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In a high-profile legal drama that has captured the attention of the finance and cryptocurrency industries, Craig Steven Wright, an Australian who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin, faces a whirlwind of legal scrutiny and challenges. Accusations of forgery, fraud and intimidation tactics We come back to this in Cryptic Analysis, after this week's essential news.

Block 1: Key news

Chainlink joins forces with giant Telefnica

Chainlink Labs has team ed up with Telefnica, a world leader in telecommunications, to integrate its network of oracles into the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, which aims to improve Web3 security. This collaboration aims to protect users against the risk of SIM card piracy, by verifying recent SIM operations to prevent malicious transactions. At the same time, growing interest in decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenization has boosted the value of the oracle sector, with Chainlink and its LINK token, which has risen by over 20% since the beginning of February, illustrating the positive impact of such initiatives on the value of associated digital assets.

Revolut : Towards the creation of a cryptocurrency platform?

Revolut, which has already been open to cryptocurrency investments for a number of years, is planning to launch a cryptocurrency exchange specifically designed for advanced traders. The initiative, currently in beta phase, promises in-depth analysis tools and low transaction fees, said to gravitate between 0 and 0.09%. Revolut's idea to create an exchange dedicated to crypto-assets dates back to November 2021.

Worldcoin: To the moon?

Worldcoin's WLD token, a project of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has seen a spectacular rise of over 130% in one week, reaching a price of $5.85. This surge is attributed to the launch of Sora, OpenAI's innovative video AI model, which has heightened investor interest speculation in AI-related cryptocurrencies. On paper, Worldcoin combines an explosive cocktail of AI, blockchain, and biometric recognition, and offers WLD tokens as a reward for iris scanning. Despite regulatory challenges, the project aims to distribute WLD widely, with 3.4 million individuals having already participated.

BlackRock advertises its Bitcoin ETF

BlackRock has launched a new advertising campaign for its Bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), highlighting the simplicity and efficiency of accessing Bitcoin in the same place as stocks and bonds, making investment management easier. The ad highlights the key advantage of a Bitcoin ETF, allowing investors to overcome asset custody constraints while engaging in technological innovation with the slogan "get your share of progress". IBIT continues to grow, with $5.52 billion in assets under management.

BlackRock

Block 2: Crypto analysis of the week

In an extensive cross-examination lasting almost 30 hours, Australian Craig Steven Wright, who claims to be the elusive Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, came under intense scrutiny. M. Wright, a self-proclaimed expert in a variety of fields, including computer science, cryptography, law and mathematics, has been accused of making up facts,

Wright has a history of aggressively asserting his intellectual property over Bitcoin, taking legal action against the cryptocurrency's developers and users. As part of this, the non-profit Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) filed a lawsuit in 2021 to thwart Wright's bullying tactics and confirm once and for all that he is not the inventor of Bitcoin as he claims.

COPA's lead counsel, Jonathan Hough, accused Mr. Wright of having committed nearly a decade of large-scale fraud since his appearance in the spotlight, including falsifying documents relating to Bitcoin's development and demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology he claims to have created.

Nevertheless, many observers believe that Mr. Wright's courtroom performance, marked by inconsistencies and evasions, only served to further discredit him.

The trial, which is expected to continue until mid-March, revealed some bizarre and dubious moments on Mr. Wright's part, including his peculiar justifications for not providing concrete evidence of his identity as Satoshi and his apparent lack of basic programming knowledge.

Wright's behavior and assertions were met with skepticism, including his assertion that he had worked on several PhDs, notably in cryptography and computer science, while demonstrating a lack of understanding of fundamental coding concepts such as "Unsigned Integer", a subject that became particularly contentious during the trial.

In simple terms, these "unsigned integers" are mainly used to determine whether a data string will have a + or - prefix. And without going into too much detail, Mr. Wright was questioned by COPA's counsel about this system during the trial, but was unable to answer. The problem? As long-time cryptography advocate Michael Parenti points out, the "unsigned integers" feature was used over 500 times in Bitcoin's original source code. If Wright was in fact Satoshi, questioning these functions should have been routine.

In 2020, Wright published a blog entitled "As an Autistic Savant..." (in which he explained that he was unable to lie due to his self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome. During the trial, he explained "lying is not something I do easily or well, and my behavior is not a mark of deception but rather normal for autistic people. I'm brutally honest, but also incredibly accurate".

More broadly, the main strategy of COPA's legal team was to force Wright to account for the hundreds of indications of falsification and manipulation found by an expert in forensic evidence in the e-mails, documents and computer files submitted as exhibits.

When asked by Judge Mellor on Wednesday to produce a single document relating to the first Bitcoin files that did not show signs of tampering, Wright replied that it was not available...

So, is Wright Satoshi or Faketoshi?

Block 3: Gainers & Losers

Crypto chart (Click to enlarge)

MarketScreener

Block 4: Things to read this week

Three technology micro-trends businesses need to know (Wired)

The baffling testimony of Craig Wright, self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin (Wired).

Is blockchain ready for Primetime? (Project Syndicate)

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Satoshi Nakamoto on trial: The Wright case - Marketscreener.com