30s Summary

On Halloween, a man named Stephen Mollah claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, at an event where journalists were asked to pay £500 ($644) to question him. Mollah failed to provide satisfactory proof of his claims, offering only old screenshots and stating that he lost the keys to early Bitcoin wallets. He and the event organizer are now facing a lawsuit claiming that they put someone at risk by fraudulently claiming Mollah is Nakamoto. The trial is scheduled for November 3 of next year.

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Decked out in a flashy turban, camo pants, a black suit, and sporting a long gray beard, a guy named Stephen Mollah has just popped up claiming he’s the brains behind Bitcoin.

On Halloween, a bunch of journalists rocked up to the Front Line Club (who were quick to say they’ve got nothing to do with the event) because they were promised they’d get to meet the real Satoshi Nakamoto, the genius who invented Bitcoin.

Here’s the kicker: they even had to pay about $644 (£500) just for the chance to question the mysterious billionaire.

One of the reporters, Joe Tidy from BBC News, was live-tweeting the event, and he called it strange from the jump, as they asked him to pay £500 to join a Q&A session with the enigmatic billionaire.

Most of the journos were skeptical from the start that they were about to meet the most famous name in the crypto world. Things got even weirder when the event started with Mollah and the organizer goofing around on the microphone.

One reporter had enough and bounced before Mollah even took the stage, 40 minutes into the event.

Mollah then goes on about being a business guy, a financial guru, and then claims he’s none other than Bitcoin’s inventor.

But when the journos asked for proof, he couldn’t deliver. Mollah showed some old screenshots and claimed they were enough evidence, but BBC’s Tidy was like, “Nah, mate, these could be easily faked.”

But Mollah claimed they were legit because they were timestamped and he had paper copies, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

When Tidy asked him to transfer some of Nakomoto’s initial Bitcoins live on stage, Mollah had excuses, saying he’s lost the keys to those early Bitcoin wallets and they’re in computers scattered around the world. He even claimed that people have been trying to hack him for his stash of Bitcoins.

Other folks who have tried to claim they’re Nakamoto haven’t had much luck either. An HBO doco tried to pin down Canadian Bitcoin developer Peter Todd as the man behind the mask, but he denied it.

Similarly, Aussie computer scientist Craig Wright also claimed he was Nakamoto, but he couldn’t prove it and was even sued by non-believers. He finally admitted that he wasn’t the guy.

Mollah and the event organizer are now in a legal battle over their claim. They have denied defrauding an alleged victim by claiming that Mollah was Nakamoto and putting that person at a risk of loss.

Their trial will kick off next year on November 3. So, let’s see how this Bitcoin saga unfolds.

Source: Cointelegraph