Hard to say. Gavin Andresen says he is, but Wright didn't publish an unquestionable proof. Why would Gavin risk his reputation on that without the confidence that he really is Satoshi ?
Why would Gavin risk his reputation on that without the confidence that he really is Satoshi?
People who are smart, even experts in their field, can be fooled by conmen. Remember that while the experts are experts in their field, the conman is also an expert in their field. Their field just happens to be exploiting human nature to fool people. Without more information, it's hard to know if that's what happened, but it's a reasonable answer to the question.
Theory: Andresen met with Wright on Wright's terms, in a hotel conference room prepared and controlled by Wright. Wright anticipated that Andresen would ask for a clean-room laptop to work with. One of two things happened: either (a) Wright had his "assistant" go out and "shop" for a "brand-new" laptop that was actually a pre-bought laptop with a modified copy of Electrum on it. This is the copy of Electrum that was running when Andresen thought that his freshly-downloaded copy was running. Or (b) Wright actually did have a clean laptop bought, but suggested that Andresen connect to a Wi-Fi Network set up and controlled by Wright with a password provided by Wright, by which he then provided the false copy of Electrum through a MITM attack.
Both scenarios require the ability to modify Electrum in a deceptive way (presuming Andresen is familiar with Electrum and uses it frequently). The complexity of either scenario would require considerable literacy both with networking and code, and perhaps months of practice to make sure everything went off without a hitch. Thus, they seem pretty implausible. But if anything out of this scenario is true, I give props to the guy for really committing, you know?
I fully expect Gavin to come to his senses in the next 48 hours, acknowledge that there was a chance he was misled, acknowledge Wright is a shady character making a huge claim, realise a proper proof is necessary (which is trivially easy, without any excuses of 'leaks' left), and demand it.
I then expect Wright to come up with some bs, and then we'll all move on.
Gavin is only human, I can say I'm surprised to the extent he stated so adamantly 'without a reasonable doubt', but again, he's human.
Not just that he hasn't published good proof. It's that he published fake proof. I don't see any reason satoshi would publish fake proof besides trying to troll people or something like that.
That's silly, there was no play here. Nobody will believe Wright solely on Gavin's word in anything but the extreme short term, which has already passed (without a play, like Wright announcing he is Satoshi, owns half a billion in bitcoin and will sell it, thereby manipulating the price). What did Wright and Gavin gain from this? Yet Gavin lost a lot of credibility.
I do assume. But my point is I think most people would probably sacrifice their credibility for a lump sum, especially if they knew the person wasn't going to be able to convince the public.
The article goes a bit into detail - Wright is on the hook for a few million dollars of tax issues, and seems to urgently need a plausible (to a judge) legal source of extremely large amounts of bitcoin or face persecution (possibly criminal) for tax fraud.
