The Tale Of A BSV Culture Shock: Why Both Craig Wright And Christen Ager-Hanssen Have Left nChain
Buckle up: an indepth dive into the surprising line of events following CEO Christen Ager-Hanssen unexpectedly leaving nChain
Friday September 29, 2023 was mostly a quiet, almost boring day when it comes to news about Craig Wright and his Bitcoin Cash knockoff BSV. This mood remained solid as a rock until we reached the evening.
Because, at 18:36 sharp we could suddenly find a rather shocking announcement on the nChain website. And this announcement set a surprising line of events in motion with an entertainment value never seen before in the BSV realm.
Written by Arthur van Pelt
ABOUT EDITS to this article: as more material may become available after the publication of this article, it could have edits and updates every now and then. In that sense, this article can be considered a work in progress, and become a reference piece for years to come.
Why shocking, the reader might ask? Because nChain’s CEO Christen Ager-Hanssen was at the arrival of this moment in time known by most, both business friends and — foes, as a firm BSV fan and, at first glance, also a very dedicated Craig Wright apologist. Who doesn’t remember the report that Christen was supposed to write late 2022, a report that would contain the ultimate proof that Craig Wright is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto and that would see the light of day on December 31, 2022 (but asked about that Craig-is-Satoshi report early 2023, Christen explained it had been released, but it was kept in small circles as it was not meant for public release)?
At second glance there was a lot more going on though. We will come to learn that in recent months Christen Ager-Hanssen has become more the type of a whistleblowing Trojan horse who has made a complete U-turn on his previous stances about Craig Wright, and to a certain extent also about Calvin Ayre, which ultimately costed him the nChain CEO position.
nChain Statement on departure of Christen Ager-Hanssen
“London 29th September: The Board of the blockchain technology, IP licensing and consulting services company, nChain, confirms it has parted company with Christen Ager-Hanssen. The Board has appointed Stefan Matthews to retake the executive reins as acting CEO, in addition to his position as Chairman, with immediate effect.” — nChain UK Ltd website
A day later, on Saturday September 30, 2023, we could find a follow up to this announcement on the nChain website as apparently something had happened. And indeed. In what would become a little rollercoaster of revealing tweets, Christen Ager-Hanssen first tweeted the following message shortly after the nChain announcement.
“I can confirm I have departed from @nChainGlobal as its Group CEO with immediate effect after reporting several serious issues to the board of nChain Group including what I believe is a conspiracy to defraud nChain shareholders orchestrated by a significant shareholder. I also had concerns about the ultimate beneficiary shareholder and the real people behind DW Discovery fund registered in Cayman. The chairman also took instructions from shadow directors which I didn’t accept.
I have also reported that I have found compelling evidence that Dr Craig Wright has manipulated documents with the aim to deceive the court he is Satoshi. I’m today myself convinced that Dr Craig Wright is NOT Satoshi and I’m persuaded he will lose all his legal battles.
The board didn’t take action and my job becomes clearly untenable. One of the things I recommended the Chairman of the board was to sack Dr Craig Wright.
I feel sorry for all the great people that work in the company but I don’t want to be part of something I clearly don’t believe in. #faketoshi”
So on Saturday September 30, 2023 nChain followed up with a statement on their website.
nChain Company Statement
“London 30th September: The Board has been made aware of statements made against the company overnight by its former CEO, following his summary dismissal last week. We are disappointed Mr. Ager-Hanssen has chosen to conduct himself in this way.
The facts are that concerns regarding the recent stewardship of the business, led the board to commission a detailed and independent investigation. The Board received, considered and acted on findings from that investigation. It is inappropriate to comment on these findings, which are confidential.
Prior to the Board acting on the investigation’s conclusions, on September 27 Mr. Ager Hanssen conducted himself in a serious and inappropriate manner which prompted the decision to dismiss Mr. Ager-Hanssen with immediate effect. This was communicated to Mr. Ager-Hanssen the same day.
The Board is determined that nothing will destabilise its well-resourced, innovative and growing company leading the way in global Blockchain technology and Web3 development. Our clients can be confident that we are led by executives with a strong vision and purpose, who themselves are supported by globally-renowned R&D experts and diligent employees. We are all focused on exploiting the company’s vast IP library to help industries across the world to benefit from the security, transparency and scalability of the blockchain. We will not be diverted from this mission.
Separately, the Board has received a document from Mr. Ager-Hanssen highlighting his purported concerns. The Board takes its regulatory responsibilities extremely seriously and, while it does not concur with any of the assertions made by Mr Ager-Hanssen, it nonetheless determined to authorise an independent external review of the document’s contents, which is now underway.
The company will not be commenting further until this review is completed.”
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin community remained razor blade sharp. Twitter user Cornokun (“Bitcoin class of 2011” as he states himself) notes that the whole Board of nChain has changed on Friday September 29, 2023 in the afternoon. Because the archived snapshot of the nChain About Us page on Friday morning is very different from the archived snapshot of the exaxt same page on the Friday afternoon.
By the way, and as a little sidenote to this story, I couldn’t help noticing that the nChain About Us page currently shows the following information at the top of the page.
Do we all notice it says ‘250+ Permanent Employees’? Yes? Okay.
Now notice the official nChain Accounts filings at UK Companies House. The red box was added by the undersigned.
Indeed. More than half of nChain’s employees are suddenly missing. This appears to be a case where either the nChain Financial department needs to update the nChain Marketing department, or the nChain Marketing department, knowing the real figures, decided to firmly adjust the truth in their Marketing material. Knowing who’s running the show in BSV land, I have a rather good idea in what direction we have to look here…
Anyway. Back to the Board on Friday September 29, 2023. No less than five people are missing between the two snapshots, in other words half the nChain Board is gone between the Friday morning and the Friday evening: Christen Ager-Hanssen, Craig Wright, Peter Coulson, Leandro Nunes and Andy Moody all appear to have left the company on or around Friday, and they were deleted from the About Us page accordingly on this Friday.
At first there was what appeared as an extended radio silence around nChain, but at some point we will learn from Calvin Ayre what exactly happened with Christen, Craig and the other Board members.
First, what did Craig Wright have to say about the fact that he was kicked from nChain’s website? It appears that when the turmoil around Christen Ager-Hanssen started, Craig ‘decided’ it was also time for him to restructure himself out of the company. What a coincidence!
How about Calvin Ayre? How did he respond in public? I gathered several quotes from Twitter (but didn’t bother to keep track of all the individual tweets).
“Terminated by board resolution Wed 27th. Christen was fired by a board resolution Wed… I saw it myself. I have also seen the real report I got done when I took over contol that cause it. All that from Christen is just proof the real report is correct. nChain is now going to get all the support of my Ayre Group.
nChain is fine. I am the majority owner and I will now put in place Ayre Group management systems… the same as in all my other successful companies. Craig has created his own company but will continue to work with nChain. Full Speed ahead for BSV. Craig is fine…started his own company and they are working for nChain as technology advisor.
The ex CEO is publishing fictional documents but nChain has a full third party investigation underway of all of this. the restructuring of nChain will also proceed full speed to focus back on the technology and the ecosytem.
This is a social media melt down by one person… nChain is past this all already and is getting fully integrated into my group and will have all the resources of this.”
Now, let’s run down all the juicy “statements made against the company overnight” by Christen Ager-Hanssen. They basically focus around 4 different subjects:
- Fraudulent and unethical financial activities of ‘shadow director’ Calvin Ayre and others within nChain
- Craig Wright is certainly not Satoshi Nakamoto
- Witness tampering, focused around Lynn Wright
- Last but not least: a very revealing email from Calvin Ayre to Craig Wright about the deterioration of their financial relationship
There appears to be a so-called whistleblower report aptly named “THE FAIRWAY BRIEF”. Christen would later explain on Twitter (recently renamed to ‘X’ by current owner Elon Musk) that the inspiration for the report title came from the movie titled ‘ The Pelican Brief’.
Christen Ager-Hanssen further explains on Twitter:
“The Group Management of nChain Global which consists of six persons did a serious whistleblow to the board of nChain Global collectively signed off 26 September. Thereafter we got then either dismissed or suspended by the same people we reported about. Despite the fact that Calvin Ayre is a minority owner on paper he act as he owns 100% of the company. (I have taken out names below). I’m horrified to see Calvin Ayre threatening us all by scaring people off from doing their obvious duty. I’m horrified, shocked and obviously scared for my life. Going public is very hard but the right thing to do. I still believe in the technology but it does not exist because of Craig. Other people been involved such as Steve Shadders.
Part Extract from Group Management meeting 26 September that the board try to quiet down.
…31) nChain Group’s Management further unanimously demanded that the situation is addressed by the following actions:
a) that CAH arranges for an emergency Board Meeting of HEH Holding to be called within 10 working days to fully brief the Board and discuss these very serious matters, including, but not limited to:
i) the 17 July Transaction; and
ii) how nChain can best mitigate the fall-out from an adverse decision in the COPA case.
b) to ensure that the existing Agreements of the 17 July Transaction be voided / cancelled;
c) that to the extent required by nChain Group’s business requirements, new agreements in their place should be urgently negotiated between nChain Group and representatives of the Family Office and Indigo and entered into only after proper corporate governance procedures have been followed;
d) that _____________ steps down from the Board with immediate effect as required by HEH Holding’s Board Regulations 7.2 when there is permanent conflict of interest.
e) that the _______________, be dismissed for gross misconduct;
f) that FINMA be informed of the wrongdoing by Calvin’s Family Office;
g) that Corporate Governance be improved by strengthening independence of directors, including:
New Family Office director (with requisite integrity) and further independent non-executive director(s) to be appointed to Board.
Chairman of the Board to be an independent non-executive director… Calvin #MeToo #BSV”
“I started working on this brief 1 of August this year when I got aware of the conspiracy. Since then collecting evidence.
IN SHORT
UNCOVERING THE 17TH JULY CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE STAKEHOLDERS OF HEH HOLDING AG AND IT’S SUBSIDIARIES
This is a Whistleblowing Report to the board of HEH Holding AG by the Group CEO, Christen Ager-Hanssen to inform the board that I have been horrified to discover that Calvin Ayre, Marco Bianchi and the Fairway Family Office have perpetrated a criminal conspiracy by which they have put in place a sophisticated mechanism, disguised from easy insight and discovery, through a set of contrived and unauthorised transactions put in place solely for the purpose that Calvin Ayre’s wholly owned company, Indigo IP Holding Limited, should be able to extract and take over all of nChain Group’s IP (and main line of business) at a significant undervalue.”
In a few other tweets Christen will leak several quotes and images from the whistleblowing report.
Extract from THE FAIRWAY BRIEF
“He (Stefan Matthews) further stated, “I am used to cleaning up these type of things so don’t worry, I am sure we will be able to amend the agreement at a later stage.” This accords with how Chairman Stefan Matthews saw himself and the way he regularly portrayed himself to me. Chairman Stefan Matthews describes himself as the character Wolf of Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar winning 1994 film Pulp Fiction. Wolf is a professional cleaner and fixer who tidies up other people’s mess and who the internet describes as the ultimate problem- solver who covers up suspicious looking evidence and the person who knows how to get rid of the bodies. I’m sure Stefan Matthews is doing anything now to get rid of all evidence but I’m happy that I recall every word he told me and have meticulously noted down what he & Calvin Ayre said the last couple of months. I’m maybe shocked but I smelled something was not right. This is how crooked people act when they panic.”
To explain:
“In summary, the 17 July Transaction constitutes:
1) three contrived and interlinked transactions;
2) “negotiated” and documented by Calvin’s Family Office under leadership of Marco Bianchi without the input or approval of nChain Group’s CEO and Management;
3) the true nature of which is shielded from easy insight and discovery by the Board;
4) instigated and put in place by Marco Bianchi and Calvin’s Family Office;
5) by deliberately deceiving and manipulating the Board;
6) for the sole benefit of Indigo, HEH Holding’s 1/3rd shareholder;
7) enabling Indigo to extract and take over all of nChain Group’s IP (and main line of business) at a significant undervalue;”
Then Christen Ager-Hanssen announces:
Another revelation that Christen is posting on Twitter is about Craig Wright’s ex-wife Lynn Wright. It is at this moment unsure if this material is also part of the whistleblowing report.
“I will soon launch an email from Calvin Ayre talking about his deal with Craig Wright’s ex wife Lynn Wright. I never met Lynn and after this email the last person on earth i wanted to meet was here. We was paralysed and chocked to hear that Calvin Ayre was prepared to pay people off to create his own narrative in court in relation to Craig Wright. I knew I had to whistleblow this otherwise I would have been complicit with Calvin tampering with witnesses for the purpose of getting people to believe Craig Wright is Satoshi. If successful in this task Calvin Ayre had a deal [note author: with Craig Wright] that will give him 50% of the original Satoshi coins. I have this document too. I don’t mind fighting for what I believe in but no money in the world will get me to do this. He offered MR Ali Zafar, Kings Counsel and me 100M USD each to help him win the case but we were of course not prepared to get witnesses to lie about fact. We were very clear to Calvin Ayre if Craig Wright use his keys and come clean on all fraudulent documents he created the he can win the case otherwise he will loose. #Faketoshi”
“Lynn claim she get paid 30M USD if Craig Wright win. Email to Calvin Ayre.”
Among the other noteworthy revalations of Christen Ager-Hanssen is an email about which Christen claims that “This email is not from me to Craig it was from someone funding Craig”, so we can already know beforehand that it is most likely an email from Calvin Ayre to Craig Wright.
And looking at the style and content (and Calvin’s classic signature at the end of the email) I can indeed confirm that this is extremely likely a 1 to 1 copy of the text of a genuine Calvin Ayre email. Presuming this was a private conversation between Calvin and Craig only, the question remains: who the actual fork forwarded this email to Christen to enable him leaking the content?
But then, on October 1, 2023 this mystery was solved by Christen Ager-Hanssen himself.
My first thought reading this Ager Hanssen tweet was: This is fucking delicious. This is why Calvin Ayre is not denying the existence nor denying any of the content of this email. And what an utter embarrasment for Stefan Matthews that his connection to the leak of the email has been made public. Ouch.
On Reddit, we also find some comments to this tweet by HootieMCBEUB and Minus_Minos. Copying those two comments here in full, because they catch the current dynamics in the camp of the BSV/Craig Wright criticasters pretty well. Couldn’t have said it better, so to say.
“I’m getting that feeling that this is an attempt by Calvin to cover his name and reputation when Craig explodes. Craig obviously has nothing to lose and it seems like the writing is on the wall regarding the COPA lawsuit in that Craig will lose that one also.
The mention of a “Harvard signing” is the first we’ve heard of such details. It seems to me that this email paints Calvin in a somewhat innocent light that he wasn’t behind a scheme to simply fit Craig into the Satoshi narrative knowing he didn’t invent Bitcoin.
The reference to “the keys” and pretending to not have access to them.
Harvard signing. Did Craig really think he could pull off a signing at Harvard? Why would Harvard host such an event in the first place?
I really think that CAH is simply a pawn in all of this to get that email public and whitewash Calvin’s involvement in Craig’s fraud.
Then Reddit user Minus_Minos replies:
I’m getting that feeling that this is an attempt by Calvin to cover his name and reputation when Craig explodes.
This is too convoluted and unnecessary a set of actions imo to reinforce something a decent chunk of people already believe: that Calvin’s a moron stuck deep into the sunk cost fallacy getting scammed by an advance fee scammer, and not some mastermind who’s come up with a brilliant decades long plot to somehow profit off the world’s most obvious fake while seemingly hemorrhaging hundreds of millions.
It seems to me that this email paints Calvin in a somewhat innocent light
Not that innocent though. The Craig he’s depicting is Satoshi, albeit a scammer Satoshi who deliberately submits forged evidence and needs Calvin’s wealth and media astroturfing to stay out of jail.”
Okay, dear reader, after all these teasers and comments, here it is. Probably the hottest piece of information enclosed in this article: the full September 23, 2023 email from Calvin Ayre to Craig Wright.
My TL;DR for the impatient:
Calvin Ayre asserts that Craig Wright will lose all his lawsuits, he found out that Tulip Trust has no coins and Craig will never be able to do any payback to him, and Calvin indicates that he will stop funding Craig Wright’s legal spree unless Craig finally signs a Satoshi address.
And we learn that Calvin Ayre has kids.
“[Christen:] I wonder who sent this email and who it was sent to. It was forwarded to me by someone. Headline was as follows;
“My last direct communication on this issue. Please read carefully.”
[Christen:] Dated 23 September. Judge by yourself please:
“As I sit here I am on a beach in Southern Spain. I have a good life. I have every intention of keeping it this way. Right now the only negative in my life is your litigation disaster (and getting old but that one I cannot fix). I will accept your explanation that you did not actually threaten me so the following is the situation we find ourselves in.
I have been operating under the assumption that you and Ramona have the keys and that you were simply pretending not to have them as part of some strategy that you have trapped yourself in. But now that we are looking at a situation where continuing to deny you have them ruins your life and damages your supporters, I am forced to make a tough decision. It no longer matters if you have the keys or not as it is my opinion based on advice from Zafar and others that you cannot win the COPA trial if you do not sign at Harvard so I have no choice in what I have to do.
This of course will also mean that you lose all the other cases (other than maybe the token theft case… but to me losing COPA even puts this at risk) as COPA will set precedent that you are not Satoshi in law. All IP other than nChain patents will disappear. This means that you are not going to be able to get a court to declare that you own any tokens either. We have also verified that there is no complete paper trail evidencing the trust owning any tokens. This after nearly a year of Zurich reviewing all the evidence you have. This means you cannot repay me the money you owe me for all the litigation to date. This means every cent spent on your cases is me pissing away my kids inheritance. If you have the keys, your best play is to now use them. Going to jail for perjury but having the entire world accept you are a flawed Satoshi is infinitely better than losing this case and only being considered likely to be a flawed Satoshi after your death by historians as no other realistic person is ever found. However, its my opinion that once the world accepts you are a flawed Satoshi, everything changes and all of this just goes away. I can make it all go away in fact. There is zero reason to continue to pretend you do not have the keys if you really have them. Side bonus is that using the keys in this way, combined with verdict in Florida will likely be a accepted replacement for proper paper work for financial institutions.
So either you are a moron for intentionally losing this case, or you are a moron for actually not having the keys… either way, I am not following you over the cliff… and I actually have concerns with Stefan even being a witness as I know what they will do to him for this. My opinion in having watched this play out over the years is that its clear you are hopelessly bad at litigation. The ONLY reason you won in Florida is the other side got greedy and tried to both steal your shit and ruin your reputation and this was conflicting agendas and so confused the jury. The other side will not be making this mistake in London.
To me I am doing you and your supporters a favor…. I will cover this in CG as us still being sure you are Satoshi even as its clear that you were run over by the combined forces of Silicon Valley, US payments companies and the entire Crypto world. We will say that we believe you did forge some documents to replace ones you destroyed earlier to try to pretend you were not Satoshi. We will say this is because your Asperger’s makes you not think and act like an adult. You are like a super smart Teenager. This is not how this would play out in the media if we spend toe to toe with COPA and they still win which is what is most likely… in addition to the massive waste of my kids wealth…
Its clear that once you lose you will need me more than ever. I will be the only one standing between your family and the soup kitchen. At least at the moment, depending on how self-destructive you get, I am not stopping my funding of the Association, the ecosystem or nChain and you, in fact this decision makes funding them a lot easier for me. From my perspective this decision improves everything now. Your continuing to accept this funding is your acceptance that our existing deal is still valid and that you agree with me that my stopping funding a lost cause is not a violation on my side. You are further agreeing that you personally will pay me back for all the money I have spent on your project even if the trust never gets any tokens.
I do not believe this case is fundable in any other way, I do not believe you will even be able to get a competent law firm to work with you on this as I expect all the lawyers to bail once they know I am out. The analysis above will be done by everyone and they are coming to the same conclusion. However, I will support any new funding options you can find if this is your wish just send the plan to Alain and I. I do not expect this to happen however as you have made yourself just to toxic for this and your enemies have piled on in branding you as such… they are ever so gleeful with every round you pinch off into your own feet. As I said above… I believe what I am doing is actually tough love, its definitely not meant to hurt you and it will actually help you looking at this from where I am sitting. The lawyers all dropping you because you ran out of funding is the best case scenario that I can see if you cannot do a Harvard signing.
By the way… you lost both contempt of court cases. Christen was the one that saved you and you are acting like you are too selfish and ignorant to even understand this. I don’t believe you have even thanked anyone. Both of these contempt’s would have been used against you in all other cases.
C……”
Let’s be clear once more: this is no one but Calvin Ayre genuinely lashing out to Craig Wright. There are no other known sponsors of Craig’s legal spree, and we see a characteristic of Calvin at the end of the email: a signature that says C……
So how do we know that the siganture “C……” is actually the signature of Calvin Ayre? We know that for sure from several emails found in the Kleiman v Wright court docket of CourtListener in the USA. The image below shows 2 emails of Calvin Ayre dated June 18, 2015, which is the era when Calvin was lured into Craig’s fraudulent scheme of financial deception, 1Feex paper wallet and many other Bitcoin related forgeries, and let’s not forget about the Bitcoin inventor cosplay that Calvin finally appears not to take for granted anymore.
And we can also conclude that after more than 8 years, Calvin is still using “C…..” to sign off on his emails.
On October 2, 2023 we finally get very conclusive evidence from Christen Ager-Hanssen that indeed the Calvin-to-Craig email is genuine, and was forwarded to him by Stefan Matthews. Christen tweets out:
“BREAKING: Calvin Ayre email to Craig Wright forward to me by Stefan Matthews 23 September 2:18pm. Shocking evidence! Judge for yourself but according to Calvin Ayre Craig Wright threatened Calvin.”
And he adds the following 3 images to his tweet.
Also Calvin Ayre admits indirectly on October 2, 2023 that the September 23, 2023 email (which he calls “the letter”) is genuine. It’s simply amazing that Calvin knows that he won’t be paid back by Craig Wright from the non-existing coins in the non-existing trust, and Calvin halts paying Craig’s legal costs because Craig refuses to sign as Satoshi, and Calvin even expresses his doubts that Craig even owns the Satoshi private keys…
But, Craig Wright is still Satoshi Nakamoto. This is a level of braindead that is not to be explained anymore with normal reason.
But Christen Ager-Hanssen was not done yet with Calvin Ayre on October 2, 2023. To add insult to injury, he posted another email from Calvin Ayre. The MOV file attachment that Calvin added to the email is showing Calvin Ayre performing a little joyful dance.
On October 3, 2023 Christen Ager-Hanssen leaked another (part of a) Calvin Ayre email dated September 26, 2023, explaining that he was serious with his intentions expressed in his email to Craig Wright on September 23, 2023. All funding of Craig Wright related lawsuits by Calvin Ayre has stopped.
Not only was Christen Ager-Hanssen tweeting for quite a bit to feed the ongoing online drama, he also showed up in a few public Twitter Spaces meetings on and after Friday the 29th. During the first Spaces he joined on Friday the 29th, Christen declared that Craig Wright is plagiarizing his patents with help of ChatGPT, and he’s forcing/bribing his name & signature on patents that he didn’t work on… So yeah, these are quite the accusations, but I think, knowing Craig Wright, that these accusations are closer to the truth as to the halftruth or untruth.
On Reddit, we found a little transcript of someone called StealthyExcellent who apparently attended this Friday Spaces session. His report of the event appears very truthful.
“Christen Ager-Hanssen speaking on a Twitter Spaces now:
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1nAJEammXVbJL/peek
EDIT: His stay on the spaces was quite short. I did my best to transcribe what he said on the fly, but didn’t do a great job so sorry about that. There will probably be a recording when they’ve finished anyway. Anything with a question mark (?), I’m not quite sure if he said that specifically.
Christen said that Craig gave him a hard drive of evidence on Sunday(?) and Christen realized it was terrible and that Craig isn’t Satoshi and he’s going to lose all of his lawsuits.
Christen said that BSV tech is good. It scales.
Q: So you don’t believe CSW is Satoshi but you believe BSV is a good technology?
CAH: I believe it’s a good technology and it works.
CAH: I’ve seen manipulated documents. Maybe he deleted things and tried to recreate it, but I don’t believe he’s Satoshi. And they panicked. I have emails from Calvin saying that they’re panicking.
CAH: I demanded they remove Craig and they removed him. We can’t have shadow directors running at nChain(?).
CAH: The trust is bullshit. It’s really Calvin and Craig behind that trust(?).
Q: How do you explain Craig’s technical knowledge, such as on the theory of bitcoin series?
CAH: I will comment on that later on.
Q: What was the sequence of events? Were you fired and then Craig fired?
CAH: Craig got fired first. I was a whistleblower, I wasn’t fired.
CAH: I’m going to write a book about this. There was a proper report, a proper whistleblowing report about all of the shareholders at nChain.
CAH: Craig uses AI for his inventions and patents. At nChain, Craig forged his signature on a lot of patents that were not his.
EDIT: I remember CAH also said at one point that he thinks Craig’s lawyers will all withdraw.”
In another post a day later by this same Reddit user, StealthyExcellent puts a disclaimer on the person of Christen Ager-Hanssen. Those who have read my article “How They Framed Lawyer Kyle Roche” know why people sometimes urge to be careful when dealing with Christen.
PSA: If anyone is meeting with Christen Ager-Hanssen, be smart!
“If any lawyer or party to litigation is planning on meeting with Christen Ager-Hanssen in order to hear what he has to say about Craig Wright and nChain, please make sure to keep it formal. Don’t get wined and dined. Don’t drink. Don’t joke around and make unprofessional comments. You’re there to listen to what he has to say, not the other way around.
Keep in mind that it’s always possible this whole thing is just a ploy by Ager-Hanssen, Ayre, and Wright to befriend the lawyers and parties on the other side who have let their guards down, and then catch them saying unprofessional things on a hidden camera. It might sound paranoid and it probably is, but Ager-Hanssen has a history of being involved in exactly this kind of thing. If you’re not aware, look up Roche Freedman, cryptoleaks.info #3, and Ager-Hanssen’s relationship to it. Then look up how Craig Wright used it against Ira Kleiman.
The probability might be low (I personally don’t believe it is the case), but the small risk is worth mitigating against anyway by simply keeping things formal. The cases against Craig are strong enough as is, so you probably don’t even need whatever Ager-Hanssen might be offering, and you definitely don’t need to be drinking and making any stupid comments around him.”
Then, our friends from BitMex Research reported about the Saturday Spaces, the second one that Christen attended.
“Live update on the @agerhanssen & CSW situation.
On a Twitter spaces on Saturday evening, @agerhanssen said that he no longer supports CSW due to Faketoshi’s performance in a mock practise trial last week for the COPA case. During cross examination, the KC [note author: King’s Counsel] is said to have “torn CSW apart” about documents CSW faked. Therefore @agerhanssen believes defeat in the COPA case is likely.
@agerhanssen mentioned that he “hates @CalvinAyre and has zero respect for him” and hopes he leaves the ecosystem. When @agerhanssen started working as nChainCEO, he thought Calvin only owned c9% of nChain. However, Calvin was trying to excercise control. @agerhanssen did not want to work for Calvin, but wanted to report to the board and chairman.
@agerhanssen confirmed that he claims the below email was sent from Calvin to Craig [note author: please scroll up for the full “As I sit here I am on a beach in Southern Spain. I have a good life.” email from Calvin to Craig on September 23, 2023]
Christen published the below ownership structure for nChain. The DW fund owns 55.7% and Christen questioned Calvin on this, but it was “just a Cayman hedge fund” and not clear who the owner was.
On 8th August 2023, a filing at UK Companies House indicates that Calvin did indeed own and control nChain.
@agerhanssen is of the following opinions:
* He still believes in BSV
* He thinks CSW may have been “somehow involved with” Satoshi
* He thinks CSW did fake documents
* He believes in BSV technology, due to energy efficiency and transaction speed
* He does not think Calvin or CSW are the best people to take BSV forwards
@agerhanssen says he does not want to take legal action against nChain and wants to stay working in the BSV ecosystem
@agerhanssen says he helped get CSW off on contempt of court charges, by using his network to get CSW a lawyer who specialises in contempt of court. This is something @agerhanssen now regrets.”
On a sidenote, depending on how this “mock practise trial” was organized and executed, it might have been an impermissible coaching session.
The UK has clear guidelines (Witness Preparation Guidance by The Bar Council) how such a practise/coaching session should be done. It remains the question at this moment if Craig Wright’s current counsel Travers Smith from London followed these guidelines. If not, they are open to an ‘unethical conduct’ or likewise complaint.
BitMex Research also attended and reported about the third Twitter Spaces with Christen Ager-Hanssen on Monday, where they learned the following from Christen.
“We are listening to another Christen Ager-Hanssen Twitter spaces so you don’t have to. CAH is going to write a book about all this. It is a super interesting case and a big fraud, which Calvin and Craig colluded together to do.
[Note author: the second tweet from the thread is in the following image]
CAH: Craig was completely demolished in the COPA mock preparation trial. After the mock trial and increasing pressure to find the keys, Craig said he found a new hard drive with “serious shit” on it. Then CAH found the search history, where CSW searched how to fake documents.
CAH: I was offered $100m to win this case, but I do not believe in it so won’t do it.
CAH: CSW fraudulently created a lot of documents. He wont even come clean on that. I still believe he had something to do with Satoshi, but he faked documents.
CAH: Calvin has a deal with CSW, where Calvin owns 50% of any coins recovered.
CAH: I still believe in BSV technology and still believe Dave Kleiman had something to do with Satoshi. BSV is the only interesting blockchain.
CAH: I was paid GBP 3 million a year to run nChain. I don’t give a shit. I don’t care about money.
CAH: CSW lied under cross examination. He looked like the biggest fucking fool. My cat could do better.”
And indeed, to show that Christen did not completely lost faith in BSV, the tech, he reposted a tweetstorm by someone who calls him- or herself ‘Nico’.
“The BSV community is full of visionaries and technical expertise. I am thankful for the people I have learned from at nChain and across the community. However, a problem is the usability of BSV being ultimately maintained by a dishonest central authority — say Dishonest People.
BSV’s utility, empowered by ecosystem, is not compromised by the identity of Satoshi. BSV is a blockchain that achieves utility with scalability. Yet, the Dishonest People should be incriminated for impersonating Satoshi Nakamoto, for its negative impact on blockchain industry.
Unfortunately, the same Dishonest People maintain the viability and usability of BSV infrastructure. BSV node infrastructure is compromised by a dishonest central authority — hopefully the launch of Terrranode can free this market.
How do you expect Large Institutions and Governments to adopt BSV infrastructure if it is maintained by a group of dishonest and INCRIMINATABLE people? CAH’s leadership brought this to light, and in an attempt to resolve this matter, the Dishonest People removed him.
CAH’s mission was to bring Large Institutions and Governments the confidence to adopt BSV’s utilitarian and scalable infrastructure. In light of the visionary and technical expertise at BSV ecosystem, CAH could not achieve his mission without denouncing BSV Dishonest People.
CAH recognized the importance of nChain’s Intellectual Property (IP) value. It is the golden pot to achieving and demonstrating unbounded utility with the support of Large Institutions and Governments. nChain did not deploy its IP in a hostile fashion.
Rather, nChain positioned itself as a strategic partner to BSV ecosystem projects it valued to achieve adoption from Large Institutions and Governments. More importantly, CAH positioned nChain’s IP as the instrument to achieve adoption from Large Institutions and Governments.
Patent registration authorities are third-party regulators and validators of innovative industries, and it is with their validation of nChain’s IP that Large Institutions and Governments obtain the confidence to enter the blockchain industry via BSV. CAH understood this.
It does not matter to BSV’s scalability and utility who Satoshi Nakamoto is. But, in turning a blind eye, and dismissing that the Dishonest People should be incriminated, the BSV ecosystem is compromising its utility and scalability.
CAH should not be condoned, he should be thanked for bringing to courts Truth, freeing BSV of its association to dishonest people, and, finally, allowing for its unbounded utility.
Support CAH :)”
Stefan Matthews
By the way, do you know who has been eerily quiet during all this turmoil?
Indeed, Stefan Matthews.
After his last tweets on September 25, 2023 (remember, the whistleblowing report was presented and discussed on September 26, 2023), Stefan only managed to squeeze the following reaction from his brain on Twitter. The reply by ‘Luke’ is nothing short of an epic burn.
Because, what is Stefan Matthews role so far in this nChain soap?
On October 4, 2023 Christen tweeted a few handfuls of quotes from a recording that he made of a conversation with Stefan.
Stefan Matthew small quotes:
“We are heading into a fucking train wreck on 15th of January”
“I was Mr Wolf” (Pulp Fiction)
“Marco (Marco Bianchi), is in my crosshair, I want to remove that guy, and if I do it right, Marco won’t actually understand it” about Marco (Marco Bianchi)
“He is the most uncompliant person on the planet”
”Thats why I need to get rid of Marco (Marco Bianchi)”
”Marco gave direction as to the types of things he wanted and the Conrad (Conrad Druzeta) worded it up”
“Marco was telling Conrad what to do”
“Conrad was sitting here like a nervous fucking girl, just doing whatever Marco told him to”
And much more. Marco’s full name is Marco Bianchi) and he is heading Calvin Ayre’s FINMA regulated family office, Fairway Family Office AG. Conrad’s full name is Conrad Druzeta and Calvin personal lawyer Robert full name is Robert Alizon in Calvin’s family office and part time nChain”
Christen also claims that he, together with Stefan Matthews, sacked Craig Wright on Sunday September 24, 2023 in the early evening.
“26 September Email to Calvin Ayre from Gary about how to position Craig Wright in a role outside nChain after he was sacked Sunday around 7pm by me and Stefan Matthews.”
Christen followed up on Tuesday October 3, 2023 with the leak of a recording of a conversation that he had with Stefan Matthews on September 12, 2023.
Note that the first word ‘Breaking’ contains the link to the tweet of Christen Ager-Hanssen. After that, you will find the original follow up tweet starting with “This is the tape recording from 12th September of me confronting Stefan Matthews…”.
“Breaking: Tape recording from 12th September coming out soon with me telling Stefan Matthews @TurkeyChop that the license agreement orchestrated by @CalvinAyre and the Family office headed by Marco Bianchi was a Conspiracy to defraud shareholders. Nico that is mentioned in the recording is Nicolas Wellinger and Jürg mentioned in the tape is Jürg Hunziker an independent board member of nChain @nChainGlobal and also a board member of @juliusbaer”
Meanwhile, the sheer panic rippling through the remains of nChain that just lost half of their Board members is visible in things like these. Mark Hunter, the main host of the Dr Bitcoin — The Man Who Wasn’t Satoshi Nakamoto podcast, figured out that in true Faketoshi style, the nChain history has been rewritten between certain points in time.
Another side effect of the nChain turmoil is that people like Steve Shadders, in general very neutral, almost humble, about his career till November 2021 as CTO at nChain, woke up on October 5, 2023 and decided to subtly murder the reputation of his ex-colleague that was already firmly in tatters.
And we close this long read with another tweet of Christen Ager-Hanssen himself, a tweet in which he explains what he expects for the near future.
“I will for sure write a book about my experiences. I think this picture illustrates everything that is going on in the BSV ecosystem. @CalvinAyre dealing with himself all the time. Calvin got very stressed when I told him that I had compelling evidence that Craig Wright is not Satoshi. Stefan Matthew told me he wanted to withdraw his witness statement in the Copa case and that nChain should distance themselves from CSW #faketoshi”
Recommended quality reads
Media: FullyCrypto
“nChain in Crisis as CEO Quits And Alleges Fraud”
“TradeWindow Threatens Embattled nChain With Legal Action”
Media: What The Finance
“Faketoshi Saga: Christen Ager-Hanssen Departs nChain Accusing Craig Wright”
“nChain Board Responds to Allegations by Former CEO Christen Ager-Hanssen”
“Leaked: Email from Calvin Ayre to Craig Wright Says He is Not Satoshi”
“Why $30 Billion Worth of BTC is Unlikely to Flood the Market”
“Faking Satoshi: Whistleblower Exposes Alleged Witness Tampering Deal”
“Faketoshi: New Explosive Allegations of Conspiracy & Fraud”
“Heading into a Train Wreck: Leaked Info in Search for the Real Satoshi”
Brief timeline summarizing notable events.
July 17, 2023: a suspicious nChain transaction appears.
August 1, 2023: Christen Ager-Hanssen starts inquiry into the July 17 transaction.
September 23, 2023: Calvin Ayre emails Craig Wright he intends stopping lawsuit funding. Stefan Matthews forwards this email to Christen Ager-Hanssen.
September 24, 2023: Around 7 pm Craig Wright sacked by Christen Ager-Hanssen and Stefan Matthews after accusations of fraud.
September 25, 2023: Craig Wright’s leave further formalised.
September 26, 2023: The Fairway Brief whistleblowing report released. Calvin Ayre confirms he has stopped funding Craig Wright.
September 27, 2023: The Fairway Brief discussed with Board nChain, who decides to sack Board members Christen Ager-Hanssen, Peter Coulson, Leandro Nunes and Andy Moody.
September 29, 2023: nChain announces leave of CEO Christen Ager-Hanssen, who then starts tweeting about fraud at nChain, Craig not being Satoshi, lawsuit witness tampering by Calvin Ayre et all, Calvin Ayre halting the funding of Craig Wright’s lawsuits etc.
September 30, 2023 — October 5, 2023 is for the major part included in this article. This article now describes the first (almost) full week of the aftermath of the announcement that Christen Ager-Hanssen had left nChain as CEO.
Of course I’ll keep track of all the developments, and I will write a follow up next week. Hopefully we will see The Stairway Brief being released in full.
Thanks for reading, guys, see you soon!