I have been following the CSW/BSV scam for quite a number of years now as I find it a fascinating study in human behaviour that goes far beyond the cryptocurrency scene.  I am new to this forum so I am not too clever at quoting several comments but I will try to reply to the main points brought up here.

Several comments mention that he is an intelligent guy who could have been successful if he wasn't so dishonest.  If one was to look into his history one would find that almost all of his businesses have failed, leaving unpaid bills and employees.  He was a mid-tier IT guy at best who was always  retrospectively trying to make himself into something bigger than he really was, by changing old blog posts, claiming titles and qualifications that he hadn't earned, and he seemed to have no qualms in using dead people to add to his tall tales in a way that he hoped wouldn't be questioned.

One of the reasons I find CSW so interesting is that he used a similar M.O. to Trump in how he tried to find supporters. Like Trump he tried to portray himself as a conservative Christian, somehow morally superior to others despite a long history of dishonesty and corruption.  One of the most fanatical CSW supporters on social media is a fundamentalist Christian of the worst type.  Also, like Trump, CSW liked to portray himself as fighting a powerful, insidious enemy, the "elite", in CSW's case his supporters claimed that Greg Maxwell, Adam Back and others were part of some fantastic Epstien, Mastercard, Illuminati type conspiracy with wealthy bankers and judges supporting them.  While in reality CSW had a very wealthy guy backing him using the legal system to try and destroy the lives of regular people who spoke out honestly about him and who couldn't match his spending in the law courts.  Similar to how Trump supporters claim that he is fighting these "Elites" when he is in fact a guy that was born into great wealth and has never had to work in his life.

Another way that CSW attracted support was the old favourite of crypto scammers who try to convince people who didn't get into bitcoin early that their shitcoin is going to be the "next bitcoin", except in BSVs case Craig had the added claim that his coin was the "real bitcoin" and that one day the rest of the world would realise that and they were all going to be very rich.  And if that didn't work he was just going to sue everybody until they saw the light and bought BSV.  Who knows how many people fell for this and sold all their bitcoin to buy BSV instead, thinking it was the smartest financial decision ever.  An additional irony is that if CSW and his benefactor Calvin Ayre had just bought and held Bitcoin instead of launching a competing currency and embarking on a massive round of global litigation ( estimated at $100M) they would be amongst the wealthiest Bitcoiners in the world right now.

One more thing I would like to add is that the Faketoshi scam was not a great masterplan from the beginning.  It started with a bit of tax rebate fraud in Australia, Craig tried to tie Bitcoin into his explanation when he got caught out there, and as time went on he had to keep coming up with bigger lies to stay out of prison.  Claiming to be Satoshi and starting a rival cryptocurrency were never the original plan but as time went on and the lies multiplied the stories became more and more bizarre.  It looks like he has finally painted himself into a corner that he can't get out of now.

If anybody is interested in learning more about the Faketoshi scam Arthur Van Pelt on Twitter and Medium has probably the best, most thorough writing on the subject.  The Satoshi Affair by Andrew O' Hagan is also a great introduction to the early days of the scam.