Magnus Granath, a pseudonymous Norwegian bitcoiner known on Twitter as “Hodlonaut,” sued Craig Wright in Oslo, Norway, on September 12, 2022. Magnus, who began tweeting that Wright was a fraud in 2019, said he could not be the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, as his lawyer Orjan Salvesen Haukaas in an opening statement to Judge Helen Engebrigtsen, explained.
Craig Wright lacks a connection to Bitcoin and presents documents from Wright’s previous legal battles while pointing out tweets at odds with Nakamoto’s thinking. Granath experienced a lot of support from the bitcoin community since Wright answered by sending lawyers to request that Hodlonaut remove the tweets, apologize to Wright, and say Wright was Nakamoto in court. Hodlonaut sought legal advice and later filed a suit against Wright in Norway, maintaining that his tweets were protected by freedom of speech.
Wright filed a libel lawsuit in the U.K. After a long-lasting legal process; a court ruled that Hodlonaut paid Wright £€112,000 in adverse costs. However, the High Court of Justice in the U.K. ruled that it had no jurisdiction over the case and dismissed the proceedings. After a week-long trial in Oslo in September, District Court Judge Helen Engebrigtsen found in favor of Granath, ordering him acquitted of all compensation claims and not inclined for damages relating to the tweets. Wright has also been ordered to pay Granath’s legal fees in the amount of NOK 4,053,750 approximately $383,000.
This is a guest post by Millicent. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Satoshi’s Journal or Satoshi’s Entertainment Company.