Neville Sinclair reveals the project Craig Wright presented to BDO pre-Bitcoin and his extraordinary skills
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Dr. Craig S. Wright presented a blockchain-like concept to the auditing firm BDO in the pre-Bitcoin era, says former colleague Neville Sinclair. Sinclair’s words came as part of his sworn testimony at the “Hodlonaut” trial in Oslo, Norway, between plaintiff Marcus Granath and Dr. Wright.
A full video of Sinclair’s testimony and questioning is available here, and all testimony is available on CoinGeek’s YouTube channel. We encourage all interested parties to watch the entire sessions and make their own judgments about the history of Bitcoin, without the internet and social media.
Sinclair (now retired) is a Chartered Accountant who worked for the firm Grant Thornton and remained on board after the merger with BDO in 2004. He had worked mainly with mutual banks and credit unions and as financial technology developed he became involved in audit systems related to security and customer data.
Like other witnesses in the trial, Sinclair described Wright’s level of technical knowledge and understanding as standing out far above others. During the proceedings this was always the point the witnesses made most emphatically when discussing their early impressions of Dr. Wright’s personality.
“Certainly, in his technical skills, he was extraordinary in the way he understood how the computer systems work, and his ability to extract and identify potential risks that would be helpful for customers to understand, and continue to evaluate solutions,” Sinclair stated.
He also noted that Dr. Wright’s statements “were not always appreciated by the customers, especially in the IT divisions, but he was always well versed in providing the details that needed to be done to their systems.” His direct demeanor sometimes “created a bit of friction” with clients, but Wright was very adamant about making others understand the implications of any risks he had identified.
Sinclair’s work with Wright at BDO concerned payment card standards and the identification of potential data risks/threats. BDO’s work was largely about auditing security systems in this area.
When explaining digital transaction methods and data security, Wright often drew diagrams. Sinclair said he realizes that now these charts are conceptually similar to blockchain, although Wright never referred to that term at the time. When Dr. Wright was “outed” by Gizmodo and WIRED in 2015 as Bitcoin’s creator, Sinclair recalled that he thought it was definitely something Wright could have accomplished, given his interests and depth of technical knowledge.
Pitching the ‘Timechain’
During last year’s trial in Florida, where Dr. Wright defended his position against Ira Kleiman, testimony emerged that Dr. Wright had presented a system he called “Timechain” to BDO partner Allan Granger before the Bitcoin White Paper had been published or finalized . . Under questioning in Oslo, Sinclair confirmed this evidence, saying he could remember Wright talking about such an idea and asking permission to engage with some of BDO’s clients who might have found it useful.
BDO had continued the idea. Sinclair himself thought it might be useful for some of BDO’s clients, but given the size of these companies, thought it doubtful that they could support Wright’s work financially.
The word “Bitcoin” itself didn’t come up until several years later, he said, perhaps around 2011, when Dr. Wright gave him a physical Bitcoin coin. This is also consistent with several other testimonies that describe Wright as very enthusiastic about Bitcoin technology in his earlier days, advising his friends and former colleagues to acquire some of the digital tokens. Most of them also passed on this idea despite Bitcoin being a known technology at the time, something some have joked about regretting.
Watch Granath vs Wright Satoshi Norway Trial Coverage Livestream Recaps on the CoinGeek YouTube channel.
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