The always controversial Craig Wright has filed registrations with the U.S. Copyright Office for the original Bitcoin code and the Bitcoin white paper. He has claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto for some time, and now is attempting to exert some control over it. A recent press release states:
“In the future, Wright intends to assign the copyright registrations to Bitcoin Association to hold for the benefit of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin Association is a global industry organization for Bitcoin businesses. It supports BSV and owns the Bitcoin SV client software.”
Copyright Claims As a Signal
Copyright wouldn’t allow for him to have any added control over the code, but would make him the incumbent owner in future lawsuits. The Copyright Office is unlikely to even investigate whether the claim is valid, and will register the claim. This is not a big deal, but it is the level of obfuscation that results from being able to claim you invented Bitcoin that is the problem.
The Australian entrepreneur has consistently been in the news for a few years now, and is constantly peddling Bitcoin SV (a fork of Bitcoin Cash) as the strongest form of digital gold.
More importantly, this announcement has elevated the profile of Bitcoin SV and himself. As the “inventor” of Bitcoin, he could potentially get more speaking engagements and earn money through new income streams. There is a lot of power in being able to claim yourself as the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, which is why this is such a big deal.
Bitcoin SV (BSV) has pumped almost 102% in the last day, which is the result of Craig Wright’s recent copyright claims. He is also attempting to claim that developer groups have compromised his original vision for the protocol, and that Bitcoin SV is the one true manifestation of his ideas. This is where the danger comes in. He is essentially claiming other coins as heretical, which could lead to massive price manipulation.
How Bitcoin is Affected
Bitcoin price movement could also now be affected more by Craig Wright’s claims. Not everyone is going to realize that copyright registrations are not backed by fact and are really a “first one to claim it” situation. Those people could be deceived and put more faith in Wright’s words than is smart.
As you can tell, I don’t put a lot of faith in Wright’s claim as Satoshi Nakamoto. He hasn’t been able to provide any proof, and there is no reason to think that Satoshi would suddenly come forward when by all means, it seems as if he is just holding onto his large flush of Bitcoin and enjoying anonymity.
In the past few weeks, several exchanges, including Binance have removed Bitcoin SV from their platforms due to the threats being doled out by BSV supporters to any who doubted Wright’s Satoshi claims.
Bitcoin is starting to his the same resistance point over and over around the $8,300 range. Numerous technical analyses are saying that a price pullback is likely after failure to hit the $8,500 level. It is beginning to approach the $8,000 price level as the SEC announces they are still early on in their decision on the most recently proposed Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).