Does Craig Wright's copyright claim on bitcoin code change anything? Bitcoin SV (BSV) has had a big week. On Tuesday, its price jumped by just over 110%, leaping from about $62 at 1:14 p.m. UTC to $132 an hour later. Given that BSV had been having a rough time in the previous month, with a number of high-profile delistings, this dizzying price rise must have come as a relief to the supporters of the cryptocurrency and the company that created it — nChain.And while explanations for sudden market shifts are often hard to come by in the cryptocurrency industry, some within the media pinned BSV's abrupt climb on the news that nChain founder Craig Wright had filed a copyright registration for the original bitcoin white paper with the United States Copyright Office. Given that this registration identified Wright as "Satoshi Nakomoto" — a claim Wright has been making since December 2015 — it ostensibly provided him and bitcoin SV with a considerable injection of credibility and authority. So, on the surface, at least, bitcoin SV's price rise was the result of Craig Wright being seemingly “recognized” by the U.S. government as the true author of the bitcoin (BTC) white paper, and the market rushed to get its hands on the cryptocurrency he now backs.However, this could show that Craig Wright is trying to ramp up his efforts to intimidate anyone who denies he's Satoshi Nakamoto and/or calls him a fraud. But even if the filing represents a new peak (or low) in his attempts to browbeat detractors and rival cryptocurrencies, some may argue that this reveals a high level of ignorance and incompetence. The copyright has no legal bearing on attempts to pass off a cryptocurrency as the “real” bitcoin, something that Wright claims he wants to stamp out.Registering a copyright claim vs. proving a copyrightWright has filed two copyright claims with the U.S. Copyright Office, with the office officially registering both of these in early April. One is a claim for the original bitcoin white paper, while the other is for most of the bitcoin 0.1 source code, with the nChain press release concerning these registrations summarizing them in the following way:"U.S. copyright registration no. TXu 2-136-996, effective date April 11, 2019, for the paper entitled bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, with year of completion 2008. The registration recognizes the author as Craig Steven Wright, using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.""U.S. copyright registration no. TX-8-708-058, effective date April 13, 2019, for computer program entitled bitcoin, with year of completion 2009 and date of first publication January 3, 2009. The registration recognizes the author as Craig Steven Wright, using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright wrote most of version 0.1 of the bitcoin client software, and the registration covers the portions he authored."There's no disputing that these registrations have been filed with the U.S. Copyright Office. Nonetheless, they don't provide any real evidence of bitcoin authorship, since — as numerous commentators have pointed out — it's highly unlikely that the Copyright Office required proof that Wright is "Satoshi Nakamoto" prior to registering the claim."This copyright registration doesn't prove anything about who wrote the bitcoin white paper," cryptocurrency author David Gerard told Cointelegraph. "Anyone can file a copyright registration on anything — there's no checking. You're just making a claim. Multiple people can claim the same work." Indeed, almost anyone could register a similar claim, so long as they have $35 to spare and know how to fill in an application form.Several renowned figures within the bitcoin community are even more dismissive of Wright's copyright claim than Gerard. Entrepreneur and bitcoin core developer Jimmy Song told Cointelegraph, "Absolutely not. The only thing it proves is that CSW is a publicity seeking con-man, but we already knew that."In fact, such dismissals prompted the U.S. Copyright Office to respond on May 22 to the clamor over Wright's new claim by releasing a press statement. The key part of this statement is the first paragraph, which reads:"As a general rule, when the Copyright Office receives an application for registration, the claimant certifies as to the truth of the statements made in the submitted materials. The Copyright Office does not investigate the truth of any statement made."As these opening sentences indicate, the likes of Gerard and Song may have a point. "It is possible for multiple, adverse claims to be registered at the Copyright Office," the press release added, which also states that someone "who intentionally includes false information in an application may be subject to penalties."The press release goes into further detail regarding copyrights involving pseudonyms, once again affirming that no investigations were made by the Copyright Office. "In a case in which a work is registered under a pseudonym, the Copyright Office does not investigate whether there is a provable connection between the claimant and the pseudonymous author," reinforcing the assumption that the office isn't qualified to settle the true authorship of cryptography-based works.The nChain press release did state that the Copyright Office registered the claim "after receiving confirmation from Wright that he is Satoshi Nakamoto." That said, the office's press release makes it clear that it simply asked him to confirm for a second time that he was indeed claiming to be "the author and claimant of the works being registered." So, there's no indication whatsoever that Wright actually shared proof of Nakamoto's real identity with the office, potentially contradicting the nChain press release.What is the reason?So, if the registered copyright claims don't or can't prove anything about Craig Wright's involvement with bitcoin, the question arises as to why the Australian would want to file them. Well, leaving aside the unproven possibility that he may have been trying to pump bitcoin SV's price, it's worth viewing the claims in light of all the recent threats of litigation he's been making toward various members of the crypto community.For example, bitcoin podcast host Peter McCormack was served with a claim for 100,000 British pounds (around $130,000), after he had refused to apologize for asserting that Wright was lying about being Nakamoto. Likewise, Wright's lawyers had also threatened to sue Twitter personality Hodlonaut for the same reason, an action that contributed to Binance's decision to delist bitcoin SV, likewise with Kraken, ShapeShift and other exchanges and services.U.S. federal law requires that the authors register a claim in order to sue anyone who violates their copyright. So, in the light of Craig Wright’s certain litigious tendencies, the move would make sense. According to Gerard:"You need to file a copyright registration to take someone to federal court over a copyright violation in the US. If you do this within five years of publication, it's taken as prima facie evidence that your claims are true, and the defendant has to show they're not. But this registration is ten years since the publication, so it doesn't even have that force."Not only does Wright's copyright claim not have that force, but there are other problems that would get in the way of Wright suing any of his critics or rivals. As many people on Twitter and other social platforms have already pointed out, bitcoin was originally released under an open-source MIT License. This means that anyone is free to reuse, copy or modify bitcoin's original source code however they see fit, regardless of whether they're doing so for profit or not. Because of this, it would presumably be very difficult for Wright to sue someone successfully, seeing as how "Satoshi Nakamoto" — or Wright himself, as he claims — originally declared that anyone could use bitcoin in whichever way they liked.The difficulties in suing on the basis of copyright claims don't end there for Wright, who stated in his press release that he has been "dismayed to see his original bitcoin design bastardized by protocol developer groups — first by Bitcoin Core (BTC) in 2017 and then again by bitcoin cash (BCH) developers in 2018." Likewise, a representative for Wright told Bloomberg that "he will seek to stop the cryptocurrency community from referring to the original token as bitcoin because it doesn’t currently possess the attributes described in the research paper." However, it's not at all clear how he might hope to achieve those goals via the legal mechanism of a copyright.As Gerard said, copyright has "no bearing at all" on the issue of someone giving their own work a name (i.e., "bitcoin") associated with someone else's work. "'Passing off' is the sort of thing that trademark law is intended to address," Gerard added, "but copyright and trademarks are entirely separate things."Indeed, the U.S. Copyright Office states in its May 22 press release that it "does not have an opposition procedure for copyright registrations, such as the procedures available at the Patent and Trademark Office for patents and trademark registrations." And make no mistake, copyright is not the same thing as a trademark, which, as the Copyright Alliance explained, differs from a copyright in that "it's a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others." By contrast, copyright covers "the right to reproduce the work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies," and so on.In other words, Wright would need to register "bitcoin" as a trademark in order to prevent other groups and individuals from using this name with their cryptocurrencies and from passing them off as the “true” bitcoin. And it is not entirely certain if his new copyright claim is even registered because, as the Copyright Office has stated elsewhere on its website, "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."Put differently, copyright protects the particular form in which ideas are expressed rather than the ideas themselves. As such, even if Wright could somehow prove his identity as "Satoshi Nakamoto," there's still a good chance that he'd fail to sue anyone else for violation of copyright. This is because unless any potential defendant copies the bitcoin white paper or 0.1 source code word-for-word, there's unlikely to be any real ground for establishing that a cryptocurrency harnessing similar principles to the original bitcoin is a copyright violation.Where now for Craig Wright?Craig Wright's copyright claim is effectively incapable of working as proof of origin or of acting as a means of silencing his critics. Though the bitcoin SV rally on May 21 would suggest that the copyright claim has actually had some effect, the fact that BSV rose by 110% within only one hour raises some serious doubts as to its grassroots legitimacy.Still, there is one thing Craig Wright has succeeded in, even if most people within the crypto community still don't believe he's Satoshi: He continues to keep himself in the public eye, ensuring that the media continues to write about him. As Song said, "CSW does things for publicity and public manipulation. I'm guessing that since his attempts at fraud using cryptography have done so terribly, that he's trying to use the court system to force people to accept him as Satoshi."The question is, where does Wright go from here? It's highly unlikely that he'll follow through with his new copyright claim and actually sue the developers behind BTC or BCH. If he does, he'll be forced to prove that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, and if he fails to prove this in court, he'll be at risk of prosecution for fraud (given his filed claim).What's more likely is that he'll continue doing what he does: threaten his belittlers with legal action, without taking his chest-thumping much further. And even if the new copyright adds a little more weight to the legal threats, most commentators believe nothing much will change as a result of them. As Jimmy Song concluded, "Much like his previous attempts, I predict complete and utter failure." […]

sponsored A crypto derivatives exchange says it offers competitive advantages over rivals thanks to its partnerships with established industry players. A crypto futures exchange says its features mean it is well-positioned to solve current problems that exist among rivals.The team behind FTX claims they were driven to act after “hours of feedback” to established exchanges about the problems with their products went ignored.As a result, the company claims that its platform “reduces the likelihood of clawbacks” through a three-tiered liquidation model — tackling the problem represented by “significant amount of customer funds on other derivatives exchanges that have been claimed by socialized losses.”In a blog post, the exchange explained: “FTX really does see clawbacks as a worst-case scenario that we hope never happens. We designed a system that we think will withstand huge market moves and huge volume without leading to any clawbacks.”This is achieved through a “backstop liquidity provider system” in which providers that have opted into the system have the opportunity to take over an account’s obligation before it goes bankrupt, meaning they can attempt to manage the position and “instantly inject liquidity from other exchanges.”FTX claims that testing showed that “even market moves of 40 percent in a 20-minute period were not enough to cause clawbacks.”Competitive advantagesFTX says that its backstop liquidity provider system is coupled with universal margin wallets via TrueUSD or USDCoin that enable users to trade all derivatives in one place. In addition, the company claims traders can “instantly” put on short or long positions with up to triple leverage without maintaining any collateral in margin.In addition, FTX offers noninverted futures. Specially, its USDT/USD and BNB/USD futures provide easy and effective hedging opportunities for USDT and BNB positions. The exchange has also launched leveraged tokens on USDT, BTC, ETH, EOS, XRP with -1, +3 and -3 leverage, allowing users to put on positions that would typically require posting collateral without doing so.When it comes to over-the-counter trading, FTX says that it offers “some of the tightest spreads in the industry” despite the recent bear market and a competitive landscape thanks to an automated request-for-quote system.FTX is available hereThe crypto exchange adds that it is backed by Alameda Research, which it claims has become “one of the largest liquidity providers and market makers in the space,” trading anywhere between $200 million and $1 billion a day, depending on market volatility.FTX argues that its offering is hard to replicate because of how many of its unique selling points depend on Alameda’s expertise. A summary of its white paper adds: “FTX is designed by people who really know the products. Everything from collateral to maintenance margin to liquidation processes to product listing has been redesigned from the ground up by one of the heaviest users of the products. It is built by traders, for traders.”When it comes to developing new features, the exchange says that it is able to tap into Alameda’s tech team — and claims they are able to build “complex crypto trading systems under time pressure,” resulting in a development cycle that is much shorter than those of other established platforms.A token with purposeFTX has issued a token called FTT, which the exchange says offers significant utility to users. It can be used as collateral for futures positions, while simultaneously reducing fees and margin trading requirements. The startup also says that holders can benefit from lower spreads for over-the-counter trading, and that FTT “will become even more useful when we add other derivative products to the platform.”The exchange says its team has a rich background, drawing from Wall Street firms and major tech companies such as Facebook and Google. The first round of FTX’s public token sale began on April 11, and the company says it hopes to conclude the fundraising drive within a few months.Learn more about FTXDisclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice. […]

Anonymous sources say that Facebook’s upcoming Globalcoin project is “bigger and more open” than just a payment method. Social media giant Facebook has reportedly held talks with major United States-based crypto exchanges about the issuance of its own crypto, the Financial Times (FT) reports on May 24.Citing two people familiar with Facebook’s “Globalcoin” project, the FT wrote that Facebook has discussed the initiative with major crypto exchange and wallet Coinbase. The article also notes that Facebook reportedly spoke with the Gemini exchange, which was founded by the Winklevoss twins, the well-known rivals of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.According to the anonymous sources, Facebook has been conducting negotiations with major crypto-related firms in order to ensure that its long-rumored stablecoin is pegged to the value of the United States dollar and is liquid, tradeable and secure.Other firms reportedly included Chicago’s leading high-frequency trading firms Jump and DRW, the report says.All the parties mentioned above have declined to comment on the matter to the FT, with the report adding that the social media giant has required them to sign non-disclosure agreements.While the BBC has recently reported that Facebook’s upcoming cryptocurrency will be focused on payments, the sources reportedly revealed that Globalcoin will be “bigger and more open” than just a payment method for purchases on Facebook. As previously reported, Facebook allegedly plans to integrate its three fully-owned applications — WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram — to deliver its massively exposed cryptocurrency project.According to the FT, industry experts claim that regulation will be Facebook’s biggest obstacle in delivering its own cryptocurrency.On May 2, Facebook registered a new financial tech firm, Libra Networks LLC, in Geneva, which notably plans to offer services in finance and emerging technologies including payments, financing, identity management, data analysis, big data, blockchain and others.Earlier in April, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss came to an agreement with bitcoin (BTC) entrepreneur Charlie Shrem to end a lawsuit the twins filed against Shrem last year. The brothers had previously accused Shrem of stealing 5,000 bitcoin (worth about $40 million at press time). […]

Russian state-owned firm Rostec offers a $1.3 billion plan to apply blockchain in all the state data systems. Russian state-owned holding conglomerate Rostec proposed a roadmap on applying blockchain in all the governmental data systems, local financial newspaper Kommersant reports on May 24.An institution under Rostec has reportedly developed a blockchain roadmap worth up to 85 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) that claims to provide an economic impact of up to 1.6 trillion rubles ($25.4 billion) in five years.The project was presented by Rostec’s structural body, the Novosibirsk Institute of Programming Systems (NIPS), during a blockchain conference held in the Republic of Tatarstan on May 23.According to Kommersant, the NIPS’ roadmap includes a blockchain implementation in the processes and data systems of industrial enterprises, municipal elections, the monitoring of the budgetary performance and other services.The report notes that the absence of cryptocurrency and blockchain regulation is a major impediment to the adoption of the proposed roadmap. Yuri Pripachkin, the president of the Russian Association of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain, considered the lack of regulation a “catastrophic obstacle on the path blockchain adoption.”The expert argued that necessary legislation should be enforced as soon as in late 2019 in order to have better results, while the roadmap is based on a supposition that the regulation will come into force in 2021.On the other hand, Russian prime minister and former president Dmitry Medvedev recently declared that crypto regulation is not a priority for the state of Russia since cryptocurrencies “have lost their popularity.”On May 22, the central bank of Russia claimed that the draft bill on crypto regulation is prepared enough to be adopted in the spring of 2019, in accordance with the order of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin. […]

Novogratz suggested that one of the crypto assets created by social media giants will succeed. Michael Novogratz, founder and CEO of cryptocurrency merchant bank Galaxy Digital, has suggested that one of the crypto assets created by social media giants will succeed. Novogratz made his remarks during an interview with CNBC published on May 24.At the end of the interview, Novogratz noted:“I think Facebook’s payment currency, I think Telegram’s gonna have one...You’re gonna see one of those payment coins work, and I think that has the chance to be a real currency.”Earlier in the interview, Novogratz reiterated his stance that bitcoin (BTC) is a store of value, again comparing the coin to gold as he did in February. Still, he pointed out that while something like Facebook’s coin will probably be used for payments, bitcoin will be limited to being a store of value.Novogratz also again stated that the “crypto winter is over,” which is in line with what he said at the beginning of the month,when he expressed the idea that cryptocurrencies are now in a bull market. When the interviewer asked Novogratz whether he believes the people who previously got “burned” by bitcoin won’t buy it again for many years, he said:“I don’t think it’s the case. And a lot of institutions never got in, so they felt kinda smart and now all of them say, ‘Wait a minute, now there’s more cover.’ [...] Retail will come and go, and a lot of the guys who got burned won’t come, but there’s seven and a half billion people on the planet, there’s plenty of retail customers to continue to come in. ”Novogratz said that coins such as ethereum (ETH) and eos — which he refers to as web 3.0 coins — are interesting. Still, he explained that all those networks are fighting to become web 3.0, and that it is going to take two to five years to find the winner, since “it’s much more like a venture play than a currency play.” Such initiatives, he noted, need to get developers to build applications on their platforms and thus become useful.As Cointelegraph reported this current month, Novogratz has previously stated that since bitcoin is just a store of value, it is not going to change the world, but web 3.0 could.Yesterday, news broke that encrypted messaging service Telegram will purportedly launch its Telegram Open Network in the third quarter of 2019. Facebook’s secretive alleged cryptocurrency, now dubbed the Globalcoin, will also reportedly launch in 2020. […]