- Craig Wright’s pivotal evidence in the COPA case was determined to be a forgery.
- Wright has since offered to settle with litigants.
- The terms of the offer retain Wright’s claim as Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin SV creator Craig Wright is embroiled in high-profile lawsuits, including an intellectual property battle in the UK High Court against the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). COPA is challenging Wright’s claim that he is the Bitcoin founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, and focused on copyright ownership of the seminal Bitcoin whitepaper, which Wright insists he authored.
Wright’s defense is based on documents and files associated with authoring the Bitcoin whitepaper. However, forensic analysis has since determined that key documents presented to the court were forgeries. With cracks in his defense, Wright has extended a settlement offer to cease litigation.
Wright Lays Out His Terms
Wright’s settlement offer is extended to all four ongoing lawsuits in the UK High Court, covering disputes around trademarks and database rights claims and COPA’s Bitcoin whitepaper copyright controversy.
The non-negotiable settlement offer states that all parties must withdraw their claims and lawsuits, with each side covering their own legal costs. The offer must be accepted by January 31, otherwise, litigation will continue as before.
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Under the offer, Wright agreed to end the pursuit of database rights and copyright claims regarding the BTC, BCH, and ABC blockchains. This would give litigants an “irrevocable licence in perpetuity to exploit, use, assign or license” those blockchains unencumbered. However, this offer does not include the BSV blockchain.
However, litigants must acknowledge that the BTC, BCH, and ABC blockchains “have separate purposes and uses not contemplated by Satoshi Nakamoto,” and that no party can claim to represent Satoshi Nakamoto’s original concept of Bitcoin.
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“Any entities shall cease claiming that they represent the original Bitcoin as envisioned by me as Satoshi Nakamoto,” stated Wright in the settlement offer.
While the settlement terms focus on dissolving legal disputes, Wright maintained that his motives were always about preserving Bitcoin’s central principles, not the acclaim of being Satoshi.
It Was Never About Being Satoshi
Wright asserted that revealing himself as Satoshi has never been his priority in pursuing litigation. Instead, he insisted that the lawsuits were about restoring Bitcoin to the pure form envisioned in the Bitcoin whitepaper. Wright believes Bitcoin should be an electronic money system capable of offering low fees and microtransactions.
Expanding on his motives, Wright claimed it is more important to develop than to win legal vindication or protect intellectual property, particularly as the current landscape has drifted far from Satoshi’s original concept.
On the Flipside
- Wright first publicly claimed he was Satoshi in a 2015 Wired interview. The publication later posted an amendment highlighting inconsistencies in that claim.
Why This Matters
While this settlement offer grants litigants the opportunity to advance their projects unburdened, Wright symbolically retains his notorious assertion as Satoshi Nakamoto in the terms and the narrative that BSV is the “true Bitcoin.”
Read about the COPA’s discovery indicating Wright submitted forged documents here:
Wright’s Satoshi Claim Takes Bashing as COPA Strikes Back
Learn more about Samsom Mow’s take on the Bitcoin price post-Mt. Gox payout here:
Mt. Gox Payouts Won’t Trigger Bitcoin Sell-Off: Samson Mow
