Also today, crypto personality Layah Heilpern has blocked fellow Bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack after a row on Twitter.
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Editor's Note: We Still Don't Know Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is
Molly Jane Zuckerman writes...
Yesterday, Crypto Twitter found out that Hodlonaut won his court case in Norway — proving that his "defamatory" tweets about Craig Wright were not, in fact, defamatory.
If you're not familiar with the case, the main points are the following: computer scientist Craig Wright claims to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, Twitter personality Hodlonaut doesn't believe him and tweets that he is a scammer, and Dr. Wright sues for defamation.
This is just one in many, many lawsuits Dr. Wright has against people who deny his Satoshi claims, but this lawsuit is unusual in that its preemptive on the part of the accuser — Hodlonaut filed the case himself to prove his tweets fall under freedom of speech.
However, just because the Norwegian judge ruled that it wasn't defamatory to call Craig Wright a "fraud" and "scammer" doesn't actually put the nail in the coffin proving that Dr. Wright is not Satoshi. It certainly makes it a lot harder to prove now that at least one judge has said that Wright's evidence is "not suitable" to prove his identity as Satoshi, but it's still practically impossible to prove a negative.
The case of Satoshi's identity will only truly be put to rest when he/she/they do something irrevocably provable like… moving some of the Bitcoin stash that only Satoshi controls.
Hodlonaut defeats Craig Wright in court 🚨
Hodlonaut has won a high-stakes trial in Norway against Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin. A court ruled that Hodlonaut's tweets, where he accused Dr. Wright of being a fraud and a scammer, were not unlawful. The Australian entrepreneur will now have to pay $380,000 in legal costs. In her ruling, Judge Helen Engebrigtsen said it isn't unusual for "strong words" to be used on Twitter — and thousands of posts similar to Hodlonaut's had also been written. Overall, the judge said that Granath's statements "have a core of allegations of a factual nature." However, the court chose not to take a position on whether Dr. Wright actually is Satoshi Nakamoto, because it had no bearing on the outcome of the case.
How both sides reacted to the ruling 👀
Back in 2019 — when Dr. Wright had vowed to sue "trolls and haters" — he ended a blog post with the words: "Welcome to law." For Hodlonaut, revenge was a dish best served cold. After the ruling landed, he tweeted: "I won. Welcome to law." The president of Bitcoin Magazine, Mike Germano, said: "Years of Craig Wright using the legal system to harass and silence the truth has ended." Halvor Manshaus, who represented Dr. Wright in Norway, has vowed to appeal the verdict — adding: "Private citizens should enjoy the same protection on Twitter as on other media platforms. Anonymous online bullying and harassment risks having a chilling effect on meaningful debate."
Layah Heilpern BLOCKS Peter McCormack ❌
Crypto personality Layah Heilpern has blocked fellow Bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack after a row on Twitter. She had written a tweet that claimed rainbow flags were "everywhere" in London — and every single person was "woke." McCormack shot back by arguing the city is nothing like this at all, and warned she was starting to sound like far-right commentator Katie Hopkins. He went on to claim that her tweet "was a bigoted dog whistle" — and teased Heilpern by tweeting a picture of a rainblow flag flying in Edinburgh. This didn't go down well. She claimed McCormack was "purposely mischaracterizing her for clout" — and alleged that he was trying to cancel her by "making up lies" that she is homophobic.
BitBoy's shouty, sweary rant against CEOs 🤬
Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams has also taken a swipe at the YouTuber BitBoy Crypto — suggesting that this influencer doesn't know what he's talking about. BitBoy reacted furiously when he saw the tweet during his show, and started shouting into the microphone. He called Sam Bankman-Fried and Brian Armstrong "devils" — and claimed that they were "trying to permanently ruin" the crypto space. Adams reposted a clip of the sweary rant by saying: "Today, the Alex Jones of crypto went on a coke-fueled tirade about my glasses. How's your day going?" Adams went on to invite BitBoy onto a Bankless show, mischievously writing: "Hoping you'll waive your customary $40,000 fee."
Elon Musk 'planning big job cuts at Twitter' 😬
Twitter has been rocked by a new report that suggests Elon Musk is planning to lay off 75% of its workforce. The billionaire's move would see the social network's headcount dwindle from 7,500 to 2,000. According to The Washington Post, redundancies of this scale would have a huge impact on Twitter's ability "to control harmful content and prevent data security crises." But the newspaper says that big cuts were on the horizon anyway, even if Musk's $44 billion takeover fell through. Executives were already planning to slash 25% of the workforce in a bid to save $800 million — with the report suggesting this was why Twitter was so keen for the deal to go ahead. The social network's staff have been told that nothing is confirmed.
Stop buying Bitcoin, Salvadorans tell Bukele 💸
For over a year, El Salvador's president has been regularly using taxpayers' money to buy Bitcoin — an investment that is currently tens of millions of dollars in the red. And according to an extensive new poll, 77% of the population want Nayib Bukele to stop. José Simeón Cañas Central American University performed an extensive poll gauging the mood of El Salvador on a number of issues — not just Bitcoin. But over a year after BTC was adopted as legal tender, 76% of those polled said they had not used Bitcoin to make purchases or payments so far this year. When asked whether they thought the controversial Bitcoin Law had been a success, 66% said it had been a failure. Women and people over the age of 56 were most likely to disapprove.
