Australian police raided the Sydney home and office on Wednesday of a man who is alleged to be either the creator or somehow involved in the development of the encrypted digital currency known as bitcoin.
The raid came just a few short hours after Wired and Gizmodo published reports that alleged that businessman Craig Steven Wright was, in fact, the founder of software that created the cryptocurrency and who thus far has only been known as the alias Satoshi Nakamoto.
The U.S. publications were able to identify Wright as the potential bitcoin creator based on obtained emails, blog posts and and leaked transcripts of legal interviews. However, the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has not been publicly revealed by anyone, and the publications only indicate that Wright could be the man behind it all.
Police raided the home of Wright that is located in the Sydney suburb of Gordon at around 1:30 p.m. However, the Australian Federal Police said in a statement that "presence at Mr. Wright's property is not associated with the media reporting overnight about bitcoins," and instead is related to an Australian Tax Office investigation.
Wright is reported to be involved in several Australian tech enterprises.
The businessman has been living at the rented residence with his wife and at least one child since November 2012; however, he reportedly informed the home owner Garry Hayres the family plans to move out to relocate to London by the first week of January.
Hayres also reported that Wright had a "substantial computer system set-up" with a power system at the house.
Despite efforts to reveal to identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, his (her, or their) identity has yet to be proven.
Wired reported that the obtained documents associated with Wright "describe a man so committed to an unproven cryptocurrency idea that he mortgaged three properties and invested more than $1 million in computers, power, and connectivity—even going so far as to lay fiber optic cables to his remote rural home in eastern Australia to mine the first bitcoins."
Some of the leaked documents do not cite Wright straight out as the founder, but do suggest his involvement in the development of bitcoin. Then there's this document obtained by Gizmodo that cites Wright as saying, "I did my best to try and hide the fact that I've been running bitcoin since 2009 but I think it's getting—most—most—by the end of this half the world is going to bloody know."
The authenticity of these transcripts has yet to be confirmed.
It's believed that Nakamoto has about 1 million bitcoins that are worth more than $400 million.
Other publications have tried to out the founder in the past, such as Newsweek identifying Japanese-American Dorian Prentice as bitcoin's creator back in March 2014, but these claims have been denied.
Source: The Guardian
Photo: BTC Keychain | Flickr
