The self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin, Craig Wright, won a case in the High Court of England and Wales: the judge’s verdict upheld the claim of «fake Satoshi» to remove the whitepaper of the main cryptocurrency from Bitcoin.org.
We will remind, earlier, Wright himself has repeatedly stated that this document is allegedly his intellectual property, since he is the same mysterious creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto.
Craig Wright is a man who for many years calls himself the creator of Bitcoin, but at the same time does not confirm this statement in any way. Moreover, his arguments have been repeatedly refuted, in connection with which most representatives of the cryptocurrency community deservedly consider Wright to be a fraud and a liar.
As an illustration, we can cite the craigwrightisnotsatoshi website, which contains the signatures of the creators of 145 cryptocurrency blocks mined in 2009.
Wright at one time claimed that it was he who minted them, which allegedly proves his involvement in the creation of BTC, but these statements also turned out to be a hoax. The cryptographic signatures on the site mean that early Bitcoin miners provided evidence of their involvement in the mining of these blocks. Accordingly, Wright has nothing to do with them.
Proof of Craig Wright’s Lies
In 2018, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin openly called Wright a scam at an event called Deconomy. Here is a record of the developer’s arguments.
Regardless, Wright continues to insist on her position and has even achieved some success. Although the latter are not due to Craig’s righteousness, but his ability to use the judicial system to his advantage. The same thing happened this time.
Why was the Bitcoin whitepaper removed?
In a remote hearing, the judge said that the anonymous administrator of the Bitcoin.org platform, alias Cøbra, must post a judgment notice on his website, pay at least £ 35,000 in legal fees, and remove the technical document from his website.
Bitcoin.org is one of the most popular sites that contains information about Bitcoin and a cryptocurrency whitepaper. The whitepaper itself is a description of the project idea, in which the developers share the basics of its work. For example, we described the main points of the Bitcoin whitepaper in a separate article.
Cøbra himself lost by default, as he did not even defend himself in court in order to maintain his anonymity. Wright claimed that Bitcoin.org had infringed his copyright on the whitepaper, which he allegedly wrote under the pseudonym «Satoshi Nakamoto.» The judgment has not yet been enforced. At the same time, representatives of ONTER LLP – the law firm that advised Wright on this case – themselves do not know the date of execution of the court order.
Craig Wright
The situation was commented on by Simon Cohen, a lawyer at ONTER LLP. Here is his remark, in which the expert shares his attitude to what is happening. The quote is from Decrypt.
Dr. Wright doesn’t want to restrict access to his whitepaper. However, he disagrees that the document can be used by proponents and developers of alternative assets such as Bitcoin Core.
Recall that Wright’s fans call «alternative» Bitcoin because it allegedly does not correspond to the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto’s project. In fact, Wright managed to win only because of the passivity of Cøbra, because he did not want to reveal his real identity and be a serious defendant. The court decision itself is absurd and in every possible way contradicts freedom of speech and decentralization, and the image of Craig Wright in the eyes of crypto enthusiasts has once again collapsed.
Cobra commented on what is happening on his Twitter. Here is a quote from a fan of the original Bitcoin.
All of your fiat assets are ultimately protected by the same legal system that made it illegal for me to post a Bitcoin whitepaper today just because a notorious liar swore before a judge that he was Satoshi. It is a system in which «fairness» depends on who has the larger wallet.
That is, Cobra made it clear that he did not agree with the court’s decision and still sees in Wright only a swindler who is promoting himself in his image.
Cobra continues.
I don’t think you could get a better advertisement for the necessity of Bitcoin existence than today’s events. Rules enforced through cryptography are much better than rules based on the will of those who can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in court.
Bitcoin Whitepaper on Bitcoin.org
Even if the document disappears from the site, it will remain in the public domain forever. This is guaranteed by at least five reliable methods, which are described in this article.
We believe that Craig Wright’s activity means nothing. He has not been able to prove his «connection» with Satoshi for many years, so he will not do it in the future. Right now, Wright is simply using his power and money to get more formal court approvals in various cases.
However, this does not mean that he is involved in the development of Bitcoin. Judging from previous cases of lies, Craig really needs to be considered a crook, who is not forgotten solely because of his high-profile statements.
