Key Takeaways

In a decisive verdict, a British High Court ruled against Craig Wrights claims that he was Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto.

In the detailed written declaration, the judge provided a comprehensive account of the trials proceedings. The ruling explicitly states that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto and outlines the reasons why his evidence was fraudulent.

In response to the March 14 ruling, COPA (Crypto Open Patent Alliance) took further legal steps to ensure Craig Wright can no longer assert his claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto. As stated by a COPA spokesperson, COPA is requesting a court order designed to avoid further litigation terror campaigns. This move is aimed at preventing Wright from continuing to assert his claims, which the court found were untrue.

The recently released written verdict explains why Wrights evidence was deemed fraudulent and clarifies that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto. The comprehensive nature of this verdict aims to put an end to the ongoing disputes and prevent Wright from perpetuating his claims in the future.

Mr Justice Mellor expressed no doubt about Wrights dishonesty throughout the trial, highlighting the extensive forgery involved. Despite the ruling, Wright remained defiant, announcing his intention to appeal the decision.

During the court trial, Mr Justice Mellor tried to be as objective as he could. However, he found that Wright was not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. One could, potentially, describe the judges words as extremely diplomatic.

In the COPA vs. Craig Wright case, Mr Justice Mellor found that Wright lied extensively and repeatedly to the court, both in his written and oral evidence, primarily concerning forged documents intended to support his claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto. These falsehoods were part of Wrights broader attempt to substantiate his identity as the creator of Bitcoin.

He said:

Dr Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person. However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. In both his written evidence and in days of oral evidence under cross-examination, I am entirely satisfied that Dr Wright lied to the Court extensively and repeatedly. Most of his lies related to the documents he had forged which purported to support his claim. All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

Mr Justice Mellor added:

As soon as one lie was exposed, Dr Wright resorted to further lies and evasions. The final destination frequently turned out to be either Dr Wright blaming some other (often unidentified) person for his predicament or what can only be described as technobabble delivered by him in the witness box.

Although as a person with expertise in IT security, Dr Wright must have thought his forgeries would provide convincing evidence to support his claim to be Satoshi or some other point of detail and would go undetected, the evidence showsthat most of his forgeries turned out to be clumsy.

Indeed, certain of Dr Wrights responses in cross-examination effectively acknowledged that point: from my recollection at least twice he indicated if he had wanted to forge a document, he would have done a much better job.

The judge concluded that for Wrights claims to be true, he would have to be very unlucky. The evidence, however, painted a different picture, revealing a pattern of deceit and forgery in his attempts to prove his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto.

He added:

The true position is far simpler. It is, however, far from simple because Dr Wright has lied so much over so many years that, on certain points, it can be difficult to pinpoint what actually happened.

Those difficulties do not detract from the fact that there is a very considerable body of evidence against Dr Wright being Satoshi. To the extent that it is said there is evidence supporting his claim, it is at best questionable or of very dubious relevance or entirely circumstantial and at worst, it is fabricated and/or based on documents I am satisfied have been forged on a grand scale by Dr Wright.

These fabrications and forgeries were exposed in the evidence which I received during the Trial. For that reason, this Judgment contains considerable technical and other detail which is required to expose the true scale of his mendacious campaign to prove he was/is Satoshi Nakamoto.

In his ruling on the COPA vs. Craig Wright case, Mr Justice Mellor highlighted significant inconsistencies in Dr. Wrights testimony.

Mr Justice Mellor said:

Furthermore, in his evidence, Dr Wright made significant errors which Satoshi would never have made, even after this length of time. Some of these relate to Satoshis interactions with individuals not previously made public. Others relate to technical matters which Dr Wright simply got wrong but which Satoshi would not have got wrong.

Also, Mr Justice Mellor said Wright had many years to substantiate his claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto. However, as challenges to his claim intensified, Wright escalated his use of falsehoods and forged documents.

The judge noted that Wrights behavior, characterized by increasing arrogance and a belief in his intellectual superiority, starkly contrasted with the more humble and collaborative tone evident in Satoshis writings. Judge concluded that Wrights demeanor and the nature of his evidence were inconsistent with that of Satoshi Nakamoto, further undermining his claim to be the creator of Bitcoin.

He said:

Ultimately, I consider it is likely that the real Satoshi would never have set out to prove in litigation that he actually was Satoshi and certainly not in the way that Dr Wright attempted to do so.

Since 2019, Craig Wright has initiated several lawsuits against Bitcoin developers in an attempt to gain control over the Bitcoin network and suppress critics of his claims. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund has argued that these lawsuits threaten the future of Bitcoin by discouraging developers from continuing their work on the blockchain.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Mellor acknowledged the negative impact of Wrights aggressive legal strategies on the Bitcoin development community.

He noted that Wrights litigious approach was inconsistent with the collaborative and non-confrontational nature typically associated with Satoshi Nakamoto. Judge Mellor pointed out that the real Satoshi would likely have accepted differing views, which led to Bitcoins hard forks, and moved on without resorting to legal action. This recognition of Wrights adversarial tactics further supported the courts decision in favor of COPA.

Mr Justice Mellor was pretty clear when giving his final word:

He stated:

First, Dr Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin White Paper. Second, Dr Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in the period between 2008 and 2011. Third, Dr Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin system. Fourth, Dr Wright is not the author of the initial versions of the Bitcoin Software.

The ruling represents a significant victory for the COPA, which sought to invalidate Wrights claims to the Bitcoin whitepaper and related intellectual property.

Wrights vow to appeal the ruling suggests that this legal saga is far from over. His legal team is expected to challenge Mr Justice Mellors conclusions. This decision follows a series of legal and public relations setbacks for Wright, who has faced numerous accusations of fraud and forgery over the years.

Following the March 14 ruling against him, Craig Wright initially stated he would evaluate his options once the final written verdict was released. Despite the judges verdict, it is evident Wright intends to carry on claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Was this Article helpful? Yes No

See the original post here:

Craig Wright "Slippery" and "Not as Clever as He Thinks He is" Judge Blasts Would-be Satoshi Nakamoto - CCN.com

U.Today - An early contributor, Martti Malmi, has shared a collection of previously undisclosed emails with Satoshi Nakamoto. These emails shed new light on Bitcoin's early days and Nakamoto's philosophical approach to the digital currency.

Key among these insights is Nakamoto's perspective on Bitcoin as primarily a medium of exchange, not merely an investment vehicle. He highlighted the energy efficiency of Bitcoin's proof-of-work mechanism compared to traditional banking, addressing environmental concerns before they became a major talking point.

Bitcoin/USD Chart by TradingViewNakamoto's email from May 2, 2009, commends Malmi for grasping Bitcoin's potential, mentioning that linking Bitcoin to fiat currencies could boost its value a topic he was hesitant to discuss publicly until the right moment. He also stressed the importance of preparing for an influx of users, anticipating widespread adoption.

Furthermore, Nakamoto envisioned Bitcoin's ability to scale up to handle transaction volumes much larger than those handled by conventional financial systems, at a fraction of the cost. He assured that as the network grew, it would become more secure, dismissing early vulnerabilities as minor startup issues.

Another interesting and somewhat funny detail from the emails is Nakamoto's request for help with website content. This humanizes the often mythologized figure of Nakamoto, showing his willingness to collaborate and delegate.

Bitcoin-like encryption, backups and user-friendliness were also topics of discussion. They have shown that Nakamoto is committed to making Bitcoin accessible and secure for masses.

These email exchanges enrich the narrative around Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin's origins and provide more interesting details, which, when analyzed, may shed more light on Nakamoto's secret identity. For now, only one thing is clear: Satoshi Nakamoto's vision is close to what we have today, despite the continuous evolution of Bitcoin.

This article was originally published on U.Today

Read more:

Fundamental Satoshi Nakamoto Statement Revealed From Hidden Emails - Investing.com

The Bitcoin halving is imminent.

But even if you know what it is, you may not know why it is.

In our view, the halving exists to make bitcoin interesting and interesting things attract attention. Bitcoins pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, could have chosen a boring issuance schedule. Instead, he imbued bitcoin with a seasonal fireworks display, commanding attention from an increasingly wide and diverse group of bitcoin users.

Bitcoin famously has a supply cap of 21 million, 1.3 million of which remain unminted.The network will mint these coins through the year 2140 in the same way bitcoins have always been minted.

Satoshi designed the system himself to reward miners who publish new blocks. He could have designed those rewards to hold steady over time with a constant amount per block, say 10. Or he might have designed the rewards to decrease steadily at a constant rate.

Read more: Why is 2140 the end of bitcoin inflation?

Satoshi instead chose halvings. Every 210,000 blocks, the block reward suddenly drops by half. The first 210,000 blocks each yielded 50 new bitcoin to the miner; the next 210,000 blocks yielded 25; and so on. Tomorrow, and for the next four years, each block will yield 3.125 bitcoin.

By their very nature, halvings bring an economic shock, especially to miners. Block 840,0001 will appear roughly ten minutes after block 840,000. But the miner of block 840,000 will earn $400,000 worth of new bitcoin, while the miner of block 840,001 will earn only $200,000 worth of bitcoin at todays prices, anyway.

Bitcoins volatility owes, in part, to its halving schedule. If demand remains relatively constant despite a sudden drop in newly available bitcoin, bitcoins price will likely increase. At least, thats what has happened historically.

The dollar price of bitcoin increased 5,000% between the first and second halving, from $12.53 in November 2012 to $640 in July 2016; 1,300% between the second and third halving, from $640 in July 2016 to $9,000 in May 2020; and 700% between the third and fourth halving, from $9,000 in May 2020 to $70,000 in April 2024. Of course, bitcoins price has also crashed many times during those periods. Like the weather, demand is a fickle thing.

Read more from our opinion section: Bitcoins most promising, least dramatic halving is almost here

Halvings also spark discussions about bitcoins price volatility in the short term and price trajectory in the long term. Each halving brings up the same inevitable question, especially considering past wild post-halving price swings: What will we see this time? For weeks now, TV networks have been interviewing CEOs and bitcoin thought leaders about the potential impact that the halving might have on bitcoins price.

We think Satoshi anticipated the potential for this kind of frenzy, and deliberately chose the four-year halving cycle to attract attention to bitcoin.

Satoshi was familiar with the idea of global spectacles that happen every four years. The World Cup and the Olympics garner massive attention especially from people who otherwise rarely watch sports! Would you watch the Olympics annually? Monthly? Not likely. These events garner interest partly because of their rarity. The interval allows for hype, and interest, to build. Networks run specials on the athletes expected to make a splash. Magazines run photo spreads. And when the opening ceremonies finally broadcast, three billion people watch worldwide.

Satoshi was a master promoter. He designed logos, built chat forums and schemed with users on those forums about how to stir up interest in bitcoin. He also designed a system to capture interest by being interesting.

Compare bitcoin to gold. Gold has a global brand earned over millennia. But whens the last time gold mining caught major headlines? If we mined an asteroid for gold or discovered that we had mined every last nugget that would capture attention. As things stand, however, gold mining is steady, predictable and unremarkable. Bitcoin is predictable, too. Yet it is predictably unsteady, especially with halvings thrown in, and thus remarkable.

Bitcoin is much younger than gold, with just 15 years since its creation. Yet bitcoins quadrennial halving events and corresponding price fluctuations garner headlines worldwide. Interest has snowballed with every halving, as have new users. Thats the goal.

Bitcoin halvings are spectacles, by design. And the design seems to be working. After all, it brought you to this article.

The authors are co-authors of the forthcoming academic book Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin (Routledge Press).

Andrew M. Bailey is an interdisciplinary teacher and scholar whose work spans philosophy, politics, and economics. He is Associate Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College (Singapore).

Bradley Rettler is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wyoming, and has published peer-reviewed academic articles on metaphysics, philosophy of religion, epistemology, and cryptocurrency

Craig Warmke researches money at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and computer science. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University.

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Read the original:

Bitcoin's halving is a major spectacle that's the whole point - Blockworks

Now a hotly anticipated recurring event that happens roughly every four years is taking place: the bitcoin halving. This could have further significant impact on the value of the cryptocurrency.

To understand what the halving is and what it could mean, we have to understand how bitcoin works. Bitcoin is a digital currency that makes use of what's called blockchain technology to securely store, record and publicly publish all transactions.

It is distinct from fiat currencies, such as dollars or pounds, because it has no central authority and members of the network have equal power. Each transaction is made and recorded with the user's public address, a code that enables them to remain anonymous.

Bitcoins are created by so-called miners who contribute computing power to secure the network and solve complex mathematical puzzles in order to process transaction data. These miners are then rewarded for their work with newly minted bitcoins.

The idea for bitcoin was first proposed in a white paper published online in 2008 by a mysterious individual or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. To combat inflation, Nakamoto wrote into the code that the total number of bitcoins will only ever be 21 million. Currently, more than 19.6 million bitcoins have been mined.

At the beginning, back in 2009, miners received 50 bitcoins for every block (unit of transaction data) they mined. But after every 210,000 blocks (roughly every four years), the reward halves.

So in 2012 the reward fell to 25 bitcoins, then to 12.5 bitcoins in 2016 and to 6.25 bitcoins in 2020. The latest halving means the reward will be just 3.125 bitcoins.

Why does bitcoin halve?

Nakamoto has never explained explicitly the reasons behind the halving. Some speculate that the halving system was designed to distribute coins more quickly at the beginning to incentivise people to join the network and mine new blocks. Block rewards are programmed to halve at regular intervals because the value of each coin rewarded is deemed likely to increase as the network expands.

But this may lead to users holding bitcoin as a speculative asset rather than using it as a medium of exchange. Additionally, the 21 million cap on the number of coins that can enter circulation makes them scarce (at least in comparison to dollars or euros), which for some people is enough to make them valuable.

So what impact does the halving have on the price? After the halving, the number of new bitcoin entering circulation shrinks. Demand should, in theory, be unaffected by this event and therefore the price should go up.

"The theory is that there will be less bitcoin available to buy if miners have less to sell," said Michael Dubrovsky, a co-founder of PoWx, a crypto research non-profit. While the first halving happened in 2012, when bitcoin was less well known and quite hard to buy and sell, we can learn from the subsequent two halvings.

The second halving on July 16 2016 was highly anticipated. The price dropped by 10 percent, but then shot back up to where it had been before. Although the immediate impact on the price was small, bitcoin did eventually respond and some argue that the 2017 bull run when the market boomed was a delayed result of the halving.

Beginning the year around US$900, by the end of 2017 bitcoin was trading above US$19,000. The third halving in 2020 happened during a bullish period for bitcoin and it continued to rise to more than US$56,000 in 2021.

Making an asset of scarcity

These few data points are not enough however to offer any concrete causal relationship or trend. But we do know that instantly miners' rewards are halved, meaning their revenue immediately halves and their profit margins are severely affected. Consequently, unless there is a price appreciation, many miners may become unprofitable and could cease the practice.

Bitcoin's scarcity is arguably one of its most significant characteristics, especially in a time of high inflation, quantitative easing and high interest rates. With the real value of fiat currencies falling, bitcoin's limited supply is an attractive feature and can be reassuring for investors.

Bitcoin hit an all-time high in February following the approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which effectively make it easier for retail investors and big banks to invest in bitcoin.

This, coupled with a more favorable regulatory environment on the horizon and the fact that it is becoming more integrated in the financial system, means bitcoin may continue on the rise it has experienced in 2024 so far.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Andrew Urquhart is a professor of Finance & Financial Technology, ICMA Centre, Henley Business School at University of Reading in England.

This article was republished under a Creative Commons license with The Conversation. The views and opinions in this article are solely those of the author.

https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-is-halving-again-what-does-that-mean-for-the-cryptocurrency-and-the-market-228213

Read the original post:

Bitcoin is halving again what does that mean for cryptocurrency and market? - Aju Press