In Satoshi Trial (COPA v Wright), COPA board member questioned on Meta’s withdrawal
The post In Satoshi Trial (COPA v Wright), COPA board member questioned on Meta’s withdrawal appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
As the much talked about trial of the COPA v Wright, also known as the ‘Satoshi Trial,’ enters its third grueling week of testimony and cross-examinations, the mysterious disappearance of tech giant Meta (NASDAQ: META) from the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) core membership has been questioned in court. The COPA, a cohort of big tech interests, is suing British-Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur Dr. Craig Wright over his claim to be the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Much is on the line, including the potential intellectual property (IP) and copyrights that could be claimed by the Satoshi name. One person who refutes Dr. Wright’s claim to this title is Steven Lee, team ‘lead’ for the Spiral project and board member of COPA. Spiral is a “not for profit” team that sits within Block, Inc. (NASDAQ: SQ), formerly Square, from whom it gets an annual budget. Block, Inc. is a financial technology and mobile payments business co-founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2009. Both Block and Spiral aim to promote open-source development in the BTC space. “We build and fund free, open-source projects aimed at making bitcoin the planet’s preferred currency,” states the Spiral website. Spiral’s ‘lead’ Lee, describes himself as “an experienced Silicon Valley product leader working on innovating the role of Bitcoin PM as part of the Spiral effort at Block,” and he took the stand on Monday to answer questions from Dr. Wright’s barrister Lord Grabiner KC. Under questioning, Lee suggested that despite Spiral’s budget being set by Block, the team has “independence” to decide how the over $10 million in annual funds are used. When pressed by Grabiner over this supposed independence and the benefit to Block of this relationship, Lee said Block has a belief in the importance of the Bitcoin network and ecosystem and sees Spiral as a way to accelerate the development and adoption of bitcoin, increasing the probability of Bitcoin succeeding,…
Filed under: News - @ February 22, 2024 10:20 am