Craig Wright says he’ll sue over the Bitcoin white paper — these 108 sites don’t care
More than 100 websites still host the original Bitcoin whitepaper even though self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright is threatening to sue anyone who publishes it.
An anonymous Twitter user compiled this Bitcoin whitepaper repository from a number of smaller archives and Twitter threads, uploading it just hours after Wright’s latest legal threats surfaced last week.
The result is something akin to a Bitcoin seed bank. The creator told Protos the endeavour is their way “fighting back against Wright’s nonsense.”
Some big industry names are already there, including Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy and Wall Street gurus Fidelity Digital Assets.
Jack Dorsey’s fintech Square is also on the list despite reportedly receiving a letter from Wright’s lawyers.
However, it’s not immediately clear how seriously Dorsey considers the threats as the file is still on Square Crypto’s site more than a week later.
Wright’s copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper was misspelled
Wright’s lawyers recently accused site operators of bitcoin.org and bitcoincore.org of infringing his copyright, demanding they immediately stop hosting the file. One site caved.
Wright claims to be both the author of Bitcoin’s whitepaper and the cryptocurrency’s ultimate creator. He’s also waging a tough legal battle against a Twitter-based astronaut cat for saying otherwise.
[Read more: Craig Wright returns to copyright strike the Bitcoin whitepaper]
Indeed, Wright’s latest move merely served as a rallying cry for the Bitcoin community, which has now inspired government agencies and US congressmen to openly defy Wright.
This week, Estonia’s e-Residency website hosted Bitcoin’s whitepaper, as did Jehudi Castro — advisor to Colombia’s President Ivan Duque Marquez.
Over in the US, the city of Miami uploaded bitcoin.pdf to its municipal website on Tuesday.
Congressional Financial Services Committee member Patrick McHenry later posted the whitepaper to a US government page and invited colleagues to do the same.
For what it’s worth, Wright responded to the backlash with a Monday blog post. In it, he doubled (quadrupled?) down on his claim to the Nakamoto moniker.
He also appeared to threaten Bitcoin developers, warning they should be aware of the “risks and consequences associated with established legal systems.”
As for the future of this particular Bitcoin whitepaper archive, its maintainer plans to keep it updated — providing they can do so anonymously.
“Of course, legal action is always a possibility. I’m as anonymous as it is practically feasible, and this is to minimize any potential risk,” they said.
“All in all, though, I think CSW [Wright] has much bigger targets in his sights than me.”