Jessica Jonas, chief legal officer of the nonprofit Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, spoke out against an “extraordinarily dangerous” lawsuit initiated by Craig Wright, a person who claims to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The case in question is a UK legal action filed by Wright, the owner/operator of Tulip Trading. Wright’s perhaps most well-known for his assertion that he is Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto — a claim driving another unrelated lawsuit.
In the case between Tulip Trading and 14 named individuals allegedly involved in the open source development of Bitcoin Core, and others, Wright alleges that the said developers owe him a fiduciary duty. Jonas described the case as being about “an allegation that Tulip Trading owned, allegedly, 111,000 Bitcoin and was hacked, allegedly, and lost that 111,000 Bitcoin in some very Ocean’s 11 style hack.”
Bitcoin open source development is under MIT’s open source license. Because open-source software is generally available to anyone, anywhere, assigning fiduciary duty to developers could lead to a situation where someone in one country is liable for damages to someone in another simply because they contributed to an open source project. Current law is meant to protect open source developers from being sued by strangers.
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