Craig S. Wright Awarded £1 Damages in ‘Fake’ Bitcoin Defamation Case

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

“A deliberately false case”

Craig S. Wright will receive £1 in damages from his defamation case against Peter McCormack, a High Court judge has ruled.

The press summary of the case was published online today, revealing Judge Justice Chamberlain’s finding 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 SV, a relatively unknown Bitcoin Cash fork that bills itself as “the original Bitcoin.” For years, Wright has claimed to be Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, although his claims have been met with widespread skepticism in the cryptocurrency community, as he has never produced the private key of 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 in recent years. The case centered on McCormack’s various backlash against Wright, including a 2019 video discussion in which he said “Craig Wright is a bloody liar and he’s a fraud; and he is an idiot; he is not Satoshi.”

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

McCormack commented on the matter shortly after the notes appeared online. “I would like to thank my lawyers for their diligent work on the case. I would also like to thank Justice Chamberlain for this result. We are very pleased with his findings. Please note that the process has not been completed, and therefore I will not comment on this further, he says tweeted.

Wright has been involved in several lawsuits over the years after he publicly declared that he created Bitcoin. Prior to 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.