Craig Wright appoints new US counsel ahead of a blockbuster legal year

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Dr. Craig Wright has appointed new counsel in the United States: high-ranked Miami-headquartered firm Greenberg Traurig.

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨
I’m thrilled to have secured one of the worlds most admirable Law Firms – Greenberg Traurig LLP to represent @Dr_CSWright in his legal proceedings in US. This is a big step forward and CW have now for the first time proper legal representation in all US… pic.twitter.com/dw2qYoBIt0

— Christen Ager-Hanssen (@agerhanssen) August 8, 2023

It’s the latest entry in an ongoing legal overhaul for Dr. Wright as he prepares for a blockbuster legal season; he had earlier replaced his U.K. counsel—ONTIER LLP—with heavy hitters Travers Smith. In January 2024, Jack Dorsey’s Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) will seek to prove in a lengthy trial in the U.K. courts that Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper. That case will determine the identity issue for a number of Dr. Wright’s other U.K. cases, including his highly consequential passing off case against BTC developers, accusing Coinbase, Kraken and the BTC partnership of improperly passing off BTC as the real Bitcoin. Should the case succeed, BTC will no longer be permitted to be referred to as ‘Bitcoin’ without Dr Wright’s approval.

In the U.S., he is awaiting judicial recognition of the fact he indirectly owns W&K Info Defence LLC, the company that was awarded $144 million in 2021’s Kleiman v Wright trial. After that judgment was handed down Ira Kleiman, who originally brought that case, has begun arguing that W&K was majority owned by his late brother (whom he had failed to convince a jury had been a partner in Dr Wright’s invention of Bitcoin).

Beyond that, Magnus ‘hodlonaut’ Granath’s case against Dr. Wright in Norway, where he seeks to establish that his tweets calling Dr. Wright ‘mentally ill’ and a ‘scammer’ were not unlawful, is due to have its appeal heard some time in 2024. In Norway, Dr. Wright is represented by Schjødt.

With a packed legal calendar next year in which some of the most important legal issues in the digital asset industry are set to be decided, now is indeed the time to load up on legal talent—as Dr. Wright appears to be doing.