Self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig S. Wright won legal case for £1

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Self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig S. Wright won the legal case for £1. Now, a former Bitcoin user and now self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator, Craig S. Wright, has been awarded a legal claim against Peter McMcormack in damages. Wright brought the case against the Peter McMcormack accused Wright of fraud and a moron. Today, the court ruled in Wright's favor. The case eventually concluded below:

The judge said that Wright had pushed "a deliberately false case" with "deliberately false evidence" and would therefore only receive a nominal £1 sum.

What is the legal background to Craig Wright, self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator?

On 26 February 2017, Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, and businessman. He has been self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto since 2015. 

The Dave Kleiman Case

In February 2018, the estate of Dave Kleiman initiated a lawsuit against Wright in Florida and accused Wright defrauded Kleiman, a business partner, of Bitcoin intellectual property rights and with damages of $5.2B compensation. The case eventually concluded that Wright would pay Dave Kleiman Estate 100M, and he would grant the title of "Satoshi Nakamoto".

Bitcoin and blockchain

On 23 November 2017, the New York Times published a profile of Craig Wright in which he was described as an "entrepreneur and Bitcoin visionary." The article discussed how in the early 2000s, when he was an investment advisor at a brokerage firm based in New York, he became interested in digital currencies such as Bitcoin and started to trade them in his spare time. In the article, it was also mentioned that he met Varun Gupta, the co-founder of Bitfinex, in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2013, where they discussed ideas and plans for their exchange. But they were unaware that they were going to be sued by former employees of Bitfinex, a firm that had been established in 2011.

Self-described Bitcoin creator vindicated by court order

On 7 March 2018, the court ruled in favor of Craig Wright, the former employee of Bitfinex who had been found guilty of money laundering and insider trading. The ruling affirmed that Wright was actually the true owner of the assets of Bitfinex, and that the assets had been frozen following the company's acquisition by Bitcoin in 2017. Wright's lawyers said that he could not access the funds associated with his Bitcoin account and that he could not withdraw funds from it. But the court ruling also said that the funds could be withdrawn from a bank account in India, where his parents lived.

Anyone cares if Wright is Satoshi

No one cares who Satoshi is, but Bitcoin empowers everyone to become Satoshi. So people will remember the Satoshi spirit who is anonymously to create something that impacts the world rather than the title to claim as a creator of Bitcoin.

Conclusion

The decision by the New York Times to report on Craig Wright as an "entrepreneur and Bitcoin visionary" served as the basis for his successful defamation lawsuit against the firms that had been his employers at the time of his arrest. A divided court could have easily denied the defamation claim, ruling that a person cannot be held responsible for what others have said. But the court ruling in favor of Craig Wright was important, as it validated his reputation as an entrepreneur who had made significant contributions to the blockchain and cryptocurrency market. Still, it would be remiss if we didn't do the bare minimum to recognize Craig Wright's contribution to the field of blockchain and cryptocurrency over the past few years. In addition to his role as a co-founder of Bitwise, the founder of Cryptonote and the creator of several decentralized apps, there is little that we can do to recognize his role in the development of the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. We can only acknowledge that he is one of the most important members of the field and that his contributions will be greatly appreciated.

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Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash