LONDON, Jan. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In February, I am due to face a group of individuals and corporate entities in London's High Court, where I intend to uphold my intellectual property rights in Bitcoin as its creator.
However, the focus of my various litigations to date has never been on revealing my pseudonymous identity as Satoshi Nakamoto, but on mandating that Bitcoin remains faithful to its central principles. These are set out in the Bitcoin White Paper, today widely recognised as the authoritative foundation of all forms of Bitcoin: it describes a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, focusing on enabling small casual transactions (known as micro-payments) directly between parties, without the need for a financial intermediary.
My issuance of copyright claims against the 'Bitcoin developers' was a measure to protect the continuity of those principles.
To that end, today I have sent to my opponents in the COPA litigation (Claim No. IL-2021-000019), the passing-off claims (Claim No. IL-2022-000035 & Claim No. IL-2022-000036) and database-rights claims, (Claim No. IL-2022-000069) a non-negotiable offer to settle each of these cases, which is reproduced in its entirety below.
This settlement offer preserves my objective of maintaining the integrity of the Bitcoin system as it was initially developed, while limiting (for all parties) the needless expense of a lengthy High Court trial, which would take our collective focus away from supporting, adopting and advancing digital currency technologies - not just my own work, but those of potential good faith competitors (my legal opponents included).
In clear demonstration of the sincerity of my offer, I agree to waive my database rights and copyrights relating to BTC, BCH and ABC databases, and to offer an irrevocable licence in perpetuity to my opposing parties who collectively control, operate, and/or own those databases, in pursuit of encouraging the open commercialisation of technologies in a competitive and fair market, where intellectual property rights are respected and exploited. I intend for this offer to enable them to compete fairly, in parallel with BSV.
I believe the settlement terms are broadly uncontroversial, beneficial to the industry as a whole, and intended to draw a fresh start in the history of Bitcoin to guarantee its success in whatever form it takes.
All parties now have 7 days from the date of this offer to agree this settlement, or we shall progress to trial.
Issued by: Dr Craig Wright All enquiries to: pr@tuliptrading.net
DR WRIGHT'S OFFER TO SETTLE CLAIMS:
Claim No. IL-2021-000019 Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Dr Craig Wright
Claim No. IL-2022-000035 Dr Craig Wright & Another v. Coinbase Global, Inc & Others
Claim No. IL-2022-000036 Dr Craig Wright & Another v. Payward & Others
Claim No. IL-2022-000069 Dr Craig Wright & Another v. BTC Core & Others (Identity Issue only) (together the "Claims")
1. I make the below offer to each of the opposing parties in the Claims (together the "Opposition"), in order to refocus my personal priorities, which include (i) continuing to develop intellectual property for the benefit of blockchain technology and beyond, (ii) to ensure Bitcoin (in particular Bitcoin Satoshi Vision ("BSV")) plays a key role in the development of payment infrastructure, and (iii) to spend more time with my family, amongst other things.
2. My intention is to align with a portion of COPA's Mission Statement which is:
"to encourage the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technologies".
3. In that respect I want to continue to be a force for good by encouraging the open commercialisation of technologies in a competitive and fair market where intellectual property rights are respected and exploited. It is therefore my intention to ensure that the relevant Bitcoin Core ("BTC"), Bitcoin Cash ("BCH") and ABC Bitcoin ("ABC") databases and assets can operate and compete fairly in parallel with BSV, which I hope can compete in the global community going forward.
4. You now have the opportunity to review and accept the below offer for a total of seven days from the date of this letter, being by 4pm on 31stJanuary 2024. It is my intention to find a sensible solution to these claims, and to allow all the parties to continue their respective projects in a competitive and commercial environment.
THE OFFER
5. The terms of the settlement offer are made below:
6. Claims, Costs and Charitable Donations
a. The Claims are discontinued in their entirety and the respective claimants discontinue their claims by filing a notice of discontinuance within 24 hours of acceptance of this offer.
b. Costs in the Claims are borne by their respective parties (i.e. no order as to costs). I am aware COPA includes some of the largest crypto currency companies in the world (including Coinbase and Kraken), and Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and others), which I believe have significant revenue and assets. On that basis I am hopeful that the benefit of discontinuing proceedings far outweighs the costs incurred in continuing the Claims (which may endure for years).
c. The respective parties each make a charitable donation to Burnside, a Uniting Church in Australia (with charity number 16341259959) (the "Charity") which supports single mothers, or alternatively another charity agreed by all parties, for the expected value of the costs of pursuing the above Claims through to the end of trial or where there are cost awards in their favour. For example, I shall make a donation of £1,000,000, which I believe is put to better use with the Charity. It is expected that Opposition evidences proof of payment publicly.
d. I declare and undertake to ensure that no funds or costs in these proceedings are for the financial benefit of myself and that all funds due to me shall be donated to the Charity. In that way, I do not financially profit from the Claims in any way.
7. Bitcoin
a. I, any affiliates, associates or otherwise, shall not pursue and are prevented from pursuing any database rights or copyrights (together the "Rights") in relation to the BTC, BCH and or ABC databases, and Opposition which control operate, manage and or own those databases are granted an irrevocable licence in perpetuity to exploit, use, assign or license (subject to the below provisions) those Rights for the purposes of exploiting BTC, BCH and or ABC. It is intended that the parties continue to develop, file and respect their own patents for their respective projects and seek to rely on patents and the corresponding laws in the usual way.
b. Opposition including any affiliates, associates, employees or otherwise shall not pursue and are prevented from pursuing any Rights in relation to the BSV database.
c. By signing the below, Opposition (which includes all members of COPA) and I now confirm the following statement to be true and agree to its terms:
"Bitcoins (and derivative systems) referred to as BSV, BTC, BCH and ABC (together "Bitcoins"), and the corresponding databases are separate and distinct. Each of these Bitcoins stem from Satoshi Nakamoto's "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" (the "White Paper"). Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision for Bitcoin was "small casual transactions" (see the White Paper) and scaling on-chain (see Satoshi Nakamoto's message from 2 November 2008 "Bitcoin P2P E-Cash Paper" on the topic: https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2008-November/014815.html. I/ we recognise that BTC, BCH and ABC now have separate purposes and uses not contemplated by Satoshi Nakamoto.
I/we undertake to ensure that Bitcoins shall be used for the benefit of humankind broadly and not to launder funds, evade tax or assist in any other illicit behaviours. I/we shall use my/our best endeavours to comply with all international and national laws and regulations in which I/ we operate, including any laws relating to money laundering, and anti-terrorist financing, or similar initiatives where exploiting and developing Bitcoins and its technology, and where required and possible, actively seek to create code to ensure compliance".
d. Whether in their own capacity or by any affiliates, associates, employees or otherwise Opposition and I shall not exploit, and be prevented from exploiting any BTC, BCH, ABC or BSV database to create, copy, fork, or otherwise, a new Bitcoin database, and Opposition and I shall use best endeavours to ensure that no third party carries out the aforesaid. It is intended that these terms are not circumnavigated by the creation of any new Bitcoin database.
e. Any entities shall cease claiming that they represent the original Bitcoin as envisioned by me as Satoshi Nakamoto. Additionally, they must publicly acknowledge that the intended purpose for creating Bitcoin was to create a system to provide micropayments, to allow for the chronologically ordered validation of transactions and to facilitate scalability.
8. Media
a. Opposition cease any media campaign(s) against me.
b. It is intended that where this document is signed as below, that signed version is made publicly available.
9. I believe these terms are broadly uncontroversial, beneficial to the industry as a whole, and intended to draw a fresh start in the history of Bitcoin to guarantee its success in whatever form it takes. I look forward to hearing from you.
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