As COPA v. Wright kicks off, podcaster Alfie Whattam interviewed CoinGeek’s Chief Bitcoin Historian Kurt Wuckert Jr. The central topic was whether Dr. Craig Wright really is Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin.
An overview of COPA vs Wright
After some brief introductory conversation, Whattam asks Wuckert for an overview of the COPA vs. Wright trial. Wuckert happily obliges.
COPA is an alliance of some of the biggest digital currency companies and some non-blockchain firms. Together, they encompass the payments, data, and blockchain industries. He wonders why these disparate enterprises would join forces to try to sue one man.
In a nutshell, COPA wants to prove Dr. Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto. Doing so would undermine his white paper copyright claim and would destroy his passing off lawsuit
against Coinbase and others. On this latter point, Wuckert gives a fake Rolex analogy—this is akin to what Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Kraken, and others have been selling.
Dr. Wright claims that Bitcoin has specific rules and that there was a coup against it between 2014 and 2017. They kept the ticker but undermined the protocol, he alleges. Companies like Coinbase say Dr. Wright has no right to say this as he is not Bitcoin’s inventor.
Will Dr. Craig Wright sign with Satoshi’s private keys?
Will he be required to sign with Nakamoto’s private keys? Wuckert says it is in his interest to show his cards at this stage, and that may involve signing, showing the Bitcoin.org domain receipts, early copies of the code or white paper, or a mix of these. He needs to prove sufficiently to the judge that he is Nakamoto.
Whattam points out that, in a previous interview, Dr. Wright told him he had “stomped the hard drive” with his private keys. Would this mean he has lost the ability to sign? Wuckert says Dr. Wright is extremely pedantic and may say he can’t sign currently. Understanding why requires going over his story about the Bitcoin trusts and the need for trustees to come together and generate a key for him.
Why the drama around Dr. Wright?
Would Wuckert change his perspective if this case goes wrong for Dr. Wright? He says he would never become a small blocker. He was a big blocker before he even knew who Dr. Wright was. BSV is what Wuckert cares about, and if Dr. Wright loses, it won’t necessarily adversely impact it.
Whattam says that after interviewing Dr. Wright, he got an unusual amount of hate for it. He wants to know why there’s such a negative response to the man. Wuckert says it’s curious because he has sat in on multiple cases and heard a few witnesses give their testimony, and there are 10s, if not 100s, of thousands of documents that support his claims.
To fake all of this would be absurd, Wuckert rightly says. It’s important to zoom out and see the whole picture. Dr. Wright was a cyber forensics expert, yet these forgeries are laughable and easily detectable. It’s implausible that he did them. Wuckert feels a piece of the story is missing, but we should perhaps expect to see some cloak-and-dagger stuff surrounding Satoshi.
Wuckert’s opinion of different people in the industry
Whattam then asks Wuckert for his opinion on different blockchain and digital currency
industry figures. You will have to watch the video so see all of Wuckert’s answers.
Wrapping up, Whattam rightly says that COPA vs. Wright feels like a watershed moment. Wuckert agrees, but he says we have to separate Bitcoin and Dr. Wright. He hopes the trial ends satisfyingly, but either way, it’s back to work when it’s all over. Win or lose, Wuckert will still be here building his companies and working on big-block Bitcoin.
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