BTW, the author's hypothesis is not half bad. In order to behave the way he did, Wright must have been sure the real Satoshis would not show up and ruin the show. How could he be so sure? Knowing that they are dead would be a pretty good way.
The sense I get of Wright, and other fraudsters, is that they gamble on outcomes. If the lie works out, they proceed to the next step. If it fails a truth test he falls back on one of:
1. The person with this information is deceased
2. The information sits with an opaque trust that I can't tell you about
3. I am eccentric and can't deal with this
4. I'll distract you by talking endlessly about something i'm more comfortable with
A further technique is that Wright never tells the complete story, he doesn't fill in the gaps - but rather he sets up the outline and then allows those around him to fill in the pieces.
Re: the specific case of how Wright would deal with the real Satoshi coming out, I think he intentionally built up the story piece by piece so that he could counter this possibility at any time.
We know that Wright began suggesting he was involved in the creation of Bitcoin very early on. He never said he did it alone, and he never told the full story from the outset but rather built it up piecemeal over time and tested the limits of how far he could go.
He would have noticed that the real Satoshi has never conclusively debunked previous Satoshi suspects. Every one of them could be dismissed as (ironically) not being cryptographically strong proof of the real Satoshi.
So if real Satoshi comes out with a comment similar to what happen when Dorian Nakamoto was profiled in Newsweek, Craig could say it's an imposter. Even in the worst case scenario - the real Satoshi comes out, he signs a message that says "Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto" and it is verified Wright still has options of where to go (as he has done)
He can say technically it's correct, that Nakamoto was a team. He can say that his keys were stolen. He can say that someone must have found Kleiman's disk drive.
Or he can do what has been common in this case: nothing, and allow others to make arguments for him based on hints he drops. For example advocates on his behalf could argue that he intentionally sabotaged himself in order to protect himself from legal liability, or because he wants to remove himself from the spotlight, or because he isn't comfortable with taking credit, or for some other reason (this scenario isn't absurd, it has happen with Wright)
Fraudsters always find a way, and more often than not it is other people doing the arguing for them and trying to fit it around the narrative where the assumption is provided by him.
A lot of it works because of confirmation bias, and you end up in a frustrating situation where nothing can be proven or disproven beyond doubt because the story can be molded to suit what is known and unknown.
The Craig Wright myth consumes the gaps in what we know and do not know about the real Satoshi. The myth is built up by people biased to believe it using small pieces of information provided by Wright.
The author does this in the article - he starts off with:
> "he appeared, from the initial evidence, to have a better claim to being Satoshi Nakamoto than anyone else"
and from there it's just a long loop of Wright dropping hints and the author struggling to piece it all together into that narrative
And whoever or whatever "Satoshi" is, there are a variety of reasons that a variety of people and organizations would like to know his identity. There may also be a variety of reasons that other, non-Satoshi entities would like it to remain a secret, depending on what the real story is. I guess most of us will never know.
You might be right, but you shouldn't judge from my response, because I know very little about Bitcoin and don't typically follow news about it. I would guess that someone out there would have a better idea... :)
I can't be the only person who has surmised this. So if you are a con man and you also have this idea, what you start doing is pushing the boundaries a bit and testing to see if you get any push back. If not, push farther. You won't get ridiculous press until you publicly say "I am Satoshi" and until that point, you can always back away and say, "Oh it's all just a bad joke. Sorry!"
As soon as you say "I am Satoshi and I have access to these BTC. Lend me money." and you get no argument, you know you are golden. The keys are gone. It's a risk, but a slight one if he had been pushing here and there to try and provoke a response.
The one issue I'm interested in is the PGP signed email stating that the other Satoshi (Dorian) is not the Bitcoin Satoshi. I'd really like to understand what key was used for that. Imagine if that message were actually a fake... it would have made a great test to see if the real Satoshi would respond.
So if he had some access to the keys does that make him Satoshi or part of a Satoshi team? Personally I think the real Satoshi was happy to use him and sign some messages for him but baulked at signing public proof. It's pretty similar in outcome to having a trust that cooperated with him and then didn't but much simpler.