Bitcoin White Paper Restored on Bitcoin.org After Craig Wright’s Claims Dismissed

The Bitcoin white paper has been reinstated on Bitcoin.org following Craig Wright’s unsuccessful attempt to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. Hennadii Stepanov, the maintainer of Bitcoin.org, announced the return of the white paper by sharing a link to the PDF on platform X.

Previously, legal constraints had forced Bitcoin.org to restrict access to the white paper for users in the United Kingdom. Instead, the site featured a quote from Nakamoto, highlighting the resilience of information against suppression.

In 2021, Craig Wright won a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cobra, the anonymous group operating Bitcoin.org. This legal victory required Bitcoin.org to remove the white paper PDF and pay £35,000 ($40,100) in legal fees. Wright had filed for US copyright registration for the white paper in 2019 and pursued further legal actions in 2023 against Bitcoin Core developers and companies like Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block, alleging copyright violations.

The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded to these lawsuits, noting the adverse impact on the Bitcoin community due to the significant legal pressures and risks involved. However, Wright’s claims of being Nakamoto were thoroughly discredited, leading to his copyright claims being invalidated. A detailed ruling in a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) exposed Wright’s attempts at forgery and deceit to fabricate evidence supporting his claim.

Additionally, a UK court froze Wright’s assets worth £6.7 million ($8.4 million) to ensure he covers court expenses. The Bitcoin white paper, now under an MIT open-source license, is freely available for anyone to reuse and modify.

Recent investigations suggest that Nakamoto might be a collective entity rather than an individual. Evidence includes the use of both “we” and “I” in the white paper, implying a team effort. Linguistic analysis also points to multiple individuals, as the writing style in the white paper differs from Nakamoto’s forum and email correspondences.

With the Bitcoin white paper once again accessible on Bitcoin.org, the community continues to honor the foundational document of cryptocurrency, free from the disputed claims of ownership.