On April 16, Dr. Craig Wright, the man behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and a member of the team that created Bitcoin, continued his legal fight to defend himself against harassment by filing legal papers against Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, for defamation and libel.
Back (pictured above left), who invented Hashcash in the 1990s and co-founded Blockstream, has said in the past that it’s clear “from a tech perspective” that Wright (pictured right) was not Satoshi. He then tweeted on April 10 that Wright had published “fake proofs” and forgeries while also alluding to the idea that Wright had committed tax fraud.
It’s worth remembering that Back has long opposed Wright’s efforts to expand the size of individual blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain. Back preferred limiting the number of possible transactions per block and forcibly herding users onto Blockstream’s Lightning Network side-chain, a model that primarily benefited Blockstream, not end users.
That’s why Wright’s attempt to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto is so threatening, and why Back would attempt to deny it. With Satoshi himself providing guidance on what Bitcoin could be, Blockstream’s plan appears all the more misguided.
Wright’s legal team’s request is simple and exactly what he’s requested of his other harassers. Back merely has to retract his statements, not make them again, apologize and acknowledge the statements were false. If Back doesn’t comply, Wright will be happy to take him to court.
That might be that the only way to settle all of this, and end the harassment of Wright. That’s why Wright has turned to legal recourses not only against Back, but also against Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who has also alleged that Wright is not Satoshi. Wright is ready to stand up in court and prove that he’s Satoshi, and he dares his detractors to be adults about the whole thing and face him in a court of law. It might prove to be an ugly affair, but it’s the fairest way to end this mess once and for all.
The question is if Wright’s detractors will be willing to do just that. They have so much to gain by not allowing Wright to irrefutably prove his Satoshi identity that they may want to find a way out. As damaging as a market downturn would be, Satoshi revealing himself, and proving that his original vision, now reborn as Bitcoin SV (BSV), was the right course all along, would prove far more damaging to them in the long run.
Wright will prove he’s Satoshi, either by telling his story in his own time, or stepping up in court. Regardless, BSV, through its massive on-chain scaling, will prove to be a superior protocol than either Blockstream’s Bitcoin Core (BTC) with its Lightning side-chain or Ethereum. BSV has already demonstrated that Satoshi’s original vision of massive scaling is not only possible, but is a successful strategy for electronic cash and immutable data ledgers.
If that original Satoshi Vision sounds right to you, even if you currently support other cryptocurrency or blockchain projects, then attend the inclusive CoinGeek Toronto conference, happening May 29-30. You can register to hear about the massive scaling plans that the BSV development team has coming, and the opportunities they will bring. Better yet, you can save money on your registration by using Bitcoin SV through Coingate.
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