Matigary? Bitcoin Expert And Golix Investor Being Alleged To Be Behind The Famous/Infamous Twitter Account

If you are a Twimbo (Zimbabwean on Twitter ) and you are interested in social and political issues, you are likely to have heard or come across the Twitter account that goes by the name @Matigary. Matigary is known for his sensational commentary and analysis of current affairs which sparks a lot of debate on Twitter.  Matigary’s comments have made many people be curious to know who is behind that account.

Well, Team Pachedu decided to find out. Team Pachedu is a “network of citizens that strive to inculcate the spirit of transparency, responsibility & accountability by all public officials without fear or favor”. That’s how they describe themselves of course.

Team Pachedu has shared what they allege to be evidence that proves that Matigary is Taurai Chinyamakobvu, one of the most known cryptocurrency investors and experts in Zimbabwe. If you have been following Techzim for some time you should know who Taurai is:

Taurai Chinyamakobvu on Techzim

As you know, we sometimes publish guest posts (articles by non-Techzim employees) here on Techzim. It so happens that we have published several guest posts by Taurai Chinyamakobvu here. His biography encompasses many areas of expertise, such as cryptocurrency, Japanese technology, consulting etc. Here are  some parts of his biographies which are here on Techzim;

Taurai Chinyamakobvu is an enthusiast of blockchain, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He is an early stage investor and director of Bitfinance (a blockchain company), Flocash and Wezeshwa Fund. He is also an advisor to some international corporations.

Taurai Chinyamakobvu is an innovation expert and enthusiast trained in Zimbabwe, Japan, USA, and Sweden; with keen interest in blockchain, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He is an early stage investor and director of Bitfinance (a blockchain company), Flocash (a pan-African payment gateway) and Wezeshwa Fund. He is also an advisor to Fortune Global 500 international corporation. He has deep interests in fintech, and is also a member of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Financial Inclusion – Digital Finance Thematic Working Group.

Team Pachedu’s evidence.

Team Pachedu came up with 13 ‘pieces of evidence’ to come to the conclusion that Matigary is Taurai Chinyamakobvu. You can make up your own minds how conclusive or not this evidence is:

Evidence 1: Matigary has a strong affinity towards cryptocurrency

Matigary is said to be an avid proponent of cryptocurrencies and so does Taurai Chinyamakobvu.

Evidence 2: Linguistic Fingerprint

The same way everyone has a unique fingerprint, so does everyone has a unique way of writing. This is called linguistic fingerprint. Its said the likelihood of two individuals to have a similar linguistic fingerprint is quite low And Matigary and Taurai’s accounts are said to both have same linguistic fingerprints.

Evidence 3: Matigary doesn’t use full stops

Team Pachedu says Matigary rarely uses tweets in his tweets, and so does Taurai Chinyamakobvu. Thus they are said to have the same punctuation fingerprint.

Evidence 4: Matigary likes Japanese culture

Team Pachedu released a picture with a number of tweets in which Matigary was talking about the Japanese culture. And he plainly said he is fond of martial arts.  This was then mirrored with a photo that showed Taurai Chinyamakobvu practicing martial arts.

Evidence 4: Phone number and email address

Matigary’s phone number and email address are said to be in the public domain. So, Team Pachedu noticed that the number they obtained in the public domain leads them to Taurai Chinyamakobvu. Team Pachedu went as far as to disclose Taurai Chinyamakobvu ’s home address in the process.

Evidence 5: Powertel affiliation

Matigary claim to have once helped Powertell to solve a problem. Incidentally, Taurai Chinyamakobvu’s CV shows that he was contracted by Powertel back in 2008 for four months.

Evidence 6: Shona Dialect

When naming a Dung Beetle in Shona, Team Pachedu says both Matigary and Taurai Chinyamakobvu used the same Shona dialect to name the beetle.

Evidence 7: Writing Style

Team Pachedu have established that Matigary and Taurai Chinyamakobvu share a common writing style in terms of the sentence structure, punctuation, spellings, grammar, contractions etc.

Matigary’s response

Since Team Pachedu started to post its series of tweets of the evidence, Matigary denied being Taurai Chinyamakobvu. Further, he says his email account has been subject to constant hacking attacks in the past days. At the time, Matigary is saying that Taurai Chinyamakobvu has sent him a DM (Direct Message) complaining that he’s is being harassed by people.

Taurai’s response

Taurai’s first response was to lock his Twitter account. He then said he was alerted by friends that his name was being linked to the @Matigary account. He said he doesn’t use Twitter much and that Matigary seems to spend too much time on Twitter, time that he Chinyamakobvu just doesn’t have.

Chinyamakobvu explained that his knee jerk reaction was to lock his Twitter account since he was getting follows by the truckloads in a very short space of time.

What’s next?

We have contacted Taurai Chinyamakobvu to give us his official statement. We thought it only fair even to go as far as getting him to write about this as guest since he has already guest authored for Techzim before. Hope it happens soon…