The story of Bitcoin's creation emerged from real-world payment processing challenges faced by online gambling companies like Bodog, where Calvin Ayre and Stephan Matthews struggled with credit card chargebacks that could shut down their merchant accounts; Craig Wright, an auditor at Centabet, proposed peer-to-peer digital payment solutions that evolved into the Bitcoin white paper, leading to a $70 million Hollywood film exploring the mysterious identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and the legal battles surrounding the technology's origins.
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Gal Gadot and Casey Affleck in the Bitcoin Story Nobody Has Told YetAdded:
point is is that, you know, they obviously got to they got out there. So, we got to we got to use something like that. And I think our springboard right now is this movie because that's the that's the, >> you know, that's our marketing. We we have a legal way to do it. Everybody's every person's going to everybody who's remotely interested is going to be curious about this movie. I sent this article. So, there's an article that came out uh yesterday or the day before that was uh it was on archive. It's like an archived article. You could read it for free. Otherwise, I had a payw wall on it and it was on some Hollywood site.
Anyways, it really it broke down the the the story and it talked about the characters with Casey Affle. It talked about how Galgadot's going to be playing this fake character, most likely the the uh the role of Andrew O'Hagen. And you know, it's a really cool story. You know, I I sent kind of a joke over to friends who I was going to have a call who I normally have a call with on Saturday. And I was like, "Look, you know, the the hacker cult that cuz they had been to the hackathon that I did in San Francisco." And I said, "The hacker cult, you know, is is going to Hollywood, you know, so that's about the the gist that they know about what this is." And they think it's a bunch of hackers that that are doing some weird things that they don't understand. So, and ultimately, but now it's going to Hollywood, and that's what this is, this movie is going to do is it's going to bring like massive attention. And it's a but it's a really interesting story when you look at that article. You see Casey Affleck there in the suit and then you see uh you know this AI film studio in the background that's kind of like putting it all together. And what I didn't what I didn't realize is that next month it's going to be at it's called Can Festival in France and that's where movies they go out and solicit they solicit distribution. So not that it's going to actually premiere next month. I I I would say I would say that's not correct. It's not going to premiere next month. It's going to be at Can. So, they're going to be looking for distribution through the major, you know, the major film studios. That's what they're looking for next month with already like a $70 million budget on the table and they're looking for more. So, this is not small. Uh, and I think it's the biggest story. It'll be the Well, I don't know. maybe the biggest biggest blockchain Bitcoin story ever uh so far and it's definitely the coolest we have the coolest story dude it's like the killing of the creator of the technology by these so ultimately I mean if you look at the the kind of the story line it talks about how when when Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Sailor and and Visa and and these technocratic giants all come together for the purpose of just destroying one man and they form this alliance. You have to wonder if he's not Satoshi, why did they want to destroy him so bad, you know? And that's kind of like the theme line of the movie. Did you see that, John?
>> Yeah, it's it's cool. I'm excited, man.
It's uh it's funny to me like the idea.
I'm sure, you know, actors, they need to like research the character and stuff, so makes me wonder like did they meet and stuff like that. like that stuff's interesting to me, you know, like and you know, it's uh it's a cool story on its own, but you also Hollywood always has to add like a little punchline. So like I I wonder like what the climax of the story will be and um you know, and it'll be cool. It's it's it's going to be cool, you know, something that like if I try to explain my parents like you know what >> Well, the cool thing about it is like you know, it's ultimately it's framed around all the legal battles and that's kind of what really got me interested in this saga. I mean it I think it starts with well who you know it'll probably start with uh I mean if it were me writing the script and if it were me doing the film I would started around like the story of Calvinire. That that's just me personally. I I think that his story is so big and so marketable and so freaking never been told that everybody wants to know it. Like I mean and that's just that's how I would frame it. Um, and then >> someone that doesn't know much about his story, like is there like a oneliner you can tell me about it or something like about his story that >> Yeah. from from just a middle class person in a small town, pig farmer, middle class family >> to >> to to the very early days of the internet, we're talking when broadband in '92 and and I apparently the way the story goes in ' 92 uh and I sure only had heard a dialup all the way up until the mid 90s, maybe the late 90s. I don't even know when I first heard about broadband. It wasn't wasn't until much later, but in '92 in in his town in Canada, they got broadband at this building that he was at and it was like the first uh you know, I guess the first facility in Canada and that that because of that, it enabled him to then like basically come up with the idea of Bodog and originally was a different type of a concept, but he's like, you know what, there's this huge demand for the online gambling right now. And oh my gosh, we got the broadband highspeed internet.
It's possible now with dialup. It wasn't possible.
>> I imagine he was gambling and stuff like sports betting or something before that too.
>> Yeah. I mean, he was he was a business he was a small business owner and he was uh doing okay uh you know and and he was doing okay with his businesses, but it it was Yeah. just having fun and and he's like the life of the party. Think picture him as the the social if I could if I could go back into the movie the social network. He would be that character um that was played by um Justin Timberlake. What was the guy the famous the famous guy the the hacker he created he created that what was that what was that famous app that he created? You know the the Justin Timberlake character. Um it was a you know it launched it it it was a it launched in like the early 2000s downloading music for free. Um >> Lambwire >> what?
>> Lime wire >> not Lime Wire before that bigger it's the biggest thing. It was like the biggest thing ever on the internet at that time. Uh anyways it's this famous app that you download all the music for free kind of like um uh Mozilla not Mozilla but it was a Justin Timberlake character. Somebody in the audience knows. I mean, I guarantee it. It's It's basically how I would I would say you could describe Calvin. So, he's like the life of the party. You know, he's going to come in there and, you know, he's going to entertain everybody and be friendly with everybody. And so, the story that's never been told is his story. And I think the intersection between him coming from that small town to then first hearing about Bo getting Bodok started to then moving to to Antigga and then basically being attacked by the United States. Okay. and being just, you know, becoming public enemy number one. I mean, he was the most evil man in the world according to the United States.
Okay. So, because of the online gambling and they said online gambling is bad.
>> Lobbyists and stuff. Oh, >> yeah. Lobbyists, we need to we need to get a we need to get a target on this guy. So, so they want to make an example of him and and so he created this strategic like deal, not even a deal, he created a a masterful strategy to legally get uh basically complete immunity and freedom from that. Okay.
And then ultimately drop the case and pay 40 million. You had to pay 40 million. It wasn't wasn't nothing, but 40 million for a guy like that uh was was was probably small time. So, so anyways, his story I think paying paying that money and then ultimately having massive success with uh with Bodog and then the payment needing the payment infrastructure because online gambling at the time they didn't they weren't able to process payments with credit cards as that easy. I'm not sure exactly how they even did it. Did they take a wire transfer or an a because their credit card accounts would get shut down.
Um I I used to that's how I got into Bitcoin is was uh not Bowdog I think it's called Bada now. I was using it in like 2016 2017 and um it was when gambling was illegal and and where I where I lived. Um but I remember man I could just enter in my debit card and like deposit on their site. Withdrawing was a different story. I'd have to get like checks written to me and um those started those stopped working eventually and then like I I got into Bitcoin and you know I think whatever it's been longer than like eight years so like I can say this out loud now it's not like you know but um that's how I got into crypto was bata so it's always interesting you know.
Yeah, I mean it it sounds like they found a way to process the payments with credit cards or ultimately because ultimately when you have a a credit card, if you go over 3% on chargebacks, say a guy is gambling, he loses his money, he charges his his credit card back. He says, "I don't want to pay." He charges it back and at 3% over 3% on the merchant, the merchant account's going to get shut down. It's too risky.
They're going to shut you down. You go to 4%, you're done. Now you got to get get a new merchant account. You got you got fraud and all these things. And even though it wasn't even fraud, like just an unhappy customer that you got to have a legal dispute with. Uh and so that's happening non-stop with the gambling with these gambling companies. And and same with Bodog and Cineet and and I think the intersection between that and like finding a way like we got to find a way to proc these payments. And so when he met Stephan Matthews, it would have been probably around 2005. And Matthews was doing the uh he was doing um he was doing online poker at that time.
>> Okay.
And it was called Centibet in Sydney, Australia. And at that time he was having that this weird auditor that would come into his office. Uh quirky, you know, auditor that ended up being, you know, ended up being Craig Craig Wright. Uh but this auditor was >> was super he was the best auditor this Matthews ever had. He's like the guy's so weird. Uh he asked the weirdest questions and he's super awkward to be around. This is Matthews would kind of tell the story, but you know, man, he's our best auditor ever. I mean, this guy is an allstar. He knows everything about this technology that we're doing. And but he always comes in here and he's always talking he's always talking about this idea that he has about processing payments online, the peer-to-peer transactions, you know, he says, "I'm not interested in that. Go, please leave." And remember the stories about he would come into the office and Matthews was running this big big company, Sent online poker company at that time.
And then he would sit down in the board meetings and the board meetings would say, you know, "Hi Craig, we're having a board meeting right now." And he's just an outside auditor. He's like, "Oh, carry on. Carry on. Have your meeting."
And he'd walk in with a with a three-piece suit, you know, looking like Inspector Gadget or something, you know, and he's just super awkward. But he would come in there with just no zero sense of um any social sense of the the environment. And so at some point uh you know I must have been around 2008 or whatever but according to the court testimonies that's when when Matthews uh was he was shown the white paper you know and what's interesting is that white paper was published now I haven't I haven't tracked this back but apparently it looks like that white paper bitcoin white paper was published on some academic journals in 2008 early on it would have been was it I I mean I don't know if you know the history I'm sure somebody else does but I think it was like early earlier that year published in academic journals, very similar white paper, but it had Craig's name on it. Of course, it never made it into the court cases, >> but um you know, I think these are these are the stories that are going to be in the movie, and you're going to see the stuff because according to that storyline, you know, they Calvin, he hired a a journalist to go out and and pick up the story. And that journalist in in real life was called uh was called uh was what was the guy's name? Um, Andrew Hagen, Andrew Hagen who followed Craig around, got the story. And remember in 2015, it wasn't it wasn't Craig who wanted the world to know about this. Like he he was just like trying to be an auditor and do his own thing and, you know, be private.
Like that's the last thing he wanted.
>> You're saying Calvin paid like a private investigator or something to find out who Satoshi was?
>> No, no, no. He he what happened was is in two in 2000 say so Calvin had an attorney he had a law firm that he was dealing with for intellectual property and all sorts of things and that attorney firm was his main attorney well I'm sure one of his main attorneys was a guy called Jimmy Wyn and with that uh you know well ultimately even before all that so Matthews calls up Calvin and he's like look you know uh I think I I I know uh you ever heard of Bitcoin Calvin he's like yeah of course I've got these problems with the bulldog and the payments and we can't we yeah of course I know Bitcoin he said well I think I know the guy who who started it who invented it you know and uh I think you know you should meet him and he's like okay so we they they end up having this big you know famous meeting at this lounge and I I got kind of the full backstory from an insider who knows this area and who was really a part of this so who I can't mention the name but he says that there's a famous place in uh I think it's Ottawa Canada I may get the city wrong I don't know Canada at all I think It's Ottawa, Canada that you know, it's this like corner lounge uh studio area and it's just really a famous spot and Calvin ends up buying the place and they have they have the meeting there.
Okay, they have this famous meeting there and it's this just famous uh you know spot in in the city and so he flies in Craig and and and Matthews and they all meet and they meet for a weekend, you know, and that's kind of where it all starts. And then if you if you go back in the story that that's where they met up with a guy called uh with another Canadian attorney called um darn it. Why am I why am I forgetting his his name? He's just a nobody. But um he's >> McGregor. Gosh, thank you. Thank you.
McGregor. Yep. They met with McGregor because McGregor had intellectual property patents and they said, "Well, this guy also has patents. Let's go see.
Let's go talk to him." Because he he knew Calvin. And so they said, "All right, let's go meet." And they all jumped into a taxi. This is this is right out of the book from this is depicted, I think, from Matthews to uh to um the author Mark Egllandon. And they get into a taxi and I always think I always laugh like which one of these guys sat in shotgun between Craig, Calvin, and Matthews in a taxi in Ottawa, Canada. It was a taxi, not one of them, you know? So I just think about who was it in a little tiny taxi with these three big guys, you know? So the uh you know they they head to the meeting and and they have that uh basically kind of start structuring the deal with uh with the intellectual property and then they then they fly out to after that they fly to Sydney. Calvin says all right I want to really want to do this but you guys need to kind of check this whole operation out because Craig was having financial trouble. he was going bankrupt and he had spent all this money on intellectual property on his his employees had a huge staff and he was basically going broke and so he's like I need money you know and he's like all right we'll put a deal together but you need to go down to Sydney Australia first and kind of scope it out so McGregor and Matthews and Craig go down to Sydney Australia and that's where McGregor put his eyes and Matthews put his eyes on some sort of uh either the the white paper that was before 2008 or some piece of evidence that that never got into court that somehow disappeared.
That was like according to what I've seen in testimony, the silver bullet of everything in proving the Satoshi case that somehow went missing. So did McGregor, that document is is vanished, whatever that was, whether it was like a white paper with a freaking coffee stain on it or a uh you know, I have no idea, but it was some sort of a very important intellectual piece of intellectual property. And it was enough though to uh to convince Calvin to say, "All right, let's structure a deal and I'll buy the rights to the Satoshi." At that time, it was he he bought the rights to the Satoshi story.
>> Oh wow.
>> Yeah. That's what he paid Craig for at the first time. I think it was a according to that to that book, it was like 15 million. He's like, "All right, I'm going to buy these I'm going to buy your story and then we're going to bring it out to the world." And then McGregor got involved and McGregor was then going to make make it like a circus, you know, and Craig would be like a pony, you know. He would go around with a with a clown outfit on and dance dance on stage. That was the that was the plan. I don't think that was count.
>> What year is this?
>> McGregor.
>> I'm sorry, what year?
>> 2015.
>> Wow. Okay. So, that makes Okay. Yeah, that aligns with like the whole Wired article and stuff.
>> Yeah. And then So, then it was the Wired article came out. So, so right around that time is when the you know what was going on is is Craig had done that video. Kimman had died. Remember Dave Kimman passed away.
>> That was always uh his name always like that's where like it gets interesting like >> really interesting >> passed away and yeah >> you know and there's we I had an amazing show a couple weeks ago with uh Crypto Voyager on and so we talk we were talking about Climate because Climb's in the movie now. So this is is really important because Climman's got a role in the movie. That's historic. I mean that's pretty amazing to think. So I really want to see what they're how they're going to portray Climate. But that's Craig's best friend. They're online friends. They only met two times and Klyman is an ex-military guy. And these two guys had military contracts.
They were military defense contractors because of Climman. Kimman was a you know active duty military retired at the time now then and his buddy was Craig.
And so they were getting contracts for whether it was DoD or or uh NA NSA. I mean they were getting contracts and and you know that was their that was their business, you know. So this this then became part of it where he's like, you know, will you help me revise this white paper? And this is probably working in the background. I don't think this was one of the contracts. This is like more of a hobby project, the Bitcoin white paper. Uh and so but it' been going on for a long time. This is probably like a lifelong vision of uh of Craig, you know, from like early days of the 90s from the the problems that that he saw at Centabet because Centabed couldn't process their payments. So that's the the problem he was trying trying to solve. He's like, "Well, we need to find a way to cut out these the credit card providers and go peer-to-peer online digital payments." Uh so so anyways, back to the uh back to the story. He goes
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