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- Bitcoincore.org has taken down the Bitcoin whitepaper from its website after renewed pressure from Craig Wright.
- Bitcoin.org refuses to remove the BTC whitepaper and rejects Wright’s claims.
Craig Wright‘s name has resurfaced in the midst of a familiar situation: a lawsuit. This time, the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin, through his lawyers, has sent two allegations of copyright infringement for authorship of the Bitcoin whitepaper to Bitcoin.org and Bitcoincore.org.
Bitcoin.org contributor “Cobra” explained the details in a post. Cobra said Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. That’s why he claimed ownership of the Bitcoin.org website, Cobra wrote:
We believe these claims are without merit, and refuse to do so.
Bitcoin Core gave in to pressure from Wright. As a result, the bitcoincore.org website was modified and references to the Bitcoin whitepaper and the PDF copy were removed, “unfortunately without consulting us,” Cobra added. The contributor believes this gave credibility to Wright’s “false” claims and added:
By surrendering in this way, the Bitcoin Core project has lent ammunition to Bitcoin’s enemies, engaged in self-censorship, and compromised its integrity. This surrender will no doubt be weaponized to make new false claims, like that the Bitcoin Core developers “know” CSW to be Satoshi Nakamoto and this is why they acted in this way.
Via Twitter, some users have shown their support for the contributor who withdrew the whitepaper, Wladimir van der Laan. The successor to Gavin Andresen as the main maintainer of the Bitcoin repository on GitHub, van der Laan said he will not become a “martyr” and said the community is responsible for protecting the cryptocurrency. Cobra responded:
You let one legal letter force you into modifying Bitcoin Core’s website and remove the whitepaper, at the request of CSW. You gave precedent and lent legitimacy to his claims, and made it more likely for his attack on bitcoin.org to succeed. No sympathy.
Reactions to the attack against Bitcoin
Cobra said the Bitcoin.org website will continue to host the whitepaper and declared that it will not “be silenced or intimidated”. According to the contributor, the document was included in the original Bitcoin project files and published by Satoshi Nakamoto under a MIT license. Therefore, Cobra claims that they have a legal right to host the whitepaper and said:
Furthermore, Satoshi Nakamoto has a known PGP public key, therefore it is cryptographically possible for someone to verify themselves to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Unfortunately, Craig has been unable to do this.
Cobra invited the community to follow suit. In response, Monero contributor Ricardo “Flufflypony” Spagni said he will start hosting Satoshi Nakamoto’s paper, reiterating that it was licensed under MIT and published with the original Bitcoin code. Hundreds of users have joined the initiative.
I'm hosting the Bitcoin whitepaper, as distributed by Satoshi under the MIT license with the original Bitcoin code, on this site:https://t.co/1FoHqgyd4C
— Ric “el pony esponjoso” (@fluffypony) January 21, 2021
Remarkably, this is Wright’s third attempt to claim authorship of the Bitcoin whitepaper. In 2019, Wright first attempted to use copyright to his advantage, without success.
