Stephen Mollah is “around 58” years old and claims to have invented or designed at least three things: Twitter’s bird logo, the eurobond, and bitcoin — the idea for the last of which came to him some 20 years ago during a walk in the Himalayas.
If you’re somewhat sceptical, you’re not alone. Mollah and his associate Charles Anderson were recently accused of fraud between November 2022 and October 2023, the Evening Standard’s inimitable Tristan Kirk reported earlier this month:
According to the charge, it is alleged the men “dishonestly” claimed that “Stephen Mollah was Satoshi Nakamoto who is believed to have created Bitcoin and/or that Stephen Mollah owned 165,000 Bitcoin that were in Singapore, intending to cause loss to Dalmit Dohil or to expose that person to a risk of loss.”
The not guilty pleas were first indicated when the case was brought to the magistrates court in August. A further hearing in the case ahead of the trial has been set for October 3 next year.
Unperturbed, Mollah and Anderson on Thursday morning pleaded their case to a dozen or so highly-suspicious journalists (one of whom said they had been asked to pay £500 for the privilege) on the top floor of London’s Frontline Club, favoured haunt of Louis Theroux. FT Alphaville was told to go by Robin invited, too. What followed was in equal parts hilarious and heart-breaking.