The seven-day defamation trial in Oslo, Norway involving two of the more popular names within the cryptocurrency space is within schedule and nearing its end. The defense already called in its last three witnesses, after which the plaintiff began presenting its closing argument on the sixth day of the Granath v Wright trial.
The plaintiff in this case is Magnus Granath, more popular for his then-anonymous Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) handle “Hodlonaut.” After being followed and retweeted by celebrities like former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and actor William Shatner due to the success of his Lightning Network Torch Chain campaign in February 2019, Hodlonaut achieved near-celebrity status within the BTC community.
The defendant is nChain Chief Scientist Craig S. Wright, who was outed by Wired and Gizmodo magazines in 2015 as the pseudonymous author of the Bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, Wright has admitted that he is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto and the one who invented Bitcoin. Wright’s claim has been disputed by many within Bitcoin, asserting that he is a fraud and not Satoshi Nakamoto.
Many lawsuits have been filed because of this issue. Kleiman v Wright and Wright v McCormack are two of the most recent trials that had piqued the world’s interest. In the first, Ira Kleiman sued Wright attempting to claim half of the 1.1 million Satoshi coins worth over $70 billion at that time with the allegation that his deceased brother and Wright’s friend, David Kleimain, was Wright’s partner in creating Bitcoin.
The second is a defamation case, much like this one, wherein Wright sued popular blogger Peter McCormack after the latter claimed on social media that Wright was “a liar” and “a fraud.” Wright won in both cases, but questions about his identity still remain.
In the current trial in Norway, Granath was previously warned by Wright on Twitter that he would be facing defamation charges if he did not take down nine of his tweets in March 2019 claiming Wright to be “a fraud,” “mentally ill,” “a pathetic scammer” and “trash,” post a public apology, and admit that Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. Hodlonaut’s campaign against Wright culminated in him declaring the “#CraigWrightIsAFraud week.”
While Granath deactivated his Twitter account for some time, he did not post a public letter of apology. Instead, he initiated court proceedings in May 2019 in his home country to prove that his tweets did not defame Wright and can be protected under Norway’s freedom of speech, which states that an individual is allowed to express their opinions about public figures and search for the truth.
It must be noted that there is also an ongoing case in the United Kingdom after Wright sued Granath for defamation in June 2019. Although a trial date has yet to be set, Granath has already been ordered by the UK High Court to pay Wright a total of £303,000 (plus VAT).
Another factor, in this case, is the fact that after Wright sent a legal warning to Hodlonaut via Twitter in April 2019, BTC maximalists rallied to join the fight. This has resulted in Binance and three other crypto exchanges delisting BSV, the Bitcoin implementation supported by Wright that has restored the original Bitcoin protocol. A separate landmark case worth £9.9 billion has been filed by BSV Claims Ltd against the four exchanges on behalf of about 240,000 BSV investors.
Craig Wright is not Satoshi.Anymore of this sh!t, we delist! https://t.co/hrnt3fDACq
— CZ