Satoshi Craig Wright sued Bitcoin Cash figurehead, and former business partner, Roger Ver for libel after being called a “fraud and a liar.” Ver responded by seemingly debunking Wright’s claim that he controlled several high-profile Bitcoin addresses.
For two weeks we thought that tensions between Satoshi Wannabe Craig Wright and the rest of the planet had been quieted down. However, seems that poor Wright needed money to pay out Calvin Ayre’s sun tan he is getting in Antigua so he decided to show up again. Well, at least he stays consistent.
Another beautiful morning at Bodog Beach #Antigua pic.twitter.com/Ass8xGar3z
— Calvin Ayre (@CalvinAyre) May 17, 2019
Just to remind you, Ver got served a lawsuit by Wright at a Bitcoin Cash summit two weeks ago. He was sued for calling Wright a scammer and a liar in a video which has been removed as it goes against set rules by the YouTube community. However, Ver has now released a copy of the video on Twitter.
My response to CSW’s 100,000 GBP lawsuit: pic.twitter.com/Ob1WZITrM3
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) May 3, 2019
We had a chance to ask him to comment on this whole situation even before he got served. He said:
“I think Craig Wright cut his own side. He is always on his own side and if his side, maybe for the moment or for the day lines with someone else’s, he may join someone’s side just for the day but as far as I can tell – he is on his own side.
Bitcoin cash is community that wants to build P2P cash for the people around world to use and we want everybody to be able to benefit from that. I know he is suing everybody with different opinion than his. They said they’re suing me but they didn’t serve me yet. But I am sure he wants to sue me.”
However, it seems that Roger finally got sick of it (like every normal person would) and he decided to strike back. Ver responded to the lawsuit by seemingly debunking Wright’s claim that he controlled several high-profile Bitcoin addresses, which would have suggested that Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto.
The addresses, which were described as a “lazy copy-paste job,” was supposed to prove that Wright owns some of the first Bitcoin addresses ever created. Ver decided to debunk his claims by using one of the listed addresses to create a signed message.
$ bitcoin-cli verifymessage 16cou7Ht6WjTzuFyDBnht9hmvXytg6XdVT G39S6i4XsfQnixN5ePMjVPboWvGXdnW8xFFAXiwEriZFCclflbD7umP58u3Sl+dvvXC5BxBrRNkTMNf92O1UIXw= “Address 16cou7Ht6WjTzuFyDBnht9hmvXytg6XdVT does not belong to Satoshi or to Craig Wright.
Craig is a liar and a fraud.”— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) May 16, 2019
Crypto enthusiasts and avid followers of the Wright soap opera were quick to verify the signature, which did indeed show that the address was not owned by Wright.
Satoshi, Solotoshi – Is There Any Difference?
In the meantime, a few days ago, we could hear another, yet not mentioned name to stand behind the Satoshi suffix.
Satoshi Nakamoto person, or whatever that is, has not been seen online in more than eight years. Evidence has now surfaced that points to a new Satoshi candidate, whose known life has a number of parallels with that of Bitcoin’s inventor.
His name is Paul Solotoshi Calder Le Roux and, if he would actually be the real Satoshi, he would have had a good reason why his 1 million BTC hasn’t moved – the Rhodesian has been in jail since 2012. Even if Le Roux did create Bitcoin, it does not follow that money laundering was his goal: it would likelier have been an extension of his obsession with cryptography, which can be traced back to the 90s.
If it’s to believe what Wikipedia says, he was a brilliant programmer and privacy ideologue who worked on E4M (Encryption for the Masses), software which “is capable of encrypting entire disks, and optionally of plausible deniability (denying the existence of an encrypted volume).”
However, not to be boring, presidential candidate and software developer, John McAfee had to have his tweet:
Please! Those who claim Satoshi is Paul Solotshi Calder Le Roux, have been smoking way too much opium!
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) May 14, 2019
Even though McAfee vowed to reveal the identity of the anonymous Bitcoin creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto, he later backed out, saying lawyers warned him it could complicate his plan to fight extradition to the U.S. from the Bahamas. However, when asked about this, a Justice Department spokesman in Washington said that he had no information.
Adam Back: Satoshi is An Individual
Last but not least comes from Blockstream CEO Adam Back who claims that Satoshi is an individual, not a group of people. Black may be important because he is the person who was actually cited in THE Bitcoin’s white paper.
According to Back, this explains why the real identity of the person who started it all hasn’t been revealed yet. It’s hard to keep secrets when a group of individuals is involved. He said:
“It just seems like something one person would do to me.”
