The Bitcoin white paper has made its triumphant return to Bitcoin.org after being temporarily removed due to legal disputes involving Craig Wright, who controversially claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin (BTC).
Wright’s attempt to prove his claim in court failed, leading to the re-upload of the white paper. Hennadii Stepanov, the maintainer of Bitcoin.org, announced this development by sharing the PDF link to the white paper on X.
In 2021, Wright sued Cobra, the anonymous group in charge of managing Bitcoin.org, for copyright infringement. Due to Cobra’s decision not to defend the case, Wright won by default. As a result, Cobra was ordered to pay £35,000 ($40,100) in legal fees, and the white paper was taken down from the website. In 2019, Wright had filed for a U.S. copyright registration for the white paper.
Last year, Wright filed another lawsuit against 13 Bitcoin Core developers and various companies, including Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block, for similar copyright violations. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund intervened, highlighting the concerning trend of abusive lawsuits targeting prominent contributors.
The Fund argued that such legal actions hindered development due to the significant time, stress, expenses, and risks involved. However, Wright’s claims were thoroughly debunked, and his assertion of being Satoshi Nakamoto was invalidated, rendering his copyright claim on the white paper null.
The UK High Court, presided over by Justice James Mellor, ruled against Wright, declaring that he had lied “extensively and repeatedly” and committed forgery “on a grand scale.” Mellor’s judgment, published on May 20, stated that Wright had intentionally produced false documents to support his false claims.
This ruling followed a comprehensive investigation by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a coalition dedicated to safeguarding Bitcoin’s core intellectual property. COPA alleged that Wright had fabricated evidence to bolster his claim. To prevent him from evading court expenses, his assets, valued at £6.7 million ($8.4 million), were frozen.
In light of the ruling, Wright has dropped several lawsuits related to his claim of being Bitcoin’s creator. He abandoned an appeal against crypto influencer Magnus Granath in Norway, who had labeled him a “pathetic scammer.” A parallel claim in the UK was also dropped.
However, there are still ongoing lawsuits, such as the one in which Wright accuses Coinbase and Kraken of violating his intellectual property rights over BTC. Nevertheless, these cases are expected to be impacted by the COPA ruling.
“We’ve witnessed a domino effect from the verdict affecting numerous other litigations globally,” stated Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer. “To outsiders, all of this might seem like a cartoon, but with Wright’s claims crumbling, the community can finally breathe a sigh of relief. We consider it a genuine victory.”
Article Source: Cryptopolitan, written by Jai Hamid
