The spat between Bitcoin SV (BSV) creator Craig Wright and UK cryptocurrency podcaster Peter McCormack has escalated, with Wright now suing McCormack for libel in a UK court.
Wright, is known in crypto circles for saying he is Satoshi Nakamoto, which Peter McCormack has publicly said is a false claim. This previously led to Wright sending him cease and desist letters that also demanded for McCormack to make a public apology in open court.
Wright’s libel suit against McCormack now was filed in the UK’s High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division. It seeks damages of £100,000 ($129,000), and attempts to prevent McCormack from repeating such comments in future.
McCormack is not alone in his opinion, however. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been warned by Wright before as well. To add to the controversy, cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, Kraken, OKex, and Shapeshift recently announced their delisting of BSV after Wright offered a bounty of $5,000 in BSV for information on the identity of Hodlonaut. The delistings caused BSV to plummet some 17% in value.
In his libel suit, Wright maintains “BSV is the real target due to its capacity for massive on-chain scaling, which represents an existential threat to the future of other cryptocurrencies”. McCormack has since responded with interesting alternatives to settle the suit. On April 18, he tweeted a proposal: he will agree to all of the suit’s terms, and throw in an additional £50,000 ($64,500) if Wright can prove he truly is Satoshi by paying out £50,000 worth in Bitcoin from the Genesis block in return.
Two days later, McCormack revised his offer, tweeting that he now wants just $1 in Bitcoin from the Genesis block in return to agreeing to all of Wright’s libel terms. Many have pointed out online that since Bitcoin cannot be issued from a Genesis block, this means that funds can only come instead from Satoshi’s own wallet.
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