Civil restraint order hearing this morning for Craig Wright. He’s not even opposing it. I think he’s done. Not sure if anyone is going to be there to report it. I certainly can’t be bothered.

I’ve given up X for Lent. If anyone wants me, I’ll be here.

I commissioned the great @MaxisClub to create a drawing of me battling Faketoshi. I am very happy with the result. What do you think? Can you identify all the references?

How is nChain doing in terms of patenting at the European Patent Office? So far, they have 143 granted patents that are still in force (I got 3 revoked). 17 applications have been allowed and are waiting for the grant procedure to complete. There are 437 pending applications, which includes international applications yet to enter the European phase. A recent development over the past few months is that there are now increasing numbers of applications being deemed withdrawn, which happens when a deadline is not met, e.g. failing to respond to an examination report. This is now up to 21 applications, but I expect this will continue to rise. Another very recent development is some applications have apparently been dropped by not paying the latest renewal fee. This will also likely increase over the next few months. All this points towards some cost-saving measures being implemented as nChain transitions to becoming Teranode and they continue to attempt to write Craig Wright out of the story. Calvin is probably looking at seeing how he can lose less money on the venture going forward. Losing £9 million a year is a lot, even for a billionaire, especially when there is essentially no revenue. How much longer can this continue? Who knows.

With suspicions of accounting irregularities and more hanging over the company, it appears that the whole nChain structure is about to rebrand as Teranode, all under the control of Calvin Ayre of course. Whether this will do anything to wash off the stain left by Wright’s activities we shall have to wait and see. Remember the whole purpose of setting up the company was to monetise Wright’s fraudulent claim to be Satoshi. Teranode Limited only came into existence in September 2024 and appears to be another of Ayre’s companies, with a couple of his minions acting as directors.

TERANODE LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

TERANODE LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, offi...

nChain Limited’s accounts are now over a month overdue. This is getting serious. I wonder what they are trying to hide?

NCHAIN UK LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

NCHAIN UK LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, off...

Three weeks since the deadline for filing an appeal against the contempt judgment and still nothing. COPA’s barristers have heard nothing. Bitcoin devs have heard nothing. I think he’s finally done. Can we get on to perjury charges now, or is the CPS still too busy prosecuting people for saying bad things?

Still only 3 new GB applications filed in 2024. Clearly Calvin’s money is getting tight. View quoted note →

I think we have reached the stage, hopeless appeals notwithstanding, where Craig Wright can now be considered a Boggart. He is essentially no threat to anyone anymore. So, whenever he pops out of his closet to try and scare us, just cast a ridikulus spell to transform him into a clown. Either that or just ignore him. Both are appropriate responses now.

I have a feeling that quantum computing is like those perpetual motion machines people keep trying to make with complicated arrangements with magnets. No matter how much you try to iron out the errors you never actually get there. I suspect there is, like the laws of thermodynamics, a deeper truth in there somewhere. Something like: there is no way to find out things any faster than it is possible through normal means, because it is not possible to access other universes, even if they do exist.

This is also wonderful. Feynman was such a great, yet humble, man. Something we should all aspire to.

Horizon - 1981-1982: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out - BBC iPlayer

All elliptic curves are modular functions, therefore there are no whole number solutions to x^n+y^n=z^n where n>2. 🤯

Horizon - 1995-1996: Fermat's Last Theorem - BBC iPlayer

With all the talk about XRP recently, given my experience with nChain I thought I would take a look to see what Ripple Labs were doing in patents. At least as far as patenting activities in Europe goes, it looks like they are not really making much of an effort. Searching for Ripple Labs as applicant provides only 6 results (link below). It turns out that only one of these is pending, the rest having been dropped or refused. The one currently pending is a divisional of one that was previously refused, which doesn't sound very promising. Compared to nChain with their 640 cases and over 140 granted European patents, this is small beer indeed.

European Patent Register

Twenty five years ago today I (as Mark Anthony) was married to Cleopatra by Elvis in Las Vegas. Still going strong.

Any idea why the number of GB patent applications filed by nChain would suddenly fall from an average of around 70 per year to only 3 so far in 2024?

During oral proceedings at the EPO this week, the other side's attorneys made a couple of assertions. I have my own views but I'm not an expert in this field and would like to see what others think. The first assertion was that all transactions in Bitcoin inevitably contain an unlocking script. The second was that Ethereum doesn't have locking and unlocking scripts. These turned out to be irrelevant to the validity of the patent we were discussing (which got revoked anyway), but made me wonder whether the other side knew what they were talking about.

Normally in my work as a patent attorney, when I see a hugely long and specific claim 1 like this I will immediately wonder what idiot wrote that. In some cases, however, claiming an invention in such specific terms is absolutely what is required. In this case, claim 1 of US patent 6,829,355 defines what became known as SHA256, which will be well know to many here at least. There is only really one way of doing it, and that way became a widespread standard, so that's what the claim specified. The patent remained valid and in force up until the point it finally expired on 5 June 2023. The general principle of claiming the invention as broadly as possible, while mostly correct, does therefore have exceptions.

I have taken Mr Wright's ramblings seriously for once and have now become not just an irrelevant full node operator (with a Lightning node able to zap micropayments here, but Wright always seems to dismiss that) but I am now a miner too, thanks to a combination of Umbrel and Bitaxe. Currently mining with a hash rate of 618.2 GH/s!

Here I am being interviewed for the 4th time by Gavin about all things Faketoshi. @jack mallers kindly let me borrow his closet for the occasion.

GM all. I’m being interviewed by Gavin again later today, for the 4th time. Anything I should mention? Maybe I should just admit we’ve lost and Craig is Satoshi?

Arthur van Pelt and Mark Hunter must think I have something interesting to say because they invited me for the second time on the Dr Bitcoin podcast to talk about Craig Wright's patenting activities in Europe. Here's the latest episode, where I ramble at length about the oppositions Arthur and I have filed and what I think nChain are actually trying to do. Please give it a listen on Patreon, otherwise you will need to wait a little while before it appears on other platforms. If you want to help us out on the oppositions we have filed or help us file more, all contributions are welcome. https://www.patreon.com/posts/david-pearce-82862633