BTC maxis looking to undermine Dr. Craig Wright\u2019s copyright claim on the Bitcoin white paper have been reduced to falsely claiming \u2018victory\u2019 before the fight has actually begun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the High Court of Justice in England and Wales released a ruling on pre-trial applications by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and Dr. Wright. COPA filed suit against Wright in April seeking a judgment that Wright is not the individual behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym credited with authoring the 2008 Bitcoin white paper. COPA wants the court to declare that Wright\u2019s claim to copyright ownership of the white paper is invalid.<\/p>\n
COPA\u2019s original and amended particulars of claim sought to introduce evidence from the U.S. civil lawsuit filed against Wright by Ira Kleiman, brother of Wright\u2019s former colleague Dave Kleiman, which was based on Ira\u2019s allegations that Dave helped Wright develop and mine Bitcoin in the technology\u2019s early days. The jury in that suit (Kleiman v Wright) recently returned a verdict that rejected Ira\u2019s allegations and bolstered Wright\u2019s claim to be the sole individual behind Bitcoin\u2019s genesis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the Kleiman v Wright evidence COPA initially sought to introduce into the U.K. proceedings were pre-trial opinions by U.S. judges regarding Wright\u2019s conduct. Specifically, COPA said it would \u201crely upon a number of findings\u201d these judges had made, despite U.K. precedent prohibiting the admissibility of findings and decisions of courts in proceedings between different parties, irrespective of whether they are U.S.- or U.K.-based courts.<\/p>\n
Wright\u2019s attorneys challenged COPA\u2019s illegal attempts to introduce these findings and COPA ultimately excised this language from the re-amended amended complaint it filed in late November\u2014just one week before the hearing on the admissibility issue. Since the wheels of justice turn slowly, HHJ Paul Matthews was forced to acknowledge the now moot controversy in his judgment issued this week.<\/p>\n
COPA also sought to introduce documents produced during the Kleiman v Wright discovery phase into the U.K. proceedings, which Wright\u2019s lawyers also challenged. On this front Matthews opted against intervening, noting that the nascent U.K. proceedings hadn\u2019t yet made it to a case management conference and thus \u201cthese are matters best left to the trial judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the release of Matthews\u2019 judgment, COPA\u2019s official Twitter account rushed out a tweet claiming to have \u201cwon its first hearing against Craig.\u201d Given the narrowness of Matthews\u2019 ruling, this is akin to a boxer declaring victory over his opponent after his name has been announced to the crowd pre-fight. The bell has yet to ring. Battle has not been joined. Blood, sweat and\/or tears have yet to be shed.<\/p>\n
Triumphant proclamations seem all the more incongruous given that Wright\u2019s attorneys now have a solid claim on which to require COPA to pay the legal costs Wright incurred in forcing COPA to drop its bid to introduce the Kleiman v Wright judges\u2019 pre-trial opinions.<\/p>\n
The eagerness of COPA\u2014a posse of BTC mega-maxis including Jack Dorsey\u2019s Square, Michael Saylor\u2019s MicroStrategy, the BTC Core developers at Blockstream and exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken\u2014to try this case on Crypto Twitter\u2122 reflects both an internal recognition of the weaknesses of its legal argument and an increasingly frantic desire to combat growing public recognition of Wright as the sole inventor Bitcoin.<\/p>\n
That recognition reached new heights this month as high-profile mainstream media outlets ranging from Reuters to the BBC trumpeted Wright\u2019s successful defense of his Satoshi claims in Kleiman v Wright. The spotlight also brought new awareness of BSV, the only technology that upholds the vision of \u2018peer-to-peer electronic cash system\u2019 described in the Bitcoin white paper.<\/p>\n
Ironically, COPA\u2019s claim of victory came just as Law360 reporter Carolina Bolado released her summary of an interview with a member of the KvW jury regarding the deliberations in that suit. The juror said Wright\u2019s notoriously prickly demeanor\u2014the result of his Autism spectrum disorder\u2014failed to sway the jury to Kleiman\u2019s version of events, adding that they relied strictly on the evidence presented.<\/p>\n
The juror further noted that the Kleiman v Wright jury found no \u201cconcrete proof\u201d to support the Kleiman camp\u2019s allegations that Wright had forged documents submitted by the plaintiffs. Given that these are the same documents on which COPA\u2019s U.K. suit hinges, one can understand COPA\u2019s uneasiness about the legal road ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the fact that Wright has already prevailed in one U.K. court case over his Bitcoin copyright. There\u2019s also the inconvenience that COPA\u2019s effort rests on proving a negative\u2014that Wright isn\u2019t<\/em> Satoshi\u2014while offering no possible alternatives as to Satoshi\u2019s identity. Finally, Wright has ample evidence to support his copyright claim and his attorneys are confident that justice will continue to prevail.<\/p>\n The BTC maxi camp that are aggressively fighting Dr. Wright desperately need the Bitcoin brand name because their technology is inferior. BSV does not need the Bitcoin brand name to succeed, it\u2019s the most superior blockchain technology on the market by leaps and bounds.<\/p>\n COPA\u2019s members are tethered to BTC\u2019s fortunes like non-swimmers to a cinderblock. As BTC\u2019s value sinks, so sinks the fortunes of Dorsey, Saylor, Coinbase\u2019s Armstrong et al. BSV is a dagger aimed at BTC\u2019s heart and, like cornered animals, BTC maxis will do whatever is required to keep that threat at bay. It\u2019s the height of irony that, while accusing Wright of being a charlatan, COPA considers it fair play to openly deceive the public.<\/p>\n