The first debate about arbitrary data in the blockchain happened in December 2010 and Satoshi was involved

On 8th December 2010, Satoshi released Bitcoin version 0.3.18, which included a standardness check, to only include known transaction types

🧵 Some were concerned that this would prevent people using the blockchain to store arbitrary data

Just 10 minutes later, “RHorning” complained:

“This is the first update to [Bitcoin] that I'm not jumping on and grabbing right away”

COPA vs CSW - Sentencing Hearing

We are back in the Rolls Building in London. We expect a short hearing today. The session starts at 2pm UK time.

Likely outcome is that CSW is sentenced to 2 years in jail for contempt of court. However, Wright is in Asia now and there is no extrodition for contempt, therefore Wright is likley to avoid jail by never returning to the UK.

We are not sure what else Justice Mellor may do, he may criticise Wright's conduct. We are not sure if the judge can throw out the new $1 trillion case or if that might happen another day.

CSW may join today via a remote video link

Sessions starts in 40 minutes. Jonathan Hough KC has arrived. Looks like the court staff have set up a video link for CSW

COPA vs CSW – 01 Nov 2024

We are back at the Rolls Building in London, for another hearing with Justice Mellor. In the courtroom is the Bird & Bird legal team, along with their KC Mr Jonathan Hough. The session is expected to start in 3 minutes. We believe the hearing is about a contempt of court application from Bird & Bird against CSW, in relation to possible breaches of the injunction which resulted from the main trial.

🧵 Justice Mellow has arrived and the session has started. CSW has dialled in via video

Judge Mellor: Have we got CSW on the line? Have we? CSW are you able to hear me?

CSW: [No response]

Hough KC: His camera is activated

HBO “Satoshi Documentary” - Coverage

We are watching live so you do not have to.

We are starting 52 minutes into the almost 2h show, to report on any “evidence” Peter Todd is Satoshi as early as possible

🧵 At 52 minutes in, the documentary is talking about the Blocksize war, which the small blockers won

It contains a scene of @rogerkver claiming that @peterktodd is “working with the government”, because Peter was working against Bitcoin with his small blocker stance

COPA vs CSW – Ruling Published Summary

COPA vs CSW - 14 March 2024

It is the Advancing Bitcoin Conference today in London. We could go an see Andrew Poelstra talk about OP_CAT, @robin_linus talk about BitVM, @ConorOkus talk about FOSS and @techgirl1908 talk on tbDEX

Instead we are not doing any of that. We are here in court, expecting the closing remarks from Lord Grabiner to continue. Should not be long though, maybe under an hour. Today should be the last day of the trial The judge has arrived, the court is now in session

COPA vs CSW - 13 March 2024

Court session has now started for today. COPA is continuing the closing arguments Hough mentioned two versions of CSW's blog on the Way Back Machine for a post dated August 2008

A 2015 snapshot (on the right) has the text "I have a cryptocurrency paper out soon". This text was not in a 2014 snapshot (on the left)

Neither side are relying on this, in that this is not one of the listed forgeries from COPA, nor does CSW use this as a reliance document

[1/4] Bitcoin ETF Flow - 12 March 2024

All data in. Record day with over $1 billion of net inflow. Blackrock with a record $849 million of inflow [2/4] Same data in BTC terms. A record 14,706 BTC inflow on 12 March 2024

COPA vs CSW Trial - Day 15

We are in court again in London for day 15. CSW is due for his second stint under cross-examination today. Court expected to start in 45 mins

🧵 CSW has arrived in court in a black suit

COPA vs CSW - Day 13

Session starts

@marttimalmi is sworn in, he is remote

@adam3us is in the courtroom and is up next Lord Grabiner is not here today and not asking the questions, instead its CSW’s 2nd KC asking questions

COPA vs CSW - Day 12

@TurkeyChop will continue his cross-examination this morning, due to start in 5 minutes

After lunch @moneyball is set to be the first COPA witness, followed by John MacFarlane

On Wednesday morning @marttimalmi is up first, followed by @adam3us if all goes to plan

🧵 In court right now, Mr Matthews says he spoke to CSW 12 times on the phone on the day of the botched 2016 Sartre blog post, while CSW was at Disney in Paris. Mr Matthews says it was CSW's intention to fix the blog and that it was an error

Mr Matthew's seems not to know CSW's ridiculous testimony last week, that his email was hacked at the time and it was not him sending emails to Mr Matthews

How did Mr Matthews not realise this with his 12 calls? Clearly because CSW was not telling the truth on 14th Feb 2024, and he was sending the emails

Bitcoin spot ETFs day 27 and COPA vs CSW trial day 11

We are here in court for day 11

Three CSW witnesses due today:

* David Bridges. He met Wright around 2006 (remote)
* Max Lynam: CSW's cousin (remote)
* Stefan Matthews: CEO of nChain (In court)

Stefan is expected to continue his cross-examination into tomorrow morning. After Stefan, it is the cross-examination of the COPA witnesses

Court due to start at 10:30am (7 mins time)

🧵 Neither CSW nor Stefan are in court yet. Much less crowded than last week at the moment

COPA vs CWS – Day 10

We are hearing an update to the schedule. Stephan Matthews (@TurkeyChop) is due to start on Monday afternoon next week (19th Feb), finishing the next day

After this is COPA witnesses, which are expected to finish on the 22 Feb

CSW is expected to be called back on 23 Feb for a final full day CSW's sister, Danielle DeMorgan, is now being sworn in via a video link

COPA vs CSW – Day 9

The day started with COPA saying CSW’s legal team had agreed three of their witnesses would not be cross-examined.

Pieter Wuille ,
Dustin Trammell and
Rory Cellan Jones First witness today is Ignatius Pang, CSW's witness. He is about to be cross-examined by COPA

Ignatius has not watched the evidence of CSW so far, but he has seen some CoinGeek reporting of the trial so far

COPA v CSW Trial - Day 8

We are in court for the 8th day of the trial. This is expected to be CSWs last day of cross examination

The trial is expected to continue into mid March. Some of the COPA witnesses may be interesting and may include early Bitcoin developers who may refute some of CSWs claims

Happy valentine's day 💘

Some BSV fans may be expecting a love message from CSW to his wife to be revealed to the court today, hidden in the whitepaper, in the box of documents found over the weekend 🤣🤣🤣 CSW arrives in court

He has a bright red shirt and bright red tie, along with a grey suit

🌹🌹🌹

COPA vs CSW – Day 7

CSW cross-examination enters the 6th day.

More emails between Satoshi and @marttimalmi were shown, from June 2009. In the email Satoshi askes @marttimalmi if he thinks "cryptocurrency" is a good name. @marttimalmi agreed and the term cryptocurrency was then used by Satoshi.

This email evidence directly refutes what CSW said yesterday in court, which was that @marttimalmi had come up with the term and the "earlier emails" show that% CSW was repeatedly asked whether David Kleiman was a trustee of the Tulip Trust. He would not respond, so the judge intervened. Please see a summary of the discussion with the judge below:

Judge: Was David Kleiman a trustee?

CSW: No.

Judge: Then why did you say he was a trustee to a court?

CSW: Well I didn’t know, but the judge forced me to answer and threatened me with contempt if I didn’t answer. Therefore I said he was a trustee, with the qualification that I was depending on a document

COPA: Your sworn declaration to the court saying David Kleiman had no such qualification.
Judge: A document states you are a trustee, so how could you carry out your duties as a trustee, without seeing the trust documents?

CSW: Because I was never a trustee my lord. I never signed the trust document.

Judge: So why did you nominate yourself as a trustee?

CSW: I did not know. I was under instruction from lawyers

Judge: Did you include in this declaration that you were not a trustee

CSW: I don’t actually know. At the time I was

Judge: So who created all these multiple trust deeds. Who was responsible for making the trust deeds

CSW: I set one up in 2011, post that I had no part in it.

Judge: Who initiated the trustees in 2016?

CSW: My wife

COPA vs CSW – Day 6

Proceedings have started this morning.

Emails were received by the judge from @agerhanssen and @shadders333, responding to allegations from CSW made in court last week

Also, apparently, over the weekend, CSW’s wife found a box of old papers, that CSW informed his lawyers of. He may want to put this into evidence Perhaps the strategy over this supposed new evidence is as follows:

1. Judge won't allow it in court because it's too late

2. CSW loses the case

3. CSW's narrative is that he lost because the new evidence was not allowed in court and the new evidence proves he is Satoshi

COPA vs CSW Day 3

CSW is on the witness stand for his second day of cross-examination. COPA began by questioning why CSW disputed the credibility of the forensic document experts, given their string CVs. The judge then intervened and asked CSW why he could not put forward a suitable expert document witness. CSW responded by claiming:

· All the good expert witnesses CSW put forward were fired

· CSW’s old lawyers Travers Smith and Christen Ager-Hanssen put forward the flawed experts

· This is ultimately why CSW fired Travers Smith and appointed new lawyers.

🧵 As for how Bitcoin rules are enforced, the judge started asking CSW some questions. CSW responded with confidence and aggression.

Judge: You mentioned it would be easy to get a legal order against a dishonest actor, how do you determine a dishonest actor?

CSW: If you have 2 or 3 large actors, that control say 60%, you can easily have an order against them. Many of the nodes are on AWS, I have many dealings with AWS. If they see an attacker they will shut off the network very quickly.

Judge: Is a dishonest actor anyone not following the rules?

CSW: By definition, as in the whitepaper. This means rules. Rules are more than the agreement. For example rules in a club include UK law. If I run a cricket club, that includes UK law. I can’t set the rules to be whatever I want

Day 17 of the Bitcoin ETFs, is also day 1 of the COPA vs CSW trial

We are here in court

The hearing started at 10:30 UTC. Today each side will present their skeleton arguments and tomorow CSW will begin his case

🧵 The opening skeleton argument by COPA:

"CWS’s conduct is deadly serious. He has terrorised bloggers who dispute his claim. This is done with the backing of Calvin Ayre"

Bitcoin Spot ETFs Day 7 Flow

Flow data out for all prioviders. Total net outflow for day 7 is $87.5m. Third net outflow day so far.

[1/5] 🧵 As the below chart shows, all the providers combined could not overcome GBTC in day 3, day 5 or day 7

$ million

[2/5] 🧵

SBF Trial – 27 October 2023 – SBF Direct Examination from the defense

Q. Did you defraud anyone?
A. No, I did not.
Q. Did you take customer funds?
A. No.
Q. We're going to talk in detail about what happened at FTX, but can you tell us big picture.
A. Yeah. At a high level, there are multiple different types of exchanges. There are spot exchanges, which is where a customer deposits a hundred dollars to buy a hundred dollars of Bitcoin, or hundred dollars of Ethereum. And there are margin exchanges. On margin exchanges, customers might deposit a hundred dollars to buy $500 of Bitcoin or to sell $200 of Bitcoin that they don't have, to borrow; customers might also deposit a hundred dollars to withdraw $50 of Bitcoin that they don't have, going negative in Bitcoin. FTX was predominantly a margin exchange. The vast majority of activity happened on margin on FTX. When you have a margin exchange, you know, you can think of it in some ways like a mortgage. You know, if you have a hundred-thousand-dollar house, you might take out a $10,000 mortgage against that. That would be the equivalent of, you know, having a deposit of some number of Bitcoins, withdrawing dollars against that. And the biggest risk for margin exchanges in general, and for FTX, is what happens if one of those is threatening to go bad; that is to say
MS. SASSOON: Objection, your Honor. Narrative
Q. Mr. Bankman-Fried, did you make any mistakes along the way?
A. Yes, I made a number of small mistakes and a number of larger mistakes. By far the biggest mistake was we did not have a dedicated risk management team, we didn't have a chief risk officer. We had a number of people who were involved to some extent in managing risk, but no one dedicated to it, and there were significant oversights. Alameda’s first office

Q. Where was Alameda's first office?
A. The first office, it was in——it was a airbnb that we rented out in North Berkeley, California.
Q. Can you describe the layout of that airbnb.
A. Yeah. So it was listed as a two-bedroom airbnb. There were three of us, but it had an attic, so that seemed like three bedrooms to us. There was a living room which was a couch, so a fourth bedroom. And then the rest of the area here was the office. We packed that with desks and computers, and mostly boxes from Amazon. Eventually we had to start dealing with the cardboard box problem pretty soon. And after overflowing that apartment, after a few months, we got a more traditional office space in downtown Berkeley.