Craig Wright, known for rattling the crypto cage, is back with another legal tempest. This time, he’s launching a $1.18 billion lawsuit claiming Bitcoin devs swerved from Satoshi’s true blueprint. Wright insists Bitcoin SV (BSV) holds the real Satoshi signature while Bitcoin Core (BTC) developers have butchered the original code.
He’s pointing fingers at SegWit and Taproot—two infamous updates that allegedly wrecked the sacred chain. The gap in valuations between BTC and BSV is what he’s after, like a bounty hunter chasing down the loot. Bitcoin sat at a lofty $62K, while BSV limped in at a measly $65. Wright wants that difference—over a cool billion—back in his hands, saying the market’s been bamboozled by false promises.
“Deviations and Fork Wars”: Wright Goes After Bitcoin Core
The lawsuit, lobbed in the UK High Court, accuses the Bitcoin Core devs of leading users astray, hoodwinking them into believing BTC is still the original Satoshi’s Bitcoin. Square Up Europe Limited, Jack Dorsey’s project linked to the Lightning Network, also gets pulled into the lawsuit crosshairs. Wright’s case leans heavily on the claim that Bitcoin’s 2017 SegWit update and 2021 Taproot tweak betrayed the masterplan laid out in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
He claims these changes spawned confusion in the market, wrecking BSV’s potential. BSV, according to Wright, is the uncut, untarnished original Bitcoin protocol, left in the dust thanks to these so-called “deviations.” His argument? The folks behind BTC basically reshaped the project into something else, yet they still call it Bitcoin. That, to him, spells financial disaster for BSV.
Crypto Wars or Satoshi Wars?
Yet not everyone’s biting. Lanny Tuchmayer, legal wiz and crypto brainiac at Bergel Magence LLP, said Wright’s lawsuit misses the whole point of Bitcoin. The protocol, he says, is decentralized and open-source. The upgrades, such as SegWit and Taproot, passed through community consensus, not some backdoor deal. Tuchmayer adds Wright’s claim is fighting against the decentralized nature of Bitcoin itself—no central authority can claim the code as their private territory.
Wright’s old legal shenanigans also come into play here. His earlier spat with the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), backed by Jack Dorsey, also had Wright on the losing side. He tried to convince the world he was Satoshi Nakamoto and deserved copyright over the Bitcoin whitepaper. UK courts shot down that claim, leaving Wright with no choice but to publicly declare he didn’t invent Bitcoin.
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