Self-Described Bitcoin Inventor Craig Wright Offers to Settle IP Case

The man who infamously claims to be the creator of Bitcoin has issued a settlement offer to the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and “all parties” in a letter published on Wednesday. The move aims to avoid a trial over the intellectual property rights around Bitcoin and the legal pressure to prove whether Craig Wright is indeed the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

COPA's response, issued on Twitter: "Hard pass."

Last month, a UK judge ordered Wright to provide documented proof of his claim of being the creator of Bitcoin. High court judge James Mellor said Wright must provide printed copies of 95 documents dating back to 2007—documents that attorneys for Wright said were stored on a USB drive and would prove he is Nakamoto.

“In February, I am due to face a group of individuals and corporate entities in London’s High Court, where I intend to uphold my intellectual property rights in Bitcoin as its creator,” Wright said. “However, the focus of my various litigations to date has never been on revealing my pseudonymous identity as Satoshi Nakamoto, but on mandating that Bitcoin remains faithful to its central principles.”

He emphasized the role of the Bitcoin White Paper as the foundation for the other cryptocurrencies bearing the Bitcoin name, like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.

In 2021, Jack Dorsey-backed COPA filed a lawsuit against Wright over his attempts to copyright the founding document of the Bitcoin blockchain.

“In clear demonstration of the sincerity of my offer, I agree to waive my database rights and copyrights relating to BTC, BCH, and ABC databases, and to offer an irrevocable license in perpetuity to my opposing parties who collectively control, operate, and/or own those databases, in pursuit of encouraging the open commercialization of technologies in a competitive and fair market, where intellectual property rights are respected and exploited,” Wright said. “I intend for this offer to enable them to compete fairly, in parallel with BSV.”

The offer, Wright said, is on the table until the end of January. “All parties now have 7 days from the date of this offer to agree this settlement, or we shall progress to trial,” he said.

He adds that the settlement offer preserves his objective of maintaining the integrity of the Bitcoin network and, at the same time, limits the “needless expense” of a lengthy High Court trial for all parties and lets developers return their focus to Bitcoin.

In the offer, Wright proposes ending all legal claims in the lawsuit, with each party responsible for their legal costs. Wright encouraged participants in the case to donate the amount they would have spent to the Australian charity Burnside, which aids single mothers or another agreed-upon charity.

Committing to not gaining any financial benefit from the case, Wright pledged to donate any funds he might receive to the charity.

Stipulations of the offer, Wright said, include all parties agreeing not to use or allow their affiliates to use BTC, BCH, ABC, or BSV databases to create, copy, or fork a new Bitcoin database, and the opposition agrees to cease any media campaign against Wright.

“I believe these terms are broadly uncontroversial, beneficial to the industry as a whole, and intended to draw a fresh start in the history of Bitcoin to guarantee its success in whatever form it takes,” Wright concluded. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.