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BIT & COIN: Merging Digitality and Physicality
(UPDATE: the following article was written before the judge’s written judgment. The judge’s written judgment was released on May 20, 2024, and it confirmed the declaration made by the judge at the end of the trial. Dr. Wright has subsequently appealed to the upper court. Although a request for an appeal was permitted, a decision on the appeal is not expected until late 2025. According to British law, to receive permission to proceed with an appeal, the appellant must convincingly demonstrate that their case satisfies certain conditions such as “Real Prospect of Success”. The appeals court exercises discretion in granting permission, aiming to balance the right to appeal with the need to maintain an efficient and fair judicial system. Granting permission to appeal does not mean that the appeals court has sided with Dr. Wright on his substantive claims at this point. The result will have to wait until the judges of the appeals court have fully reviewed the trial, including all evidence submitted during the trial, and reached a conclusion. It is generally expected to take at least a year for this process.)
At the end of the COPA v. Wright trial on March 14, 2024, Judge Mellor made the following oral statement:
I thank all the parties for their written closing and oral arguments, and they’ve been very helpful indeed. They will require me to prepare a fairly lengthy written judgment, which will be handed down in due course. And for all those who have already been hassling my clerk as to when the judgment will be ready, the short answer is as follows: it will be ready when it’s ready and not before.
However, having considered all the evidence and submissions presented to me in this trial, I’ve reached the conclusion that the evidence is overwhelming. Therefore, for the reasons which will be explained in that written judgment in due course, I will make certain declarations which I am satisfied are useful and are necessary to do justice between the parties:
First, that Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin White Paper.
Second, Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” in the period 2008 to 2011.
Third, Dr. Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin System.
And, fourth, he is not the author of the initial versions of the Bitcoin software.
Any further relief will be dealt with in my written judgment.
Despite the suspected ambiguity, I assume that the judge has declared that Dr. Wright is not Satoshi.
I don’t think the judge’s oral statement has made it more uncertain than it would be. If anything, it probably has reduced the uncertainty.
Certainty will not come before a formal written judgment, or a final judgment if the case is appealed. A final judgment is, therefore, what everyone awaits now.
The judge’s decision
If the written judgment confirms the judge’s declaration that Dr. Wright is not Satoshi, I will give due respect to it unless an appellate court overrules the decision. (UPDATE: The judge’s written judgment was released on May 20, 2024, and it confirmed the above declaration. Dr. Wright has subsequently appealed to the upper court. A decision on the appeal is not expected until late 2025.)
Respecting a judicial judgment means that you submit to it to the extent that its writ for legal enforcement reaches. Respecting a court process and decision also means that one must reevaluate the evidence in light of the court process and decision by giving weight that is due to the court and judge.
However, it does not mean that you must change your honest understanding of the facts and the truth and involuntarily change your mind to agree with the judge or the court’s reasoning and conclusion. A person’s free will cannot be forcefully violated. Even in circumstances where the free speech could be restricted, the free will itself cannot be. If one is unfortunate enough to be caught in a contradiction of his own free will and the law, he must obey and suffer the consequence of contradiction, but he must not be forced to change what he honestly believes.
Often, suffering is good for both the truth and the person who chooses to believe it. The suffering is good when the belief is false because the pressure of contradiction may help one to re-examine and eliminate false beliefs under light. The suffering is also good when the belief is true because the person and the truth itself both go through a trial, tested and proven, manifesting their true value.
As an independent observer, I reach a personal conclusion using an objective Bayesian method to estimate the realistic probability based on the evidence available to me. In this sense, the COPA v. Wright trial has been helpful because it allowed evidence to be more exposed and more thoroughly contested.
See Bayesian probabilities and evidence, with applications in COPA v. Wright.
Personal views
I reevaluated the evidence in light of the trial with calm and respect. At this point, my conclusion is still that Dr. Wright is Satoshi, the inventor of the Bitcoin blockchain.
My conclusion is the result of my objectively applying the Bayesian method to estimate the probability of a hypothesis based on all available evidence. See Bayesian probabilities and evidence, with applications in COPA v. Wright.
I put everything I’ve seen together and considered them in an objective Bayesian estimate, and my conclusion is still that Dr Wright is extremely likely to be Satoshi.
It doesn’t mean that I have 100% certainty. For complex matters, we never do. It means that I act according to the practical probability as a result of objectively applying the Bayesian method.
With a very high Bayesian probability, I can’t pretend ambivalence. If the probability is between 30% and 70%, or even 20% and 80%, there can be an honest justification for ambivalence and inaction. But if the probability reaches beyond 90% or diminishes below 10%, pretending ambivalence becomes evidently dishonest.
In the case of Dr. Wright’s Satoshi identity, my objective estimate using the Bayesian method gives me a result that is better than 99% that Dr. Wright is Satoshi, even after this trial. This probability is at a point where, barring a clear and logical falsification proof (i.e., a proof of logical impossibility or contradiction, such as a clearly better proof of an alternative Satoshi), I would simply be dishonest if I denied Dr. Wright’s Satoshi identity.
The importance of Bayesian method
The trial of COPA v. Wright shows how important it is for decision-makers today to understand the Bayesian method and use it to interpret the increasingly probabilistic world we live in.
Although the Bayesian method is not the only scientific method for estimating probability, its underlying principle is the only way to correct a common fallacy in people’s estimates of probabilistic matters.
The common fallacy is simply this: we confuse possibility with probability, lock our minds in single factors, and fail to understand the mathematical nature of a probabilistic world that requires sequential progressive iterations of probability estimates based on cumulative evidence.
This mind virus has become a pandemic due to the increasingly available superficial information that floods people’s minds.
To a spectator who has no access to the original truth, any outlandish conspiracy theory has a possibility of being true. The human mind leaves a vast room for imagination. It is not a defect in itself. Everyone has a right to speculate, and most of us are probably susceptible to the influence of our interests and likings to various degrees.
But the key is not possibility but probability.
Unless one has direct firsthand access to the original truth, he must focus on finding the objective probability.
If one’s mind pursues only imaginary possibilities but disregards objective probabilities, it either finds no anchor to attach to or, worse, attaches to a false anchor created by personal bias. At that point, the human imagination becomes a problem because the mind is taken over by a ‘mind virus’, which is a carrier of false information.
This applies to either side of a controversy, so we all need to restrain our minds and hearts with an objective estimate of the probability instead of going loose with unrestrained imagination of a possibility.
An intelligent way to estimate the probability of a hypothesis is to objectively use the Bayesian method of estimating probability, which considers all available evidence together with appropriate weights.
For more on the Bayesian method with its applications in COPA v. Wright, see Bayesian probabilities and evidence.
The technology matters more.
Even more importantly, I did not get myself into this because of my curiosity about Satoshi’s mysterious identity. I got into Bitcoin and blockchain because of my conviction of the danger humanity faces and what solutions are helpful (or unhelpful or even harmful).
Regardless of the final outcome of the Satoshi identity case, it is more critical than ever to focus on developing the right technology to solve humanity’s most existential challenge. See TimeChain that preserves humanity in digital age.
I have always focused on technology rather than identity, and I will be even more so in the future. However, when asked who Satoshi is, I will still say Dr. Craig S. Wright. This is not a contempt for the court or the judge, nor a spite toward those who have different views, but only my honesty.
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