Assume incompetence (or normal human gullibility) over malice.

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.

But why would Wright pay Gavin? What did he expect to gain?

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.