Official United States copyright archive data shows that Wei Liu, a Chinese citizen residing in California, claimed copyright to bitcoin’s (BTC) white paper on May 24.
In the filing, Liu claims to have published the bitcoin white paper on Jan. 11, 2008, under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto, with the title “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Earlier this month, self-proclaimed Satoshi Craig Wright also filed United States copyright registrations for the same paper and most of the original code used to build bitcoin.
Cointelegraph has not been able to determine who Wei Liu is or the reasoning behind the filing the copyright claim by press time.
A news release from May 21 had claimed that U.S. officials received confirmation that Wright is actually Satoshi Nakamoto, but the news has been met with skepticism from some crypto commentators.
Earlier this month, Cointelegraph reported that the legal validity of Wright’s copyright filings are an object of dispute. Entrepreneur and bitcoin core developer Jimmy Song told Cointelegraph that instead of proving that he is Satoshi, the filing shows “that CSW is a publicity-seeking con-man, but we already knew that.”
The U.S. Copyright Office had responded on May 22 to the clamor over Wright’s new claim by releasing a press statement noting that “as a general rule, when the Copyright Office receives an application for registration, the claimant certifies as to the truth of the statements made in the submitted materials.” The author of the release concluded:
“The Copyright Office does not investigate the truth of any statement made.”
