On Monday evening, I suggested to Wright's PR firm that if he could send me a fraction of a coin from an early Bitcoin block - which of course I would return - that might show he had Satoshi's keys. But Wright's team came up with a different plan on Wednesday afternoon.

They sent me a draft blog in which he outlined a scheme that would see Matonis, Andresen and the BBC all send small amounts of Bitcoin to the address used in the first ever transaction. Then he would send it back, in what would be the first outgoing transactions from the block since January 2009.

We went ahead with our payments - I sent 0.017BTC (about £5), which you can still see in the online records. Matonis and Andresen sent similar amounts.

Then we waited. And waited. Then my phone rang - with the news that the whole operation was "on hold", with no reason given.

Eighteen hours later we are still waiting for the payments to be made - and now Wright's new blog says that is not going to happen.