Late in March Bitcoin SV frontman and nChain chief scientist, Dr. Craig S. Wright, reportedly took the first steps in a libel suit against a Twitter user who goes by the name of ‘Hodlnaut’ for publicly defaming him and accusing him of fraudulently claiming that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin (BTC).
Wright’s attorneys, reportedly stated that he “has not fraudulently claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. He is Satoshi Nakamoto. He produced the report Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System in October 2008, sent the first Bitcoin to Hal Finney in January 2009 and played an integral part in the development of Bitcoin. He has explained his role in detail on previous occasions.”
However, Wright’s attorneys were not able to find out the real-world identity behind the Twitter user (who started the Lightning Torch campaign early this year). Therefore, he reportedly sent the libel suit documents to his social media account.
As a result, Wright has offered a bounty of $5,000 worth of BSV to anyone who can identify the man behind the Twitter account ‘Hodlnaut’ by his tattoos, which were visible on some of his posted photos, according to a report by the Calvin Ayre-owned, Bitcoin SV-focused blog CoinGeek.
When all of this came to light, “Crypto Twitter” responded with a social media campaign titled #WeAreAllHodlnaut in support of the pseudonymous Twitter user and promoted a number of bitcoiners to change their Twitter names to ‘Hodlnaut.’
Moreover, a fundraising campaign was launched to support ‘Hodlnaut’ with the payment of his legal fees. At the time of writing, donors have contributed over $28,000, beating the $20,000 fundraising target.
Additionally, at the height of the #WeAreAllHodlnaut Twitter campaign, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao chimed in and threatened to delist BSV if “anymore of this sh!t” continued.
Lawsuits are “mooning”
Craig S. Wright has reportedly not only taken legal action against ‘Hodlnaut’ but has also served bitcoin podcaster, Peter McCormack, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, tech blog Chepicap with lawsuits – all of whom have publicly stated that Wight is not Satoshi Nakamoto, according to a report by CoinGeek.
The letter Peter McCormack says he received from Craig Wright's legal team
Blockstream CEO Adam Back also made the list of those who were served with legal notices, according to a tweet by his colleague Samson Mow.
From a legal perspective, the action by Dr Wright is particularly interesting given the defenses available for defamation under UK law (and in most jurisdictions worldwide). For example, ‘Truth’ is a defense. The problem for anyone being sued for defamation, however, is that the onus of proving truth in the UK is on the defendant. Dr Wright therefore will not have to prove he is Satoshi, instead those who are being sued will have to prove that he isn’t. Other defense options include ‘Honest Opinion’, an ‘Offer of Amends’ and ‘Innocent Dissemination.’
Exchanges delisting Bitcoin SV
Only a day after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao threatened to delist Bitcoin SV (BSV), he followed through. On April 15, Binance announced that it will delist BSV on April 22, 2019, and that BSV holders users had until then to transfer their coins off the exchange.
Binance’s action was met with praise from the bitcoin community, which had launched a #DelistBSV campaign on Twitter. Shapeshift CEO Erik Voorhees publicly supported Binance’s decision and followed suit. His exchange will also delist BSV.
Additionally, Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith announced that the wallet provider is also delisting BSV, and San Francisco-based digital asset exchange Kraken conducted a Twitter poll on the subject matter, asking its users whether it should delist Bitcoin SV or not.
71 percent of the respondents responded with ‘Yes,’ which would suggest that Kraken will be the next bitcoin company to cease support for the bitcoin cash hard fork.
Dubai-based SatoWallet and UK-based Bittylicious are two further digital asset exchanges that have announced that they will delist BSV in the fallout of the #WeAreAllHodlnaut and #DelistBSV campaigns before the end of the month.
BitForex also launched a Twitter poll to ask users whether to delist the coin or not. Should the result of the poll show that over 50 percent of the participants want it delisted, the exchange will agree to it, according to a tweet. At the time of writing, ‘Yes’ had 46 percent while ‘No’ had 38 percent (16% opted for don’t care) with a day remaining for the poll.
BSV price loses
Unsurprisingly, following the delisting announcement by Binance and several other exchanges, the price of BSV was down over 20 percent within 24 hours. The bitcoin cash fork remained the only top 25 crypto asset by market capitalization that was in the red on Tuesday.
Crypto asset investors, especially those with deep pockets, want to invest in digital currencies and tokens that have a positive medium to long-term outlook. Moreover, they are looking for assets with a certain amount of liquidity so that they can enter and exit large positions.
With the delisting of BSV on a number of popular exchanges and potentially more to follow, a reduction in BSV liquidity can be expected. As a result, it will likely become difficult for Bitcoin SV proponents to convince large investors, especially institutional investors, to invest in the coin in the near future.
Should the price and, thus, the market capitalization of Bitcoin SV continue to decline, it has the potential to suffer the same fate as previous Bitcoin forks, such as Bitcoin Private and Bitcoin Interest, which have also fallen out of favor with crypto investors.