One interesting implication of this fiasco: If Wright provides no further evidence, he claim will certainly be rejected as inadequate by the bitcoin community (and eventually everyone else), as it ought to be based on what we've seen so far. And that means that Jon and Gavin will have severely damaged their own reputations. Who will trust them after this?
I know Gavin in particular has faced a lot of criticism for his approach to resolving the blocksize debate. As a non-techie, I've always figured he should be accorded a lot of respect for his early role in bitcoin development, even when I disagreed with his politics in the blocksize debate. But I think he and Jon will find terribly few friends after this if Wrights claim remains in the present state.
Thjs pretty much encapsulates my thoughts as well.
A couple extra comments though:
1) The simplicity and finality of signing something with the key he purports to have means that Craig either does not have the key, or has the key but does not wish to 100% prove his identity. In the latter case, he'd be better off just stating that rather than attempting to fool people as he has done. I suspect the former is the truth - he does not have the key.
2) I find it astonishing that gavin is willing to finalize his reputation crash and burn in the way we are seeing. The user knowledge required to successfully execute a message signature verification is not rocket science. I'm prepared to believe he has no cryptography background, but this little? Craig must have been a VERY fast talker to have managed to avoid that simple requirement.
