Cryptocurrencies

The Crypto Community has Spoken!

Something very interesting has been happening in crypto for the last week or so. If you didn’t look carefully, you may have missed the broader implications.

By now it is well known that self-proclaimed-Satoshi Craig Wright went after Twitter personality @hodlonaut, placing a bounty on his head in an attempt to find his true identity and saying that he would sue anyone else who denies that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. Craig wants people to identify hodlonaut by his tattoos and offered a 70 BSV reward (about $5000 at the time). However, this rewards is becoming less and less attractive as time goes by…

But Craig forgot (or perhaps he doesn’t know) that the crypto community is a special community. This is not Wall Street. We don’t take kindly to petulant Trump-style antics and we aren’t as stupid as the norm. The crypto community decided that it was having none of this nonsense. 

The anti-Wright groundswell grew rapidly in magnitude. The website https://weareallhodlonaut.com is spreading the word on Twitter and is raising funds for hodlonaut to fight the legal battle.  You may have seen the #WeAreAllHodlonaut hashtag trending lately.

While not linked directly to cryptocurrencies in this case, this is an example of how anonymity can help in the world of crypto . It is an example of the good that anonymity can bring to the table. There are still those who cry “Silk Road!” as soon as you mention Bitcoin and who believe that anonymity is only for criminals and money launderers. This is not the case. Anonymity affords one a certain level of protection, hopefully it will for hodlonaut.

Meanwhile, the greater crypto community has decided to stand against the oppression of one of its members by punishing Craig Wright. Wright is a big name behind BSV and the crypto community has hammered BSV as a response to Wrights actions. One of Wrights most outspoken critics during this time is Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO of Binance and one of the crypto experts whom I truly respect. CZ made good on his promise to delist BSV from Binance. 

From https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1116563034476957699

You can view the  BSV delisting statement on the Binance webpage: https://support.binance.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026666152

But CZ didn’t stop there, he’s been openly encouraging others to turn their back on BSV, and they’ve been listening. 

From https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1117796100000210951

This is popular exchange Kraken:

From https://twitter.com/krakenfx/status/1117828361269571586

It’s clear that CZ is after Wright, not BSV, on 14 April he Tweeted: 

“To be clear, I don’t choose sides on technology. We let market do that. I am against fraud, such as lying to be someone. As such, it is my strong opinion that: Craig Wright is fraud.”

This is true, we’ve seen in the past that Binance drew fire for listing some trading pairs which the public are unhappy about, but CZ also stated then that the market decides and he was giving the market what it wants. You can’t fault that logic.

It doesn’t end there, ShapeShift will also be delisting BSV and Blockchain wallet is dumping it too:

From https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/1117842010793099265

From https://blog.blockchain.com/2019/04/15/ending-support-for-bsv/

For those who may be affected by this: the full statement from Blockchain wallet can be found here: https://blog.blockchain.com/2019/04/15/ending-support-for-bsv/

Unfortunately when hodlonaut was threatened by Craig Wright’s bullying, he got scared and deleted his Tweets and deactivated his Twitter account. This is probably what Wright was after and I’m sorry that hodlonaut did that, though I respect his decision to do so.

Fortunately hodlonaut wasn’t Wright’s only target (there are a few). Another victim of Wright’s bullying is Peter McCormack, host of the podcast “WhatBitcoinDid”. Unlike hodlonaut, McCormack chose to stand firm after receiving a letter from Wright’s lawyers. Indeed, he issued his own public reply letter on Twitter. It’s too long to repost here, but it is absolutely hilarious and illustrates just how ludicrous the claims against him are. As a teaser: it contains paragraphs such as:

In response to your client requirements, please let him know the following:
1. Ha ha ha ha. 
2. No. 
3.
No. 
4. Jog on. 
5. ROLFCopter.

I strongly recommend that you read the whole letter! Find it at: https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1117448742892986368 . Lawyers jumped to defend McCormack on a pro bono basis (15 of them if he is to be believed).  As McCormack’s letter concludes:

“His attempts to silence and bully people to protect his fraud and lies is an attack on Bitcoin. I have a large and experienced legal team, and we are ready, willing and excited by the prospect of going to court and once and for all exposing Craig Wright for the fraud he is.”

Personally I wouldn’t even worry replying to a threatening lawyer’s letter. If somebody threatens me or my family it’s not in my nature to hire a few over-priced suits to sort things out, I’d much rather take care of such matters personally! A good military man has his own way of neutralising threats. Let’s just say the Pacific is a very large and empty place where weighted things can sink out of sight forever.

The crypto community is loving how people are standing up to Wright and his attempted thuggery. Crypto personalities are praising those standing up to him. Charles Hoskinson Tweeted:

“I’m really proud of CZ and binance. They stood up for the entire commun ity against bullying and fraud. I hope more exchanges follow and we can end this dark chapter in Crypto’s history”

News platforms are running with the story with articles such as this: https://bitcoinist.com/binance-delist-bitcoin-sv-bsv/

and there is even a game called “Call Of Duty – Hodlonaut Special Edition – BSV Annihilation” at https://niffler.co/help-hodlonaut-fight-bsv/

From https://niffler.co/help-hodlonaut-fight-bsv/

I scored 63% on it – it’s not really up to the usual Call of Duty standards though! 

This whole episode was so very unnecessary and completely avoidable. Fortunately the outcome has been remarkably positive. The crypto community has rallied together, even though it is comprised of many individuals who support rival coins and rival exchanges. We have all stood together to face the threat and are effectively drumming it out of town. Wright went for the little minnows, but probably didn’t count of a few big fish stepping into the game. As CZ said:

From https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1116630727968219136

I feel sorry for BSV holders who are somewhat the losers in this quarrel, being caught in the crossfire and becoming collateral damage. The BSV hodlers should be going after Wright hardest of all as they have the most to lose. BSV is getting culled on the markets and is rapidly losing market share. Spot the difference in 24h change between BSV and the other coins on this list:

From https://coinmarketcap.com

I find this to be amusing because it erodes Wrights already puny reward (remember he is a billionaire) for the identity of hodlonaut. I’m not against BSV, though I never thought it would succeed. I claimed my BSV once the networks had stabilised and I traded it out immediately. I guess I’m finally learning from past mistakes!

Honestly I can’t understand why Craig persists with his “I am Satoshi” story. I know he has other related legal battles to deal with, but is this really the best way forward for him? For a man who once allegedly promised to give “”extraordinary proof to an extraordinary claim” it is strange that he has produced nothing to date. Ever since he “came out” with his Satoshi claims, my number one thought was always “if that were true, then he could easily have proven it”.

As CZ said (and I promise to stop quoting him after this):

“The real Satoshi can digitally sign any message to prove it. This is as simple as breathing for him/her. And we have the pub key. 

Until then, everyone is Satoshi, except Craig Wright!”

Satoshi fell silent many years ago. A simple “I am Craig Wright” from his account would have done the job, or better yet, the use of the Satoshi BTC private key.

This has been an entertaining story to watch, but the entertainment value is not the important aspect of it.

The take home message today is that the crypto community is not to be messed with. We stood together and jumped to support our fallen brothers when they needed us. Normally I despise Ripple, but if a Ripple supporter fights such oppression then I will happily fight alongside him/her as a comrade-in-arms. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The solidarity I have seen this last week has been most heart-warming. Enjoy it; crypto is about so much more than just making money. I also joined crypto for the money, but soon realised that its ability to fight oppression was by far more important. That ability has just been demonstrated to a small degree – without even having to really call upon the technology of crypto – this was done by the community alone.

With a community like this on our side, and the technology of cryptocurrencies to support it, crypto will do extremely well against future threats. Mark my words: there will be threats – but by standing together and trusting in the technology of our coins, we will be able to overcome them. 

One day crypto will grow too big, too impersonal, too commercialised to maintain such a community spirit. That will be a bitter-sweet day. Sweet because it means that crypto will have achieved mainstream success, but bitter because this close-knit sense of community will be a thing of the past. Enjoy it while we still have it, for such things are precious and rare.

Yours in crypto (except for BSV)

Bit Brain

“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first” 

~ Mark Twain

“By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.”

~ John Maynard Keynes

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