[Recommend my two-volume book for more reading]:
BIT & COIN: Merging Digitality and Physicality
It is ironic, but fatefully unsurprising:
Satoshi’s own identity case proves how important his invention is.
In COPA v. Wright, British High Court Judge Mellor declared, before issuing a final written judgment, that Dr. Craig S. Wright is not Satoshi, the inventor of Bitcoin.
Based on the evidence presented in the trial, the judge must have been persuaded by the allegations of forgery. This proves that the COPA strategy has worked.
Logic dictates that using forgery, even if it is proven, as the basis for a negative finding of identity cannot result in the cleanest judgment, especially when the forgery evidence is countered by direct evidence for a positive finding. This is because, relative to the question of identity, the person’s behavior is only indirect or circumstantial evidence.
This is not to say that proving a negative identity is inherently indirect or circumstantial. In principle, there is another type of evidence that could negate even direct positive evidence, that is evidence of logical falsification (see: To prove a negative in COPA v. Wright). But no such evidence (logical falsification) was presented by COPA in the trial. COPA’s evidence all focused on the behavior of Dr. Wright. Therefore, it couldn’t be easy for the judge to conclude with high certainty that Wright is not Satoshi based on the trial evidence.
However, because the judge nevertheless reached his conclusion, the judgment must be given due respect unless an appellate court overrules the decision.
(Note that there is some ambiguity as to whether the judge’s oral statement really meant that he had reached a negative conclusion or that he just gave a list of issues he had to decide in the written judgment later. No one except the judge himself knows this for sure, but the language itself heavily leans toward the conclusion that the statement was a declaration of a decision, not a mere list of issues. For further explanation, see this separate post: The judge’s oral declaration in COPA v. Wright.)
The predicament against Dr. Wright
On the other hand, it is not too surprising that the judge would find Dr. Wright’s evidence insufficient to prove that he is Satoshi. Not finding a positive is not the same as finding a negative.
This is no ordinary case. Over a decade of anti-Wright campaigns and narratives have built an extraordinarily strong prima facie case against Dr. Wright. In fact, it is not only about him. The idolization of Satoshi has made it almost impossible for any living human being to be actually recognized as Satoshi. To a large degree, that is the point. To idolize Satoshi is to kill Satoshi. To kill Satoshi is for crypto to thrive. The cryptoverse cannot see its creator, or it may die.
Accordingly, anyone who claims to be Satoshi must bring extraordinarily strong and indisputable evidence to overcome the presumption. Proving Satoshi’s identity now is not the same as doing the same 15 years ago. The objective truth has remained the same, but the subjective conditions of receiving the truth have drastically changed. The one who lives in his own objective identity inevitably finds it hard to come out from his own sphere, and fully anticipate and measure against the contradiction of the fallen (and stolen) world.
The result: Dr. Wright was unable to overcome an adversarial environment to claim his rights, in court at least.
It is a cryptoverse. It has turned away from human reality, succumbed to imaginations of virtual possibilities, and hasn’t learned the Bayesian method to assess real-world probabilities. Only a crypto antidote (e.g., a public cryptographic signature or a move of coins with a clear identity association) may satisfy its condition.
We might even have such a crypto antidote sometime in the future. But even if we do, it will not be a cure; it will only treat a symptom manifested in a special case.
Humanity needs a timechain to preserve truth
The case proves one thing with all the drama and exclamations:
The world desperately needs a universal timechain (blockchain) with a distributed time-stamping server with globally recognized immutability to preserve digital truth.
This case has vividly shown how difficult it is to prove a record or document to be genuine.
In the past, the world relied on human testimonies. But our society is quickly becoming so corrupt and cynical that it can no longer trust human testimonies, even those under oath bearing a man’s conscience.
This is not to condemn the courts because the courts are just readers of society’s changing conditions.
The cryptoverse is a forerunner and a type of society to come.
A provable and immutable global timechain is urgently needed, not to replace human conscience but to protect and preserve it.
Diagnosis of digital humanity
I wrote the book BIT & COIN: Merging Digitality and Physicality as a diagnosis and prescription for the prevention and cure of the growing digital cancer that threatens humanity.
Humanity is already submerged in the digitalization of information. This massive change brings many conveniences, but also generates many significant problems, including:
(1) The management of digital information is increasingly under control by a strong aggregating force of the ‘centralized database gravitational field,’ leading to extreme centralization of information. As a result, information becomes an object of exploitation and manipulation by oligarchs. People are exploited and used without their knowledge, which is both sad and pitiful.
(2) The global economy has begun to gradually degenerate from a relatively free form of capitalism into a digital feudal system (typified by ‘digital landlords’ at the Valley), and may even further degenerate into an information slavery system.
(3) Although human cognition is becoming more and more closely connected with an increasingly large number of information sources, it is ironically becoming increasingly isolated from factual truth. This has progressed so badly that it starts to create confusion, challenges, and destruction in people’s understanding of the most basic truth and facts. If one day all information can be falsified, the consequence will be that, even if only a minority of information is actually falsified, people lose confidence in all information because they are forced to assume that nothing can be trusted.
But this is only one side of the coin, or one blade of a pair of scissors. When nothing can be trusted as objective reality, people will start to believe and act upon anything they want to believe based on subjective imaginations. Humanity will not only lack truth but will no longer believe in truth. This will be full blown digital cancer that kills true humanity.
(4) The real blockchain technology is an epoch-making technology to solve these significant problems. Unfortunately, in the past decade or so, the world has suffered pervert developments in the disguise of a brave ‘monetary rebellion’. The real blockchain technology has been overshadowed and replaced by a large-scale cryptocurrency speculation campaign. This outright corruption has introduced much harm and no benefit to society. It has brought no technological progress, no economic growth, and no productivity improvement. It has polluted the market, the media, public opinion, and even the government.
The world needs a real solution
The world needs to know the truth. But the world needs solutions. Facing the threat of cancerous digital deterioration, real solutions are not nice-to-have options, but existential.
And solutions are what the real Bitcoin of Satoshi provides.
Satoshi may have died, but he may rise again with his creation. It is not about symbolism but real solutions. It is in the solutions that the seemingly tragic irony of Satoshi defeating himself turns into an allegorical path from suffering to glory.
The solution is a New Internet integrating IPv6 with a scalable universal blockchain according to Satoshi’s vision. The New Internet has a Truth Layer anchored on reality to provide Universal Single Source of Truth (USSoT) and define a sustainable atmosphere of digital humanity.
The solution is automated micropayments that enable decentralized human-capitalism (DHC) to resist the death of both centralized socialism and oligarchized capitalism. It optimizes human capital participation, incentivizes creativity and productivity, and ensures natural and fair distribution.
My book describes such a future. It introduces technological, economic, business, and legal solutions. It extends a calling to all honest entrepreneurs, investors, developers, business people, economists, and other professionals to find real solutions and devote at least a part of your effort to making them a reality.
Meanwhile, the book aims to cast down the superstition and idolatry in the cryptoverse, to persuade readers away from pure financial speculations, and to guide them towards ideas and development directions that are productive and have sound technological and economic foundations.
The book may cause some readers displeasure or even antagonism. I plead for a more open-minded reading without regard to pre-existing vested interests. But I am willing to pay a price. To gain an informed reader, I reckon it is worth making myself unpopular to a few others.
[Recommend my two-volume book for more reading]: