Ager-Hanssen: I have been in many wars. But nothing has been like this.
A Documentary by DN Magasinet translated from Norwegian to English by Arthur van Pelt
Text: Morten Ånestad & Magnus Newth
Photo: Jeff Gilbert
October 27, 2023
THIS IS THE ISSUE: Christen Ager-Hanssen in conflict with Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright about the blockchain company nChain and who Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto really is.
Covert recordings, ex-spies and private intelligence on behalf of wealthy clients. From London’s Mayfair, Christen Ager-Hanssen runs a special business. Now he is in one of his biggest conflicts ever.
Tuesday, October 2, 2023. It is late at night in London’s Belgravia. A red report lies on a large leather-covered meeting table. In the chair at the end of the table sits one of Norway’s most famous and controversial investors, and he is crying.
I have been so lonely.
sobs Christen Ager-Hanssen. His tears are rolling.
I have sat alone with this. Damn I was afraid for the family and everything. I have been in many wars. But nothing has been like this. I’m afraid.
He lifts the red report. The Fairway Brief.
This is my life insurance.
Christen Ager-Hanssen in one of his biggest conflicts.
It’s tough to be lonely.
Some would call Ager-Hanssen a mercenary: He is paid to enter into other people’s conflicts. Past struggles pale in comparison to the one he is facing now.
It’s different when it’s personal. This is not an assignment for a client. Here I discovered that it is the client who is the villain.
He says. His opponents are controversial gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright, the equally controversial Australian inventor who claims to be “Satoshi Nakamoto.” This is the pseudonym of the person or persons who created bitcoin in 2008.
At the heart of Ager-Hanssen’s new war is the crypto and blockchain company nChain, where Wright was the chief researcher and Ayre is the principal owner. nChain has built a large portfolio of patents that Wright has helped to secure. Here, several hundred employees work to commercialize the bitcoin technology.
The London company hired Ager-Hanssen as chief executive last year, and fired him at the end of September. After exactly one year.
Ager-Hanssen had two tasks. He was to lead the commercial work of nChain, and he was to defend the claim that Wright actually created Bitcoin. Ager-Hanssen fell in love with the idea that he was the one to solve the 15-year-old mystery, he admits.
I thought it was wonderful to be the one who stood up to the official truth. Be the one to prove it was real. But it wasn’t. And I’ll be the first to admit it.
From premises in London’s exclusive Belgravia, Christen Ager-Hanssen has run the battle against Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre.
The private investigator
In Norway, Christen Ager-Hanssen is best known for having once been the country’s richest man. With the venture company Cognition, he was good for over NOK 20 billion in assets. On paper.
The young businessman has always spoken in capital letters with his distinctive Swedish accent: One moment he was standing on a water ski from Norway to Denmark, the next he was on Dagsrevyen and was going to establish thousands of jobs in his childhood holiday paradise Lillesand.
But when the dotcom wave burst, the billionaire status and Ager-Hanssen disappeared from the Norwegian public. Back in London, he has built himself up again — to a billionaire in Norwegian kroner, he claims himself.
Ager-Hanssen lives alone, he has offices at nice addresses, and is driven around by a private chauffeur in a Bentley. He is at least as intense, while his Norwegian tongue is now mixed with English slang.
At clubs such as Oswald’s, 5 Hertford Street and Annabel’s in Mayfair, he is a regular who is bowed to at the front door. This is where Ager-Hanssen meets wealthy and powerful people who have a problem to solve, often a problem where big money is at stake.
This has become Ager-Hanssen’s new business. He describes the typical client as an “eccentric billionaire.”
I do private investigations. People with a lot of money are interested in my services. My job is to strategize to resolve conflicts. I am a one-man army.
Says Ager-Hanssen. The distinctive business originated in Norway. We turn back time 20 years.
On the way to Denmark on one water ski. It is one of the achievements of the youth that Ager-Hanssen likes to talk about. Photo: Geir Johnsen/NTB
The start
I can thank Haakon Korsgaard for everything.
It was in the year-long legal dispute with debt collection founder Haakon Korsgaard that Ager-Hanssen learned his new methods. The two battled for power in Cognition. It ended with Korsgaard being put in prison. Ager-Hanssen had then tracked down hidden companies abroad and handed over all the material to Økokrim.
Conflict resolution has become my new business leg. I have made more money from conflicts in the last 20 years than any lawyer I have ever met.
Says Ager-Hanssen. Swedish Swedbank, conflicts surrounding investor Mats Qviberg and the British Tchenguiz brothers are among those that are publicly known.
Today’s conflict began with the mission to investigate a young American star lawyer.
The lawyer who was undressed
The 34-year-old lawyer Kyle Roche had made many enemies in a short time, with his assignments in the crypto world. He had a pounding headache when he woke up in London on January 23 last year. Roche has explained to the New York Times that he does not remember much from the night before. He had been flown over from Miami to discuss business. A Norwegian was behind the invitation, Christen Ager-Hanssen.
From Heathrow he was driven to Ager-Hanssen’s offices in Mayfair before the evening ended at the luxury restaurant Jean-Georges at The Connaught Hotel in Mayfair. Roche had a strange feeling as he boarded the plane back to Miami a few days later. He had reason to.
Soon a website appeared with video footage of the lawyer, recorded at Ager-Hanssen’s offices in Mayfair and at Jean Georges. On the hidden recordings, he explains his methods in a light-hearted manner. It cost him his job, his clients and his reputation.
American lawyer Kyle Roche was secretly filmed at a meeting in London’s Mayfair. One of the two in the meeting was Christen Ager-Hanssen. Photo: Gili Benita/The New York Times/NTB
Ager-Hanssen was actively engaged in spreading the material, and pulling the lawyer through the mud. But to media such as Bloomberg and the New York Times, he denied being behind the operation. Now he admits the obvious.
Everyone understands who was behind it. You understand that when you read between the lines.
DN: And who was it?
It was me.
One of Roche’s assignments was to sue self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor Craig Wright. The case was about “Satoshi’s bitcoin”, a crypto asset from the technology’s infancy worth over NOK 700 billion at most. Wright has an intricate explanation for why he doesn’t have access to these, even though he’s supposedly “Satoshi.”
Roche’s clients in the case against Wright wanted half of the fortune. He still does not want to answer who gave Ager-Hanssen the task of taking Roche.
But it wasn’t Craig Wright.
Says Ager-Hanssen. But he had become curious about the eccentric Australian inventor, he says. And a British society event gave him the opportunity to get to know each other better.
Craig Wright claims he is the bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Christen Ager-Hanssen no longer believes that. Here, Wright is photographed in a court case in Oslo. Photo: Mikaela Berg
Ascot
The first annual Ascot races a few miles outside of London started over 300 years ago when Queen Anne rode from Windsor Castle and found a piece of land that was perfect for horse racing.
Christen Ager-Hanssen wore the mandatory jacket when he lined up for last year’s race. He was invited to American Express’ gathering for the best customers, the customers with the exclusive black Centurion card. But Ager-Hanssen was there neither to watch horse racing nor to gamble. Wright was also on the guest list.
I had done my research and knew he was there. The most obvious thing was that he was an idiot. But I thought he might be Satoshi.
Says Ager-Hanssen about the meeting. The two found the tone. After five hours around the table with Wright, Ager-Hanssen was one step closer to getting a role in the drama. But another had to be convinced to get the job, gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre.
The controversial gambling billionaire
Calvin Ayre is the son of a drug-convicted Canadian pig farmer. He has become a multibillionaire on the gambling platform Bodog.com. In 2012, US authorities accused him of money laundering and illegal gambling. He got rid of the case five years later, by admitting to lesser offences. In addition, he agreed to a personal fine of 500,000 dollars, and not to challenge that the US authorities had seized 66 million dollars from the company.
From his base on the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda, he currently travels the world in what appears to be a jet set life. He is depicted in metropolises around the world surrounded by young beautiful ladies, often with a glass of champagne in hand.
Calvin Ayre has made billions in gambling business. He is the main owner of the company nChain where Christen Ager-Hanssen became CEO. Photo: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg
In recent years, he has gone heavily into the crypto world and has helped finance Craig Wright’s many lawsuits. In addition, he has invested in nChain and founded his own online newspaper, CoinGeek. [note Arthur van Pelt: this is incorrect. Calvin Ayre bought CoinGeek in August 2017] It was this man that Christen Ager-Hanssen spent last year’s summer working with.
The aim was to take over the job of managing Wright’s legal proceedings. This could be a good store for someone in Ager-Hanssen’s industry. One case in particular is central — a lawsuit from COPA (Crypto Open Patent Alliance).
The COPA group has the backing of the companies of the rich and powerful in California’s tech world: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Worldcoin, the crypto venture of AI-star Sam Altman. They want a final ruling that Wright is not “Satoshi,” to invalidate the many crypto patents that he has filed.
Ager-Hanssen believed that the conflict could be the most profitable in his career, if he took the “underdog” Wright’s side.
I thought there was 100 million dollars in the pot for me.
He says today.
Tequila and Sambuca
Soft tones from a jazz band set the mood as guests arrived at the brick house at 31 Sackville Street on the border between Mayfair and Soho last summer. Calvin Ayre had invited to a party at his London residence. Both Christen Ager-Hanssen and his son were on the guest list.
That same day, Ager-Hanssen had met Ayre with Ayre’s entire team on video from around the world. The Norwegian had a clear goal for the evening.
I wanted to get to know the guy better, and I told my son he had to get Ayre drunk.
There was tequila and sambuca followed by karaoke. According to Ager-Hanssen, Ayre was armed with two large bundles of £50 notes in his inside pocket when the group went to a nightclub. For Ayre, the evening must have ended late and with a lost mobile phone.
He thought it was me who had picked up the phone and dropped it. But it wasn’t. On the other hand, I didn’t mind that he feared it.
Says Ager-Hanssen. It would be about a month before the two spoke again.
Ex-Mossad agent
At the turn of August/September, Calvin Ayre calls Christen Ager-Hanssen. He wanted to meet.
He had seen the Kyle Roche videos and understood that I could do something he couldn’t.
Says Christen Ager-Hanssen. Admittedly, he was not the one who appeared in the videos. The helper called himself Mauricio Andres Villavicencio de Aguilar and claimed to be from Argentina. The name was fake. The man who took Roche out to dinner at The Connaught Hotel, and later to Ager-Hanssen’s office, has not been traced.
He who was present was a former intelligence agent for Mossad.
Says Ager-Hanssen.
London is the capital of the controversial and unregulated industry known as private intelligence, where Ager-Hanssen operates as a free agent. Companies such as Diligence, Kroll and Black Cube have offices here.
Christen Ager-Hanssen works with two types of business, venture capital and resolving conflicts between rich people and companies.
The Financial Times describes the tasks that are carried out from the shadows: It ranges from dry analyzes of political risk and company reviews, to creating crap packages against competitors, manipulating journalists, and “in the darkest corners, hacking, honey traps and threats.”
What several of them have in common is that they were started by former employees of intelligence services worldwide, such as MI6 or the CIA. Black Cube was started by veterans of the Israeli Mossad.
Black Cube is among the best.
Says Ager-Hanssen. “Black Cube is an intelligence firm that helps you win when no one else can” is the slogan of Ager-Hanssen’s favorite company. One of the cases where they have worked together is the controversy surrounding Vincent Tchenguiz, says Ager-Hanssen.
Discretion is capital in this business, but Black Cube has gradually ended up in the spotlight, including when it was hired by the rapist-convicted star producer Harvey Weinstein to monitor his victims and put together shit packs on them.
Ager-Hanssen distances himself from the dirtiest tricks in the industry, he says. In order to influence the outcome of a conflict, he obtains trust and information, legally, he emphasizes.
In addition, Ager-Hanssen undertakes to manage the lawyers and advisers involved. He usually leaves the fieldwork to his collaborators.
You must use private companies and not lawyers to investigate. Lawyers may have to disclose information to the other party or the court.
Explains Ager-Hanssen.
Agreement
The Roche case was the final straw for Ager-Hanssen. At the end of September, Calvin Ayre and Christen Ager-Hanssen flew to Zurich by private plane and met the apparatus around Ayre.
They had examined me and were alarmed by what they had found and were therefore afraid to engage me. I said I could understand that. But I said that as long as you have nothing to hide, I am the best and most loyal you can have.
Says Ager-Hanssen. From that day, Ager-Hanssen was engaged by Calvin Ayre to manage Craig Wright’s legal proceedings around the world.
I got ten percent of the company nChain and a salary of three million pounds.
He claims.
DN: And you believed in these people?
I thought this was an eccentric billionaire who was crazy enough to support an outsider. And anyway, it was exciting. I got involved in this because I wanted to get into the conflict. But I also believed in nChain and the technology there.
Says Christen Ager-Hanssen. Later that autumn, Ager-Hanssen formally became CEO of nChain. A seemingly perfect combination for the Norwegian, who makes a living both by managing legal proceedings and at the same time profiling himself as an investor.
Agreement dispute
The next few months were busy for Ager-Hanssen. He sent private investigators from one of his collaborators out into the world, to hunt for information that could help Wright in his case against the California billionaires, and undermine his opponents.
Ager-Hanssen did not get the answers he wanted. There were far too many holes in Craig Wright’s explanation, he concluded as the summer approached: Wright was hardly the Satoshi Nakamoto he pretended to be.
We tell Calvin Ayre that Craig is going to lose the Satoshi case. It is quite clear that he has manipulated documents. We could see that early on. There was a lot that didn’t match up.
He says. From the outside, nChain appeared to be a fantastic story for Christen Ager-Hanssen and the company he led. “Ager-Hanssen’s new billion-dollar store” was the headline of a story in Dagens Næringsliv (DN) on August 2, 2023 about a transaction with nChain, in which Calvin Ayre invested around 500 million Swiss francs, or around six billion kroner. That made him the main owner.
In this transaction, the entire company was valued at around twelve billion, stated Ager-Hanssen. But: The day after the DN article, he discovers a text message from the company’s finance director. He told Ager-Hanssen that he no longer recognized the agreements made between nChain and companies controlled by Calvin Ayre.
The transaction was real. But we discovered after a while that the agreements at the bottom were not what we thought. The agreements were tailored so that Ayre would take control of the assets in the company.
Says Ager-Hanssen. The management of nChain had not been allowed to see the new agreements the board of the holding company had entered into with Ayre, according to Ager-Hanssen.
He believes the gambling billionaire has replaced the original agreements, and constructed the new ones as a kind of hedge: If Wright lost in court as Ager-Hanssen had warned, Ayre’s plan B would be activated. Then the patent portfolio could be transferred from nChain to Ayre’s own company, according to Ager-Hanssen.
Ager-Hanssen’s trust in the self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor was wearing thin. Now his confidence in the gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre was also gone. Ager-Hanssen believed the new agreements were to the disadvantage of the minority shareholders in nChain.
I went into operation mode.
Says Ager-Hanssen. He thought he had been tricked. Now he wanted to fight back.
The fisherman
I am a fly fisherman.
Says Ager-Hanssen. We have moved to Oswald’s, one of Ager-Hanssen’s Mayfair clubs. He sits well sunk in one of the deep armchairs in the bar on the second floor. On the table is the house champagne, a vintage Dom Perignon. And he is not talking about fly fishing in the normal sense. Ager-Hanssen will explain in more detail which methods he uses to obtain information.
Fly fishing means that you adapt to an environment and you slip into that environment without anyone understanding that there is a hook there. What you are doing is placing a person who naturally has to be there whose task is to get information that people voluntarily tell. It’s social engineering. The biggest threat today is not computer attacks against a company, but if a person is let inside a company.
Says Ager-Hanssen.
Social engineering is one of Christen Ager-Hanssen’s methods. A person is then placed in an environment to obtain information. Among other things, companies founded by intelligence officers are used in the job. In general, women are the best at doing such a job, according to Ager-Hanssen.
They must be beautiful, seductive and intelligent. It must be ladies with sophisticated finesse. They must have the ability to read other people. They must have blind focus. Everything revolves around the goal.
With nChain though, there was no woman to put on the inside to get information.
I was the only one who could do that job. I was on the inside and had confidence.
DN: What is the moral in this? Do you have any morals?
Yes, absolutely. The truth is the truth. I would have become an accomplice if I hadn’t done this.
The Firm
Ager-Hanssen checked into the luxury hotel The Berkeley in Knightsbridge on August 14, 2023.
It was nerve-wracking. I didn’t want to work on this from my home address.
From a hotel suite, he worked around the clock on the report “The Fairway Brief”.
Here at the luxury hotel The Berkeley in Knightsbridge in London, Christen Ager-Hanssen stayed for several weeks in a suite to write the report The Fairway Brief.
I know how he works and operates. But it’s hard to be lonely and know that you have to go out with such things. Of course, I could shut up, sit quietly and take my NOK 40 million a year. But then I had become like Gene Hackman in “The Firm.”
DN: Scared?
Yes, I have been afraid the whole time. But this is my best life insurance.
Says Ager-Hanssen and holds up the report again.
DN: Someone might think that you are paid by someone in this conflict as well?
No, I’m not.
For a few weeks, Christen Ager-Hanssen torpedoed Twitter and the internet with information about Calvin Ayre, Craig Wright and nChain. Now he has been quiet for a few days.
My lips are sealed.
He says.
Here is the report making waves in the crypto world, The Fairway Brief.
The tape recording
It is September 11, 2023 when Christan Ager-Hanssen, a legal adviser and his around two meter tall Albanian IT specialist get on the plane to Mallorca.
The evidence that Craig Wright was not Satoshi was overwhelming. Now the aim was to get the evidence in place against Calvin Ayre.
Says Ager-Hanssen. The three were invited to a two-day stay on an olive farm to talk business with one of Calvin Ayre’s most trusted men on the Spanish holiday island. But Ager-Hanssen has other plans. He was equipped with a tape recorder.
No one would believe me unless I had it on tape.
Says Ager-Hanssen. The expedition was a success, according to Ager-Hanssen. The covert recordings of the Ayre aide provided the final pieces he needed to complete his report. He has made such recordings before.
I have a Starbucks cup with a camera and things like that. But normally it’s not something I do myself. I have other people do it for me.
DN: Is this legal?
There is nothing illegal in recording conversations that one is participating in. I do this to prove what has been said and to defend myself when I think the other party does not want to tell the truth.
DN: How did you make these recordings in Mallorca?
DN: In this case, I put the phone in sleep mode and answered. I also had a special microphone in my jacket.
DN: Jumpy?
Yes, but you become so concentrated on the task because you have so much adrenaline in your body. I knew this was the last thing I had to do before I had to release the report that was essentially written.
Many emotions will come out after weeks of what Ager-Hanssen says has been work under great pressure.
“Massive Liar”
In offices at 7–8 Market Place, just a stone’s throw from Oxford Street, a so-called “war-room” had been set up in the deepest secrecy. A special session was prepared here on September 22 this autumn. This was dry training for the big trial against the California billionaires. Now Craig Wright was to be tested on whether he was really Satoshi Nakamoto, but in a controlled setting. According to Ager-Hanssen, the real aim was to pulverize Wright’s explanation.
One hired counsel grilled Wright, while another defended the evidence. Wright responded with a story he has told many times before in various court cases around the world: The story of how he created bitcoin, was horrified by how the technology was being used, deleted important evidence, before changing his mind.
Thorough scripts for the interrogation were prepared in advance:
We have now spent several weeks going through the evidence. With all due respect, the question is simple. Is Dr. Wright Satoshi Nakamoto? was a central question for the man who played COPA’s representative.
He continues:
The answer to that question is a resounding no.
The grilling of Wright was “exceedingly powerfully presented,” considers the person who takes on the role of chief judge, but it is still in its place. Because the answers are not convincing. Two days later, the conclusion comes, shaped like a typical decision by the British judiciary.
“There is only one reasonable conclusion that I can come to. It is that Dr. Wright is a massive liar.”
It says.
Everyone who was present in the war room saw that Wright had no good explanation. The conclusion was therefore no surprise.
Says Ager-Hanssen. Wright has not responded to DN’s inquiries about the matter.
The Whistleblower Report
On September the 26th, Christen Ager-Hanssen is ready. He summons six men, nChain management and advisors to a meeting in Belgravia. Closer to nine o’clock in the evening, Ager-Hanssen arrives with a bag full of reports he has just collected from the printing office.
He places the report, The Fairway Brief, in front of each of the men.
It was quiet in the room. A very serious atmosphere.
Says Lars Jacob Bø. The Norwegian was one of the seven in the room.
Bø is an adviser to several of the most powerful CEOs in Norwegian business and is one of the partners in the renowned consulting company Bain. For 45 years he has been one of Ager-Hanssen’s close friends and has given him support and personal advice in many contexts.
We spent 45 minutes reading. People were almost in shock. One had to sum up. People wondered what this is. The report was discussed and it was agreed that this had to be reported to the board. These were agreements that were not made in the company’s interest. The agreements meant that Calvin Ayre would be able to take control of some of the most valuable IP rights in the blockchain industry.
Says Bø today. At two o’clock in the morning the meeting ended. The report was sent to the board of the company 12 hours later. Seven hours after the board received the report, Christen Ager-Hanssen was fired as CEO. And the commotion began in earnest.
A text message from a former American ambassador to Norway makes Christen Ager-Hanssen cry again. He is touched by the support of close friends.
The Examiner Examined
While Ager-Hanssen investigated his own company, he himself was under scrutiny. This is what nChain writes on its own website. The investigation must have been about the Norwegian’s management.
“It is inappropriate to comment on these confidential findings”
It said. When he was dismissed with immediate effect, it was because he acted in a “serious and inappropriate manner” before the board had had time to follow up on the results of the investigation, it says. And: “The board takes its obligations extremely seriously” says the statement, which emphasizes that they cannot stand behind any of Ager-Hanssen’s claims.
nChain does not want to comment on the conflict today, writes Haris Khan of Lightning Sharks in an email. Lightning Sharks is a PR agency owned by Calvin Ayre.
At the beginning of October, Gary Berman in the same agency conveyed a comment from Stefan Matthews. He is chairman of the board of nChain, and acting CEO after Ager-Hanssen was fired. The company had not been in contact with Ager-Hanssen since the dismissal, writes Mathews, and confirms that the board has received “The Fairway Brief”.
“Contrary to what Christen accuses us of, the board takes the report very seriously. We have therefore quickly appointed an independent investigator to get to the bottom of the alleged problems and report on what they find. We would like to stress that the board has so far seen nothing in the group’s activities that would give cause for concern. We welcome the independent investigators’ findings with interest.”
Writes Matthews. A few days later, DN receives a new statement from Matthews.
“It is inappropriate to comment while an independent investigation is underway to get to the bottom of Ager-Hanssen’s accusations.”
He writes.
“In the meantime, the board is aware of the ongoing attempts by the former CEO to harm and disrupt both individuals and the company itself. His repeated, inappropriate behavior (not least the ongoing breaches of confidentiality and privacy) are being dealt with appropriately by our legal counsel. The board is united in not letting external distractions destroy our goal of promoting positive uses for blockchain technology worldwide.”
DN has also tried to make contact with the main characters themselves. A number that should belong to Calvin Ayre is dead. Emails to the billionaire are forwarded to his own PR agency. Craig Wright has answered the phone twice.
No comment.
He says the first time, before hanging up. A few weeks later he takes it again. Then he just hangs up, as soon as he hears it’s DN. He does not respond to e-mails and text messages. His wife hasn’t heard from him either.
Once in London, DN proposes a meeting with Ayre.
I’m sorry, but now is not the right time for a meeting.
Replies PR manager Berman. At nChain in London, no one wants to talk either. Here, the company has the three upper floors. The day before, Ayre wrote on Twitter that the office is up and running.
We only accept visitors by appointment.
Says the guard at the reception in the modern office building, just off Oxford Street. DN does not have any such appointment though. The guard nevertheless agrees to call the offices, without an answer. First once, then twice and three times, with the same result.
Sorry, it’s a bit difficult to get hold of someone at the moment.
He says.
Boundless
It didn’t take long after Christen Ager-Hanssen was fired before he spread the first accusations against Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright on the internet. In the following weeks, there were new tweets from Ager-Hanssen almost daily with audio tape recordings, videos, internal documents and serious accusations against the opponents. “The Fairway Brief” was published on its own website, along with even more material.
I am in the middle of a war. It’s about knocking them off the hook.
Says Christen Ager-Hanssen. He gets up and asks one of DN’s journalists to do the same. He simulates a lightning-quick blow with his elbow, and stops a few centimeters from the face.
When you are on the street fighting, one thing applies. You must strike first. I sat and smiled at Calvin until the last second. But then it crashed.
Christen Ager-Hanssen swept into the Norwegian public over 20 years ago as Norway’s richest. He is still a billionaire, according to himself. He lives alone in London’s Belgravia.
Ager-Hanssen is seemingly limitless when he fights. In addition to internal documents and covert footage, Ager-Hanssen has published a video of Craig Wright himself — in full dress and white — on the dance floor to Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.” Few would be able to describe the dance as graceful.
nChain has commented on the former boss net use recently.
“We are disappointed that Mr. Ager-Hanssen has chosen to act in this way.”
Calvin Ayre is more direct. And like his new nemesis, he’s on Twitter a lot. One message mentions Ager-Hanssen by his initials.
“CAH is just a dysfunctional con man… he is not the real deal.”
In another tweet, he comments on the California billionaires’ lawsuit against Craig Wright, pretending to accuse the alleged “fraudster” of having been in cahoots with them all along. But something has happened to the communication strategy. A number of the messages in which Ayre fired at Ager-Hanssen and others who spread the message have been deleted from his Twitter account.
“Nothing is more embarrassing than watching a rightfully dismissed CEO in full meltdown on social media.”
Reads one message from earlier in October, which is now gone.
The rumor
Bain partner Lars Jacob Bø and Ager-Hanssen’s long-time friend are uncomfortable with the means in the fight against Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright.
I don’t think anything of some of the measures. But I respect Christen and his ability to wage such wars. My advice falls short here. I have never been in such wars, will never seek them out, nor do I know how to fight them. But it is important for Christen to get his narrative out based on facts.
Says Bø.
Lars Jacob Bø at the consulting company Bain is an adviser to several of the most powerful CEOs in Norwegian business. For 45 years he has been one of Christen Ager-Hanssen’s close friends. Photo: Mikaela Berg
I had no other choice but to use such means. Recording was the only way to document this.
Says Christen Ager-Hanssen. Although Bø is unfamiliar with Ager-Hanssen’s methods, he is full of praise for his abilities as a businessman.
I find him to be an extremely intelligent and skilled businessman. He inspires many.
DN: His reputation is not very good in Norway?
The Korsgaard case destroyed a lot for Christen in Norway, even though in principle he won this dispute when Korsgaard was convicted. The two ate each other up. There were big reports. Christen’s reputation in Norway was ruined. That is probably the reason why he permanently established himself in London. He has a good reputation there. He has operated here since the late 1990s. Christen is a strategic advisor to some of the most prominent and influential people and organizations in the world.
Says Bø.
Christen Ager-Hanssen would like to see that his reputation in Norway is different.
I know I’m different. I know I’m extreme. But that’s how I am. I can’t do anything about it. I don’t change Google Search like many others. My reputation is what it is, but it has also given me many opportunities in life. I will do what I think is right. That doesn’t mean I can’t make mistakes.
Says Ager-Hanssen.
Someone took legal action?
Ten days have passed since the interview with Dagens Næringsliv in London. DN is trying to get in touch with Christen Ager-Hanssen.
I cannot talk to you about the matter any more, he says.
DN: Why?
I’m sorry. I can’t talk. My lips are sealed.
Christen Ager-Hanssen worked in secret from inside nChain with audio recordings.
This week several of Christen Ager-Hanssen’s twitter messages have been deleted. The website where Ager-Hanssen has published the whistleblower report has also been taken down. On Twitter, Ager-Hanssen published this message later that day:
“I’m sorry that I will not be very vocal for a short while but I will still be on X to repost other people’s opinions”
He wrote, followed by this quote from Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced”.
The first comment came shortly after from Twitter user 1CHI3F:
Thanks for reading.
