas into a reality.
I don’t have to think, “Oh, I wonder if I got funding for this idea or that if it could be successful.” I’ll just do it. And I’ll hire the best people to do it.
So money is not—
I have all that.
I’ve got the wine cellar and the private jet. I’ve got a 1944 Patek worth half a million.
I had to Google that. You mean you own a Patek Phillipe wristwatch from 1944? Like the one that sold for $5.7 million ?
Yes. So when a company comes up against us and talks about how they’re going to throw up a legal challenge costing us $9,000 per hour, bring it on! We can spend $10 million a day and not worry. You wanna spend $1,000 an hour fighting us? Good.
We only have to spend $1001.
There’s a phrase I can’t imagine using, but I’ve seen you use on Twitter. That you will go “Full Billionaire Mode.” What does that mean to you?
Haha. It just means not worrying about what other people will think. I have the ability to execute quicker on projects. One day, there will not be an idea of an altruistic development “community”.
This was always a myth used by a few to control the narrative
There will be miners in competition to gain a fine edge over the other miners.
Better faster code, fatter pipes, better network management
— Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) April 6, 2018
I’ve heard you on Twitter talking about how the original Bitcoin protocol from 2008 will prevail, but it’s the internet around it that will change.
Criticizing Bitcoin today is like criticizing the internet in 1989. You said it’ll change when we have bigger bandwidth, fatter pipes. When do you think that will come?
It’s here now. We can currently run the entirety of the internet through a single fiber.
It’s here. But it’s just not ubiquitous yet. People always refer to Moore’s Law saying capacity will double at a regular rate. But look at the proliferation of microchips since then.
It used to be that not everyone had a computer. But then those who did got faster computers. Then 10 years ago, not everyone had a tablet or a smartphone. Now you can’t buy a TV without a computer inside of it. They come preloaded with YouTube and Amazon. What’s the effect of that going to be in 10 years when every single item we operate has a working computer inside?
I also do enjoy your tweets about wine and wine collecting. If you’re victorious on November 15, do you have a bottle saved for the occasion?
I have a special vintage of Champagne in mind.
Like a nice 1990 ? It doesn’t get much nicer than that.
No. I was thinking a 2008.
I don’t know much about the 2008s.
It’s not about the vintage, so much as the year.
Oh! I get it.
You’re celebrating going back to the way things originally were in 2008.
Because they’ve only gotten better in 10 years, like a fine wine. I get it now. Sorry. Blame that on our Skype connection.
I’ve also got a nice bottle of Armagnac from 1888.
Okay, wait. Let me guess—1888 was the year Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King came out.
Don’t read to much into that one. It’s a nice bottle and a nice round number.
Do you end up dealing with a lot of grail-hunter types? Most agree you are either Satoshi Nakamoto or the last person who knows who really is.
Haha! Yes, I deal with it a lot. And I deal with people who think they have a right to know. And guess what? They don’t.
[Editor’s note: Modern Consensus currently has no opinion on the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.]
I guess if you wanted people to know you were Satoshi Nakamoto, you would tell them. But for these grail-hunter types, they’re almost like hackers trying to find a weakness, trying to outsmart Satoshi Nakamoto.
They want to be famous for finding a famous guy. I’d rather they spent their time building something else.
I know I will.
It’s a funny thing. These crypto CEOs tell every waitress in Vegas the no-name shitcoin they run. But Satoshi Nakamoto created this new empire and no one has even seen a picture of him.
I confess, grail-hunting for him is fun. But I don’t think it would be all that fun to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Not now.
It’s going to take me 30 more years to get everything done that I want to get done in Bitcoin. I’m 48 so I don’t have time to waste.
As much as people want to know who the real Satoshi Nakamoto is, they’re perfectly happy with their vision of him or her.
It’s like a religion. He could turn out to be a complete libertarian prick—no offense. But he’s not likely to be this benevolent being who just wants everyone to save money on credit card transaction fees.
People forget that Thomas Edison was a bit of an a-hole. Henry Ford too. So was Bill Gates until he got married and started doing his philanthropy thing. Steve Jobs was lucky.
He was worse, but people loved him for it.
I think that’s what made this week so much fun . We’ve gotten to see you and Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver and Jihan Wu get out there and dig in . To stand for something.
Haha, yes this is about what Bitcoin will mean in the future. And if I tried to change protocol now, then someone else should step in and replace me with the SV version.
So people aren’t going to one day find a Zip drive in the Seychelles* with 1.1 million bitcoins?
No.
.
