England and Wales High Court ruled Mr. Craig Wright’s (self proclaimed Bitcoin inventor) allegations about the supposed hack of his firm’s crypto just like those that cannot be attempted “on the merits of the claim”.
On March 25, the British High Court judge and senior judicial commissioner Valerie Falk, DBE, said that Seychelles-based Tulip Trading Limited, a firm owned by the self-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) inventor Wright, does not have any legal ground or authority to sue core Bitcoin (BTC) developers over its supposed hack that happened in February 2020.
Another Failure For ‘Fake’ Bitcoin Inventor Craig Wright
According to the text of the court order published by official England and Wales High Court portal, the judge strongly dismissed the claims made by Craig Wright.
https://twitter.com/Arthur_van_Pelt/status/1507329606847811627
CSW had accused several veteran Bitcoin developers, including its three lead maintainers, Pieter Wuille, Wladimir van der Laan, and Jonas Schnelli, of refusing to “take steps to allow TTL to regain control of the assets.” In the meantime, it is still not yet clear whether a hack happened as purported: ‘stolen’ assets are still dormant as ruled by the court.
Dame Falk insisted that even if such a hack did happen and resulted in major losses for Mr. Wright, the defendants cannot be held liable or accountable for refusal to help him in retrieving his money by affecting the network integrity:
“The fact that the Bitcoin SV Network might be getting ready to make a system change to accommodate the loss of access to private keys (…) never meant that any such alteration, whether a general one or a particular one to TTL, can be imposed on other individuals and entities.”
Furthermore, Bitcoin veterans should never bear the responsibility for the failure to implement security measures to protect the Bitcoiners (BTC) from major losses.
In that context, the court ordered that Craig Wright’s allegations can never even be considered to be legal claims:
“TTL is yet to establish a serious issue to be tested on the merits of that claim. In these circumstances, the perfect order is to put aside the order of the Deputy Master Nurse granting permission to serve the claim form out of the specific jurisdiction and to set aside the service of the claim form.”
Reactions
Mainly, Crypto Twitter slammed CSW’s allegations and praised the ironic tone of the court order and the extensive understanding of what blockchain is, as highlighted by the judge:
Buy Bitcoin Now“I would say that Mrs. Justice Falk has got amongst it very much better than some thought might happen. The judgment is well reasoned & well presented.”
One blockchain-focused cybersecurity team, WizSec, mocked the allegations for their lack of any formal logic:
“As such, Craig Wright threatened and then filed a lawsuit over breach of duty, but not only does such a duty not exist, by his updated argument the ‘breach’ had not happened yet either, and would not happen until the court ruled in his favor.”
The R&D arm of crypto ecosystem BitMEX, BitMEX Research, is confident that this might be the final court order for Craig Wright and his lawyer, Calvin Ayre, in a years-long saga.
[5/5] Conclusion
CSW's case against the Bitcoin developers was dismissed.
> "In conclusion, TTL has not established a serious issue to be tried on the merits of the claim"
Unless CSW appeals, this may all finally be over…
— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) March 25, 2022
By the time of publication, Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright are still silent on whether the court order will be appealed – restraining from commenting on this case.
What It Means For Web3 Regulation
First, the order seems like a definite failure for Craig Wright; in fact, the court dismissed all his allegations on a technicality and not based on legal grounds.
That mentioned ruling is among the first documents that are believed to legally confirm that the blockchain developers and maintainers cannot be accountable for the private keys issues.
That is what decentralization is all about: the “not your keys not your crypto” motto is approved by the England and Wales High Court. All this goes far beyond being yet another chapter in the “CSW vs. Bitcoiners” drama.
