Craig S. Wright Awarded £1 Damages in “False” Bitcoin Libel Case

Peter McCormack has been ordered to pay Craig S. Wright £1 in damages. 

“A Deliberately False Case” 

Craig S. Wright will receive £1 in damages from his libel case against Peter McCormack, a high court judge has ruled. 

The press summary for the case was published online today, revealing judge Justice Chamberlain’s conclusion that McCormack “caused serious harm” to Wright’s reputation by publishing and redistributing content questioning his ties to Satoshi Nakamoto. 

Wright is the creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, a relatively unknown fork of the number one cryptocurrency that styles itself as “the original Bitcoin.” For several years, Wright has claimed that he is Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, though his declarations have been met with widespread skepticism within the cryptocurrency community as he has never produced the private key to a wallet known to be owned by Satoshi Nakamoto. One of Wright’s most vocal interrogators has been McCormack, a self-proclaimed Bitcoiner with one of the largest online followings in the space. 

As the press summary noted, McCormack has repeatedly used his social media channels to refute Wright’s claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto over the past few years. The case centered on McCormack’s various pushbacks against Wright, including a 2019 video discussion in which he said “Craig Wright is a fucking liar, and he’s a fraud; and he’s a moron; he is not Satoshi.” 

While Chamberlain conceded that McCormack had reasonable grounds to question Wright’s claims, he said that he had also caused significant damage to Wright’s reputation. However, he also noted that he rejected multiple pieces of evidence Wright had presented. In summarizing the case, the judge said that Wright had pushed “a deliberately false case” with “deliberately false evidence” and would therefore only receive a nominal £1 sum. 

McCormack commented on the case shortly after the notes surfaced online. “I want to thank my lawyers for their diligent work on the case. I also want to thank Mr Justice Chamberlain for this result. We are very pleased with his findings. Please do note that the process is not complete and therefore I will not be commenting further on this,” he tweeted. 

Wright has been involved in several court cases over the years after he publicly declared that he created Bitcoin. Before the case against McCormack, he was ordered to pay $143 million to W&K Information Defense Research LLC after he was accused of stealing Bitcoin-related assets from the firm.