Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who claims to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, has threatened legal action against the owners of two Bitcoin (BTC) websites whom he defendant of stealing his whitepaper and other intellectual property.

Equally appear on Jan. 21, Bitcoin.org along with another website, Bitcoincore.org, had received allegations of copyright infringement from Craig Wright'south lawyers. The counsel reportedly claimed that Wright, as Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, was the legal copyright holder of the Bitcoin whitepaper, that he owned the Bitcoin name and trademark, likewise as the 2 websites listed in a higher place. The announcement stated:

"Yesterday both Bitcoin.org and Bitcoincore.org received allegations of copyright infringement of the Bitcoin whitepaper by lawyers representing Craig Steven Wright. In this letter, they merits Craig owns the copyright to the paper, the Bitcoin name, and ownership of bitcoin.org.

The declaration continues, "They also merits he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, and the original owner of bitcoin.org. Bitcoin.org and Bitcoincore.org were both asked to take down the whitepaper. Nosotros believe these claims are without merit, and refuse to do so."

Only while the owner of Bitcoin.org (a pseudonymous developer known equally Cobra) has stated his refusal to be intimidated by the threat of what they've called "false allegations", the owner of Bitcoincore.org has already thrown in the towel.

According to Cobra, their co-accused over at Bitcoincore.org acquiesced to the requests of Craig Wright's lawyers almost immediately. Cobra'south announcement stated:

"Unfortunately, without consulting us, Bitcoin Core developers scrambled to remove the Bitcoin whitepaper from bitcoincore.org, in response to these allegations of copyright infringement, lending acceptance to these false claims.

Cobra said the local copy of the whitepaper hosted on Bitcoincore.org was removed within less than 2 hours, adding a link to the Github modification which shows the alter was made:

"The Bitcoin Cadre website was modified to remove references to the whitepaper, their local copy of the whitepaper PDF was deleted, and with less than 2 hours of public review, this change was merged."

All references to the Bitcoin whitepaper have plainly been removed from the Bitcoincore.org website. Cobra declared that this human action of self-censorship would only lend acceptance to the notion that Craig Wright's claims were legitimate:

"By surrendering in this mode, the Bitcoin Cadre projection has lent armament to Bitcoin's enemies, engaged in self-censorship, and compromised its integrity. This give up will no doubt be weaponized to make new false claims, like that the Bitcoin Core developers 'know' CSW to be Satoshi Nakamoto and this is why they acted in this fashion."

However, the owner of Bitcoincore.org, and current maintainer of the Bitcoin code, Wladimir J. van der Laan (@orionwl on Twitter), responded apace, telling his Twitter audience that this issue was not a loma worth dying on:

"So let this exist clear: I'm happy to maintain the bitcoin core code, but I will non personally be a martyr for bitcoin, it'due south up to yous every bit bitcoiners to protect information technology."

Craig Wright has brought several lawsuits confronting diverse figures in the cryptocurrency space for in some manner refuting the notion that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, and the true proprietor of Bitcoin. None of the cases have been settled in his favor thus far.

Van der Laan appeared to suggest that the easiest form of activity was to play ball with Wright'southward lawyers, calculation that his focus remained on the Bitcoin organisation itself. He tweeted:

"This thing is nigh decentralization and distributed systems, not personal macho posturing, i take no interest in that and definitely don't get paid plenty to do so."

Cobra ended his announcement on Bitcoin.org by reiterating the open-source condition of the MIT license under which Bitcoin and its whitepaper were published, stating:

"The Bitcoin whitepaper was included in the original Bitcoin project files with the project conspicuously published under the MIT license by Satoshi Nakamoto. We believe there is no uncertainty nosotros accept the legal right to host the Bitcoin whitepaper."

Cobra said the Bitcoin whitepaper will continue to be hosted on Bitcoin.org, and that they hoped other websites would follow adapt in resisting Craig Wright's attempts at intimidation.