Bitcoin creator Dr. Craig S. Wright has taken a swipe at his critics in the digital asset industry, saying they offer nothing but circular arguments and personal attacks to use against him. These “cowards,” he said, are dishonest and are simply lying to protect their “criminal empire.”
‘Not one can debate’
Dr. Wright posted his comments in the MetanetICU Slack group, where he frequently airs his frustrations at the quality of debate in the industry. His comments later circulated on social media.
#Bitcoin #SatoshiNakamoto is #CraigWright pic.twitter.com/m7UGwtio5I
— Metanet.ICU (@MetanetIcu) November 30, 2020
“I am formally calling them out,” he concluded.
Many of the attacks on Dr. Wright are also used to diminish Bitcoin SV (BSV). In fact, it’s very hard to find any serious extended critiques of its technical capabilities at all. These arguments are ignored in favor of baseless accusations against Dr. Wright personally, which somehow weave their way into any discussion about BSV whether relevant to the issues being discussed or not.
Ask a detractor to tell you exactly how BSV doesn’t work, and the reply invariably contains something like “Craig Wright is a fraud.” Few examples of this so-called “fraud” are given, or can be recalled if requested. Ask for a selection of reasons why BSV doesn’t work, or offer more real-world value than other blockchain assets, and it becomes clear that its opponents actually know very little about it.
The reason is simple: if it’s widely accepted that Dr. Wright is in fact Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, people will start to listen to everything he has to say about Bitcoin, and how it has been altered to suit illegitimate agendas. But if opponents can maintain the myth that Dr. Wright had nothing to do with Bitcoin’s creation, BSV and the Bitcoin scaling/utility issues can be comfortably ignored. Then it’s back to speculating on daily BTC price movements, ignoring the fact that it it’s rarely used for its original purpose, and has made no serious impact on the world’s economy after more than 10 years.
Arguments instead are limited to vapid one-liners on social media, largely from accounts that cannot be connected to any real identity, and show little understanding of Bitcoin and its economy or technology. Somehow they care enough about Bitcoin to write posts about it, though—which should be grounds for skepticism.
Even those who do reveal their identities repeat the same arguments and talking points
It’s an age-old tactic: when you don’t have any valid arguments to support your case, attack the character of the person opposing you. Point out their flaws, and hope it means no one will take any argument they make seriously—that way, hopefully no one will listen to them.
And why don’t they want you to listen to Dr. Craig Wright? As well as challenging the BTC monolith with interesting points about auditability, economics and utility, he has championed Bitcoin SV (BSV)—which has to date not suffered any technological failures, and proves that Bitcoin was capable of massive on-chain scaling all along.
There’s a lot at stake here. BSV’s continued existence is an embarrassment to everyone who argued for years that on-chain scaling wasn’t possible or desirable. The longer it exists, the closer people will examine it. The more they examine it, the more they’ll question why so many people fought so hard against its proposals. Ultimately, they’ll start to wonder why BTC still exists, and why it needs a bolted-on, clunky solutions like Lightning Network to function as a payments network.
While personal and professional reputations are at stake in the Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin debates, so are billions of fiat dollars in “investments” and fees from speculative trading. And as Dr. Wright said in his post, there’s also a lot more. There’s genuine fear that he understands the real reasons why some want to keep Bitcoin transactions off-chain and obfuscated, that he may have real evidence concerning the “criminal empire” he mentions often.
Therefore it’s important for BSV’s and Dr. Wright’s opponents to continue attacking him personally and publicly. And that’s why it’s more important to ask those opponents to engage in debate rather than ad hominem, to ask for technical proof rather than vague hearsay, and to place the burden of proof where it belongs—back on the accusers rather than the accused.
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