5 Surprising Facts From Gavin Andresen’s Sworn Deposition

The recently released deposition of Gavin Andresen in the case of Kleiman v. Wright sheds new light on the personalities of Craig Wright, Satoshi Nakamoto, and not least of all, Andresen himself.

Craig Wright called himself a fraud

In an email to Andresen, Wright apparently admitted to being a fraudster:

"I am a fraud, but I am a fraud that is free to work on what I need to do."

Perhaps this admission (now in public domain) will make further lawsuits more challenging for Wright.

Andresen may have had an early hint about BSV

In a 2016 email to Andresen, Wright claims to have access to some systems, which were allegedly much more powerful than Bitcoin (BTC). According to Wright:

"I have access to systems that transfer more value and transactions a day than the existing BTC network does in a year."

It’s within the realm of possibility that Wright was already contemplating Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), but Andresen did not seem to have the answer either.

Andresen says his coding skills are on par with Nakamoto’s

Discussing Satoshi’s programming ability, Andresen placed the Bitcoin creator in the top 10 percent of the programmers he’s worked with. Andresen also says he belongs there himself.

“Among all the programmers that I've interacted with, he's definitely in the top 10 percent. I've known better programmers. I've known a lot of worse programmers.”

Clearly demonstrating that he is not lacking in confidence, Andresen stated that he is roughly equal to Satoshi when it comes to coding:

“It depends on what we were programming, but, yeah, roughly equal.”

Andresen considered himself the best possible replacement for Satoshi Nakamoto

In a Cointelegraph interview, early Bitcoin developer Laszlo Hanyecz said that Satoshi wanted to hand over Bitcoin to him, but he was not interested in working on the project full time.

When Andresen was asked during his deposition if he was the best possible replacement for Nakamoto, Andresen stated:

“I sure was the best.”

Craig Wright tried to kill himself

In the spring of 2016, Craig Wright was supposed to move coins from one of the addresses associated with block 9 to Andresen as proof of Wright’s claimed Satoshi identity. Instead, one of Wright’s associates sent an email to Andresen and others, informing them of an apparent suicide attempt:

"All stop. Craig has just tried to injure himself and is bleeding badly in the washroom. Stefan is there with him and Ramona and I am en route. Ambulance is on its way."

Wright was found injured and subsequently rushed to the hospital.

If you’re feeling desperate or suicidal yourself, call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.