By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 19th, 2024
Bitcoin SV, the brainchild of the self-proclaimed Satoshi Craig Wright, went crazy with an 82% price increase over the last 24h. The unprecedented pump, which allowed the coin to take eighth spot on the CMC top 10, was allegedly triggered by fake news.
What doesn’t kill you – makes you stronger, at least Craig Wright thinks so. His scammers boosted the price of Bitcoin SV (BSV) yesterday by publishing a fake news alert purporting to show again that Craig Wright is the real Satoshi.
Masquerading as the Chinese news site Coinbull, the bogus alert claimed that Craig Wright had transferred Bitcoin (BTC) from the so-called Satoshi wallets to prove his identity.
The result? 82% boost in the bitcoin SV price in less than 10 hours.
Dovey Wan, a founding partner at crypto VC firm Primitive Ventures, translated the viral fake news that tricked many Chinese investors. It was said:
“CSW transferred 50k BTC from the biggest BTC wallet to Binance, which confirmed he is the real Satoshi. As such CZ will re-list BSV and make an official apology on Twitter.”
The apology, and re-listing, of course, never came. Wan revealed a tendency for FOMO among Chinese retail investors, who she said to display a herd mentality. Wan explained:
“I don’t know how much this contribute to the pump, but this fake news snapshot went viral in many Chinese retail groups around the same time and folks (thought it was real) got super excited about it. CHINESE RETAIL IS THE BEST HERD EVER.”
Binance Did Not Delist Bitcoin SV
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) went through the formality of confirming the news as fake. CZ tweeted:
“Careful, it’s caused by fake new circulation in China. I got pinged 20 times today, clarifying it is fake.”
What actually happens is something that even a three-year-old could think of. The “news” was broadcasted through Chinese messaging app WeChat instead of sharing the link directly. Bare in mind that anyone can use the same image and alter it to communicate any message they want, so it was pretty easy to trick people into reacting to fake news.
But let’s start from the beginning – the news about Wright copyrighting the Bitcoin white paper contributed to the greatest price increase in Bitcoin SV’s history, which almost doubled the coin’s market capitalization. Despite the fact that the U.S. Copyright Office denied acknowledging Craig Wright as the creator of Bitcoin, it produced little negative impact on the coin after the pump.
Bitcoin SV survived the widespread backlash that was triggered by Wright’s legal actions against those who questioned whether he’s the real Satoshi. The controversy came to a head when Binance and Kraken delisted Bitcoin SV.
Craig Wright has also been criticized for using his fortune to engage in ‘lawfare’ against critics of his claim.
He’s currently suing numerous people, including podcaster Dr Peter McCormack for 100,000 pounds, which McCormack claims could cost him up to 750,000 pounds to defend in court.
McCormack explained that not contesting the claim is also an option because it won’t give CSW the publicity he’s looking for and the judgment that he’s going for. However, this will cost the podcaster £100,000 and in the “worse case” his house.
Do remember that Craig Wright is also suing 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.
Wright’s wingman Calvin Ayre recently said that their cryptocurrency will eventually “absorb” every other virtual currency in the market.
Speaking on the topic of the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, and Wright’s relentless claims to the same, Ayre said that Wright had been working on Bitcoin two years prior to the launch in 2009. By his own words, Wright “stepped away,” and was hoping that the project would “take on a life of its own,” however, it was “hijacked,” by several forces.
Bloomberg segment I did today during CoinGeek here in Toronto:https://t.co/VvXYlpDXiP
— Calvin Ayre (@CalvinAyre) May 29, 2019
However, even though it is clear as a day that Craig Wright is using his own wealth to prove he is the real Satoshi, this notorious liar is only proving that he is dangerous and that the market will react on any scam possible.