Bitcoin White Paper Makes a Comeback on Bitcoin.org After Craig Wright Fails to Prove He is Nakamoto
Ruholamin Haqshanas
Published on:
May 27, 2024 01:44 EDT
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2-minute read
The Bitcoin white paper has returned to the Bitcoin.org website after Craig Wright’s unsuccessful attempt to prove his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of the Bitcoin protocol.
Hennadii Stepanov, the maintainer of Bitcoin.org, announced the reappearance of the white paper by sharing a link to the PDF on platform X.
Previously, Bitcoin.org had to restrict access to the white paper for users in the United Kingdom due to legal constraints. Instead, a powerful quote from Satoshi Nakamoto was displayed on the site, highlighting the ease of spreading information and the difficulty of suppressing it.
Wright Successfully Sued Cobra for Copyright Infringement
In 2021, Craig Wright successfully won a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cobra, the anonymous group behind the website. As a result, Bitcoin.org was forced to remove the white paper PDF, and Cobra, choosing not to defend themselves, had to pay £35,000 ($40,100) in legal fees.
In 2019, Wright had previously applied for copyright registration of the Bitcoin white paper in the United States. Taking his legal actions further, in 2023, Wright filed lawsuits against 13 Bitcoin Core developers and several companies, including Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block, accusing them of copyright violations related to the white paper, its file format, and database rights to the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded, expressing concerns about the rise in abusive lawsuits targeting prominent Bitcoin contributors. These lawsuits not only cause significant time, stress, and expenses but also create legal risks that discourage open development.
However, Wright’s copyright victory has lost its significance as his claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto and the author of the white paper have been thoroughly discredited, rendering his copyright claim invalid.
A detailed ruling was made in a case brought against Wright by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a coalition of prominent companies aiming to prevent Wright from asserting ownership over Bitcoin’s core intellectual property. COPA accused Wright of participating in an elaborate scheme of forgery and deceit to fabricate evidence supporting his claim as Nakamoto.
Additionally, a United Kingdom court has frozen Craig Wright’s assets worth £6.7 million ($8.4 million) to ensure that he does not evade the payment of court expenses.
With the Bitcoin white paper now falling under an MIT open-source license, it is freely available for anyone to reuse and modify the code for any purpose.
Nakamoto May be a Collective Entity
Meanwhile, a recent investigation has provided evidence suggesting that Nakamoto may actually be a group rather than an individual. One piece of evidence is the use of both “we” and “I” in the Bitcoin white paper, indicating the possibility of a team operating under a single pseudonym.
Linguistic analysis of Nakamoto’s writings also supports this theory. While the white paper demonstrates flawless English with precise language and accurate use of technical terms, Nakamoto’s writing style appears to differ in forums and email correspondences, indicating the involvement of multiple individuals.
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