Australian who said he invented bitcoin, retracts claim after refusing to prove it

Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright, who earlier this week said he would provide “extraordinary proof” that he was the creator of digital currency bitcoin, will not provide any further evidence, according to a post on his blog on Thursday.

Although Wright did not renege on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto – the name, assumed to be pseudonymous, of the person or group who created the web-based currency in 2008 – the U-turn was taken by many bitcoin experts as confirmation of their suspicions that the claims were false.

“I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me,” Wright wrote. “But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.”

Bitcoin is a web-based “cryptocurrency” that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Various attempts have been made to identify its elusive creator, but Wright’s claims stood out due to the high-profile endorsements they received.

Lead bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen and bitcoin consultant Jon Matonis both wrote blogs on Monday endorsing Wright’s claims, saying they had been shown proof by Wright that he was Nakamoto. Wright said on Thursday that Andresen and Matonis had not been deceived, but “that the world will never believe that now”.