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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Wired [wired.com] and Gizmodo [gizmodo.com] have named Craig Steven Wright (along with deceased American computer forensics expert Dave Kleiman) as the inventor of Bitcoin, known by the apparent pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Hours after their stories were published, the man's home was raided by the Australian Federal Police [npr.org]:

The latest attempt came this week from Wired magazine. Except this time, the story based its findings on numerous recorded links between the man and the identity of Nakamoto, through leaked emails, old blog posts and public documents. And then, just hours later, a twin story from tech website Gizmodo: more emails and documents, independent research, similar findings.

Their shared conclusion: It's probably a man named Craig Steven Wright, an Australian entrepreneur and academic, working with American computer forensics expert David Kleiman until his death in 2013.

And then, another few hours later: reports from Reuters [reuters.com] and The Guardian [theguardian.com] that Australian police have raided Wright's home and office in Sydney. The authorities told The Guardian that the execution of search warrants was "to assist the Australian Taxation Office" but the "matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin."

The Register has some more details about Wright [theregister.co.uk]:

Wright's known business interests relate mostly to Bitcoin: as well as operating a BTC exchange, he has a company called Cloudcroft, which holds what's probably Australia's only privately owned Top-500 supercomputer – C01N [top500.org] operated by Tulip Trading [top500.org].

The umbrella company most associated with Wright, DeMorgan [demorgan.com.au], lists security, banking and finance, maths, AI and software development as well as cryptocurrency.

Earlier this year, DeMorgan had high hopes of turning its research into government R&D tax credits, as is outlined in this press release [demorgan.com.au] [PDF] – crucially, DeMorgan said its work could be worth up to AU$54m ($39m, £26m) under AusIndustry's R&D tax incentive scheme [business.gov.au]. Worth AU$54m to DeMorgan, that is.

Both articles claim that if Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, he may be holding Bitcoins currently worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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