By
Temitope Olatunji
April 26th, 2024
Crypto blogger Peter McCormack received a lawsuit letter from Craig Wright for causing “serious harm” to his reputation.Wright had earlier threatened Hodlnaut, the person behind the lightning torch, with legal action for calling him a “fraudster.”
Craig Wright, a computer scientist and self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, has been serving people with legal notices for harassing him with tweets or comments. The barrage of lawsuits began with Hodlonaut, a Twitter user who seemed to have started the hashtag “CraigWrightIsAFraud.”
Hodlenaut was a Twitter user who recently received the ire of Wright after claiming in a series of tweets he was a “fraud” and posting images mocking him. Wright’s attorney threatened Hodlonaut with a libel case if he did not “apologize” and “retract his statement.” Wright was also attempting to doxx Hodlenaut, and many of his supporters, if they did not comply with his demands.
The letter comes at a time when many in the cryptocurrency space have been rallying behind the hashtag #WeAreAllHodlonaut. The trending hashtag was meant to expose Wright’s threats of libel lawsuits to many members of the cryptocurrency space.
The letter to Hodlonaut even absurdly included an example of what the apology should look like:
“I was wrong to allege Craig Wright fraudulently claimed to be Satoshi. I accept he is Satoshi. I am sorry Dr. Wright. I will not repeat this libel.”
Wright continued to serve more legal notices to several others like Peter McCormack and Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin.
Peter McCormack, host of “What Bitcoin Did” podcast, got a legal notice from Craig Wright’s lawyers, detailing a couple of tweets by McCormack where he called Craig Wright a fraud. The letter stated:
“We strongly suggest that you take legal advice upon the contents of this letter, which is written in compliance with the Pre Action Protocol for Defamation applicable to claims in the High Court of England and Wales.”
The letter accuses McCormack of causing “serious harm” to Wright’s reputation by repeatedly calling him “Faketoshi” and “a fraud” on Twitter. It also threatens court action if McCormack doesn’t comply with Wright’s demands by April 23.
McCormack defiantly tweeted:
https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1116733748794540033
He also added:
“I believe that claiming to be Satoshi and promoting a fake version of Bitcoin is fraudulent. I believe this is in the public interest.
Let’s go to court.
Before any claims of virtue signalling or clout…I’m doing this because it is the right thing to do. I’ve lost everything before and if I lose it again, so what. BSV is a fake Bitcoin run by frauds.
F** them!”
Peter McCormack received support from the community in the form of donations, indicating that the crypto community was coming together to support McCormack and Hodlonaut. The former asked his supporters to redirect their donations to the crowdfunding campaign set up for Hodlonaut.
Much Respect.. Let see what will happen now.. I in for a Crowdfunding if needed pic.twitter.com/XwHQd1efzL
— Crypt⭕ TN (@tn_crypto) April 12, 2019
However, Bitcoin SV supporter and billionaire Calvin Eyre tweeted:
“First round of Troll Hunting letters went out to Vitalik (front for his father) and Eth, nobodies at Chepicap and an even lessor nobody named Peter McCormack who says he wants to spend his money to prove that Craig did not invent Bitcoin. Stay tuned as this will be fun 🙂 .”
Ayre, who has come under intense scrutiny recently for a rendezvous with allegedly underage Cuban dancers, has migrated some of the article’s threats to Twitter and has insinuated that more letters will be served to others Twitter users soon.
Binance’s CEO, CZ, also had an opinion on the steps taken by Ayre and Wright:
Craig Wright is not Satoshi.
Anymore of this sh!t, we delist! https://t.co/hrnt3fDACq
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) April 12, 2019
After Zhao’s latest statement, many from the crypto community came out in his support. It looks like the crypto community is fed up with Wright’s tantrums and his repetitive attempts to create unnecessary FUD.
Tron founder Justin Sun, also tweeted in support of CZ while putting the same hashtag:
Show our support to #WeAreAllHodlonaut ⚡️ https://t.co/Ycu5wM1sT7
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) April 12, 2019
However, Calvin Ayre went further escalating these threats by offering $5,000 in BSV to whoever could identify Hodlonaut based on the few photos he has posted online.
Meanwhile, it seems McCormack admitted that he stands behind the @hodlonaut account:
https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1116272604829159426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1116272604829159426&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbitcoinmagazine.com%2Farticles%2Fcraig-wright-threatens-libel-suit-letter-bitcoiner-demands-apology%2F
It has always been difficult to ignore Wright’s outrageous claims. However, suing fellow cryptocurrency commentators for a difference of opinion could force us to reexamine those who have thus far refused to condemn Wright.
Perhaps major players should consider isolating him altogether before this problem further metastasizes. If we don’t, this entire fiasco could bring the entire cryptocurrency space down with it.