Topic: Gavin Andresen calls it a "mistake" to trust CSW - page 2. (Read 793 times)

I don't think they'd fund Gavin to lie-- as far as anyone can tell Wright was suckering Ayre and probably needed Gavin's endorsement to convince Ayre too.

Thanks for the citation, interesting point.

I think we've seen that Wright has been extremely slow to learn from his errors-- a common trait for narcissists because it's difficult to learn from an error if you can't admit you made one.

We're very fortunate because one of the things the community does poorly is withholding knowledge of his mistakes until the knowledge is strategically useful.  Fortunately, he's gone on to submit to court docs that randos on twitter already proved were forgeries and stuff like that.

Some past errors he's mostly stopped making, e.g. his modern talks almost never go into technical details (which has made them much less amusing to watch) but his improvements seem to come extremely slowly.

back in the 2015-6 days CSW didnt have much money in his own pockets. but remembering from some of the stuff said in court cases about who was in attendance at the 'proof event' it was not just GA and CSW

(forgive memory..) i think it was S.mathews, ayres and possible j.nguyen
and some (excuse bad memory.. cant be assed to go back through notes) about legal team baker mckenzie involved
and more contract signing after arriving in england* but before the purchase of the clean laptop**

we all know CSW is funded by s.matthews, J.nguyen and ayres in those days and these days

*this was "the" NDA(disclosed at court) also signed before travelling to the UK
**https://www.youtube.com/embed/R03ypV9CsTc?start=3204&end=3242
take CSW buddies words with alot of salt but s.mathews said in the london hotel GA signed another NDA in that session


Ga mentioning about 'talking about patents sounds like a scammer'.. i see that was not picked up as a hint by CSW as CSW continued to mention patents.

Impossible to prove or disprove franky1,  and some people have cited his comments about it not being good to hold bitcoin as suggesting there might be jealousy reasons to burn it down.  I know for a fact that some other early Bitcoiners turned on to full bitcoin hate because they lost or gave away their Bitcoin or never acquired a large amount when they could have.   But that kind of stuff is just speculation and I think in this case it fails occam's razor: People get conned, it happens and it happens more often than complicated movie plot payoff schemes.

I think I'd have to see evidence of a *huge* payment to rate the bought off theory more highly than someone who was just tricked-- and there is no reason to think the Wright would have been able to make a huge payment in the first place.

It's true but Wright clearly has some magic charisma over people in person.  I think in 1:1 interactions Wright is probably highly effective at controlling the direction of conversation through carefully calibrated abuse, feigned outrage, storming out, etc.

Satoshi was also more abrasive towards Gavin in private than we know him to have been in public communications (e.g. more like that dismissal of future altcoin scammer Larimer, the only time Satoshi was ever outright abrasive in public).  Especially if Gavin had recently reviewed his discussions with Satoshi he might have been newly offended and when wright was a dick he could have thought "well, that checks out". For the rest of us we see Wrigt's public conduct as 180 degrees off of Satoshi, but Gavin might have over valued the few criticisms he got from Satoshi and thought the two weren't polar opposites.

Probably the most shocking thing to me is that in Gavin and Wright's communication, at some point Wright started fire and brimstone-ing about patents or something and Gavin responded with something along the lines of "see when you talk like that it makes people think you're a scammer".  WTF, why did Gavin coach him to scam better??  Total facepalm moment there, but I guess Gavin was already committed to the believe that Wright was legit.

i think its much more simple than 'someone was duped' or "he is dumb'
tl:dr
(much like how ex doctors get paid to go against their skills and knowledge to go on speaking tours to say some anti-vaxxer BS, they know its wrong to say it, but the money is good)

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waffle explainer:
i seen gavin in early adopter years mention he will only want to work on bitcoin for a few more years before retiring to try other things.
a few years later arrived and his reputation and credibility was already damaged due to the whole brand wars of bitcoin reference clients. so knowing he was nearing his retirement deadline was close, just decided to take an offer of a payday for the cost of his remaining reputation. thinking his reputation meant nothing to him beyond that date.

so not duped into a con. but contracted to sell his reputation(soul). which was then used to promote a con

(it makes more logical common sense then pretending he was just dumb)

as for the narrative about what intrigued ga to visit CSW being "we talked a bit and he sounded like a satoshi" pfft.
when CSW is not just paraphrasing known satoshi quotes. csw back then more so but even now says things about bitcoins functions and features that are nothing like what the real satoshi said

and anyone normal can see that, so i dont think ga was lulled into believing csw. i think it was just a contract to make a speaking endorsement using some lame contracted narrative

The higher you climb, the harder you fall.

Gavin wasn't some random schmuck who knew about bitcoin. He was a well known bitcoin developer who also had control over the reference implementation project, bitcoin core. Some people may have even considered him a replacement for Satoshi after he went away.

Someone in a position like this needs to be more careful about what he says and does. Otherwise a small slip would lead to a big fall. Supporting the scammer was a big slip, so was the fall.
This is why whatever he does after making the mistake is not going to matter much, specially when it is many years after the mistake.

Anyone can make a mistake.  It's what you do about it after that is evidence of your character.

More likely because Wright and his conspirators had again been linking to the old statement as 'proof' of their claims.


There are many kinds of error that are *easier* to make if you're smart.  A fool would look at something suspicious and go "this is complicated, you're probably trying to scam me"-- while a smart person might be able to pretzel logic themselves into putting down their cynicism and gut instinct buying into a contrived story.  A smart person can usually reason their way out of danger while someone less smart has to rely on instinct and caution.  Being smart works until it doesn't and there are plenty of examples of extremely smart people who got conned.

Being smart also doesn't mean being street smart.  You can go back and find posts from before Wright by Gavin insulting other bitcoin developers saying they are obsessed with potential threats and attacks and waste too much time making things secure, and counter insults towards him saying he's naive for thinking the world is benign.

My view is that much of the time much of the world is mostly benign, but we have to prepare for when it isn't: when things are benign things will go right no matter what choices we make, it's when they aren't that our choices matter.  Gavin was totally unprepared to be the target of a conman that was willing to spin an arbitrarily convoluted story -- while I was prepared.  But at the end of the day I'm the target of two lawsuits one demanding billions the other demanding hundreds of billions, sucking up my time and causing me stress and he isn't.  So much for being 'right'.  I think I'd rather be in his position: You'd all think I'm a fool or corrupt, sure, but no one who cares what random people on the internet thinks will ever be happy.

It is genuinely surprising to me that any technical person ever fell for Wright-- he just is so *obvious* with his technobabbling and bogus excuses and even was back when the endorsement happened.  But if any Bitcoin contributor fell for Wright Gavin would have been the most likely both because of his trusting perspective and the fact that Wright aligned himself with Gavin's position in the political dispute at the time (which, from my perspective Gavin was losing or even had already lost). An endorsement by Satoshi would have been a total hail Mary and hard for many people to resist.

Fundamentally that blocksize drama was driven by the same underlying perspectives:  Should bitcoin eliminate a technically and economically important limit one critical to the long term economic argument for security and then trust that things are going work out (somehow), or should it maintain limits that establish needed incentives and which bound how wrong things can go?  (It's fun to point out that in BSV they got the limit removed and then have bloated the chain specifically to make it impractical for people to run nodes and block their efforts to edit the ledger to steal coins-- one of the vulnerabilities we pointed out might arise from removing the limit that the people opposing us thought was too ridiculous to bother countering...)

In any case, I think it's important to realize that anyone can fall for a conman, that's what conmen do.  We can be more or less vulnerable based on our attitudes and actions, but blaming victims for falling for a con doesn't protect anyone.  To fall for a con you need only make one bad decision on one bad day. Everyone has a bad day now and again.

It's also easy to fault Gavin for what happened after, but at the same time-- what did other people do after?  Gavin was at least tricked and had to face the barrier of cognitive dissonance and the ego hit of admitting error, other people didn't suffer the same challenges. Where's the statement from developers, the project, industry groups debunking Gavin's endorsement?  The bitcoin core project removed Gavin's remaining unused access to the repo to counter the risk that he'd hand it to Wright but pretty much stopped there.   A few people, like me, carried on debunking Wright's claims but as individuals it carried little weight, were largely ignored by the public and media, and it's ultimately why I'm a target of Wright's lawsuits.  As a whole the Bitcoin community (including the technical subcommunity) didn't act to counter Wright but just ignored him and let him fester, amassing strength and resources, exchanges went along and listed his scamcoin token -- pumping cash into his coffers.   Would all these PR agencies and law firms be working for Wright, would these billionaire sponsers still be pumping money into him had it been established in the public consciousness that he was a con and a crook?  Quite possibly not.

That's true for many other people, usually without anyone noticing them (including people in this thread!)  Wright and people promoting him have put a lot of effort (any money) into playing up people when they think it benefits the credibility of their con.  There are plenty of other former early bitcoiners and contributors who you almost never hear mentioned (including some of the victims of Wright's vexatious litigation).


Somewhat related, I ran into this old thread recently where a querulous Bitcoiner was asking bitcoiner's to post letters of commitment promising that they'd never be naughty.

I rejected the concept, arguing that any promise meaningless and that his demands were "completely pointless— not because people are trusted to not do evil but because Bitcoin users won't accept technology that makes it possible"

By comparison, Gavin played along: "I hereby promise and solemnly swear on pain of atomic wedgie that I will never ever work on or endorse any changes to the Bitcoin system that would enable any person or group to confiscate, blacklist, or devalue any other person or group's bitcoin."

...and what we have today is the latter person having an incompletely and late withdrawn endorsement of someone who's trying to confiscate coins,  while I'm getting slammed with multiple court cases demanding billions in damages for *not* playing along with the confiscation attempt.

It just goes to show that words are just words.  It's important that we have systems whos security doesn't depend on meaningless commitments and important that each and every Bitcoiner act to protect those properties.

No because you would have to prove that Gavin Andresen knew that CSW was a scammer and we do not know if that is true. I think he could have been naive and fell for the tricks that others have by Craig. He is a master at it that is why he has a following but on the other side I thought Gavin would know better because of his technical skills with btc and he is still intelligent as he showed in the early years but him taking so long to talk about the mistake of trusting Craig goes against him. He should have talked about it sooner and he probably would have a better reputation among the btc community and would have looked better in front of a court if someone did try to sue him. I do not think they could sue him for damages though because you can never prove he knew that csw was a scammer.

It might not save him but I would respect him more if he did make a stronger statement about not trusting csw. He still has influence because we are talking about him today. People reading the history of btc will come across Gavin and will trust him because he had direct contact with Satoshi and that is talked about on this forum so even if veteran members know of this newer members are going to research and see he was heavily involved with Satoshi and trust him because of that until they do their research and find out more about it they will keep trusting him and that could mean they start trusting csw before they find out what happened.

I think it is not going to be enough to actually save his credibility and I think it is not going to change anything at all. While I believe that it is not going to change anything, he could do it himself to save himself. This way if anyone asks, he could say that he rejected CSW eventually, which people will say it was too late, but at least he could have a defense ready for it, and he could say he was fooled and he found the truth and rejected it when he learned.

This won't change peoples views of him, but it could at least give him some sort of defense mechanism to protect himself from hatred, a way to change the perspective a bit if he could do it.

I may only speculate on the benefit of going back on his words today.  Can he not get rid of liability in case things go against his way?  People get to trust Craig, Craig proves to be a scammer, then people sue Gavin because he said Craig was Satoshi.  Or something like that.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

He could apologize all he wants, he lost credibility with this and he wo would never regain it back, and that's okay. Bitcoin is decentralized, there is no person who has any type of say in bitcoin, Craig is a known scammer at this point and Gavin is just a person who fell for a scammer which many people in crypto did, even if for another scammer, we all faced scammers.

This is why I won't blame Gavin, it happens and it's fine but at the same time I think it's quite important to realize that it's not a big deal if you ignore Gavin as well, just consider him as another random person you do not know talking and it should be fine, I would certainly never consider anything he says with any weight at all.

The worrying part is that he has not come forward and tried to rekindle the relationship he had with the btc community. I will admit I was not aware of some of the things that have been discussed here but now that I am aware I have had to rethink my opinion. I thought Gavin Andresen was a guy to look up to but it turns out just because someone  is involved in a good cause early on does not mean they are good. If he was good and he had good intentions he would have owned up to endorsing CSW it has been years since he has. The op is right that someone who once held acclaim among the btc community has not given a strong enough statement about the intentions and malicious acts done by CSW. Someone with influence even if it is unjust or no longer as strong as it was should stand up and admit to their mistakes instead of doing a half baked version. I always wondered why he disappeared but the only thing I can think of now is he is hiding from the monster that he helped create by endorsing him to the community.

If he steps forward now and apologizes for his mistakes and publicly denounces CSW I think that could go a long way to redemption but I do not have faith in that because they would have done already. There is no way someone watches what CSW is doing and claiming and sits back and lets it happen. If you have influence you have to use that and warn people of the dangers something that Gavin continues not to do.  Talk about falling from grace....

There's no doubt that CSW is not the real Satoshi because he loses the Bitcoin copyright in the UK court hours ago but what I don't get is if the message you quoted from actually from the link Gavin Andresen you provided because what was written there seems not to be the same thing to what you posted or I'm I not reading correctly.
This is what I saw "After spending time with him I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt: Craig Wright is Satoshi.
Part of that time was spent on a careful cryptographic verification of messages signed with keys that only Satoshi should possess. But even before I witnessed the keys signed and then verified on a clean computer that could not have been tampered with, I was reasonably certain I was sitting next to the Father of Bitcoin."

Holdlonaut has already won the case against CWS since last year, and it has also been proven that CWS is not the Satoshi of Bitcoin; he may be Satoshi to his family (wife and kids) 😅, but not to anybody in the community. The community will not consider it because there is no evidence to prove he's the real Bitcoin developer. Anyone who has yet to accept it will one day also realize that it was a mistake to trust CWS, just as Gavin Andresen has confessed.

https://twitter.com/hodlonaut/status/1583086284792205312

Or Gavin was simply blinded by CSW charisma
I wonder did Gavin also played a lot of games with certain government agency as well, and could that affect his judgement as well?

Anyway, I see more bad new for Craig Wright as he just lost his Bitcoin copyright claim in UK court, but I am sure that won't stop him going to more courts in future:
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/08/craig-wright-loses-bitcoin-copyright-claim-in-uk-court/

again back when gavin was "doing good" (circa 2010-2014)
early on in the good days he had already announced he would only be inspired and energised in the "bitcoin experiment" for about 3-5 years before he may move on

so timeline shows he planned a retirement date and by 2015 he was at his retirement mindset.. ready to take a payday exit from anywhere he could

i wouldnt say he was a fool. id say he went foul for funds(sellout/ sold his reputation/soul to the devil)

i went for "idiot or playing games"

to be fair, if Gavin were concealing his original reasons for giving Craig Wright the thumbs-up, ill intent is only one possibility. If we don't know his reason(s), then that's as much as we may ever know

History can't be rewritten, but it's important to recognize one's own mistakes, both personally and publicly. Given the significance of Gavin himself (especially before he chose to support Bitcoin Cash, which undoubtedly some saw as a bad decision), his support of the idea that Craig is Satoshi was a significant point for Faketoshi believers. It's great that he admitted now that trusting Craig was a mistake. And while he didn't say that he no longer believes Craig is Satoshi, at least he's not making guesses any more.
Sure, I agree it's overdue, but I think it's better late than never.

I did not know. I recently learned about the problems with his involvement and I bet any newbie will be more easily fooled to believe he still has influence in the btc community. If you search Gavin online you can see multiple sources talking about how he was important and the things he did for btc. None of them report on the controversies involving him. I think at one time he was important to btc and did a lot of good things but he seemed to lose his way and I can see why members here question him but the OP admits that he still has influence and they are one of the most informed members on the forum. I think Gavin could amend a lot of the criticism he has received and a good way to start would be publicly condemning CSW.

Maybe you're next on his "what I need to do" list, because you claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto the same way Faketoshi does, without any evidence.

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Which members does he influence in any way? To those who have no idea who he is at all, or to those who know very well what he has done, and by that I mean all those bad things from the time when he allegedly cared about Bitcoin? That man has 0% real influence, and he'd be better off crawling under a rock and staying there. He is fake to the same extent as the faker he supported.

It is obvious what is next. CSW will continue to make himself look like a idiot but that is why he is famous because he has tried to take over the btc community and tried to expose the most important people in btc with false accusations. Claiming to be satoshi without any proof and some people believe him. This will continue until he gets his goal in destroying btc or he gets put in jail for the slander cases he has made.

Gavin needs to come out with a better public statement denouncing CSW because even if some members here do not like him any more he still has a influence on members in the community and he can use that to do some good by coming out with a stronger statement against CSW