Home / Opinion / Bitcoin Brawl: ‘Faketoshi’ Craig Wright Savages ‘McScammer’ McAfee

Bitcoin Brawl: ‘Faketoshi’ Craig Wright Savages ‘McScammer’ McAfee

Last Updated March 4, 2021 2:35 PM
Greg Thomson
Last Updated March 4, 2021 2:35 PM

By CCN.com: Delving into the blog of self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright continues to produce combustible findings. This week Wright continued his assault on the sea-faring John McAfee, who Wright called a criminal, and dared him to take it to court.

That might be tough for McAfee, who supposedly lives in international waters while on the run from U.S tax authorities – and running for president himself.

Amid this apparent stalemate, Craig Wright continued to push the prospects of his Bitcoin SV project and questioned the wisdom of crypto anonymity.

Bitcoin SV’s Craig Wright: Crypto Anonymity is for Criminals

bitcoin creator satoshi nakamoto
Craig Wright says that anonymity is for criminals. | Source: Shutterstock

Writing in a recent blog post , Wright shed doubt on some of the core principles of the cypherpunk movement. Namely, anonymity, which Wright regards as the canary in the coal mine for criminal activity. He wrote:

“One thing you’ll understand here is that those who are seeking an anonymous system are those who are seeking to act outside the law. It is people such as John McAfee, whose life has been an endless series of scams.”

That first sentence alone places Wright in instant opposition to a massive portion of the crypto user base. Early practitioners even more so – for whom the prospect of KYC checks on Coinbase wasn’t even a thought, let alone a concern at that point.

All this talk of law underlies Wright’s grander plans for himself and Bitcoin SV (BSV). The self-proclaimed Satoshi wants to undercut the cryptocurrency market completely by presenting his Bitcoin SV chain as the legal blockchain. That means acquiescing to the financial institutions Bitcoin was created to circumvent, and “putting a suit” on the blockchain. If successful, all of the imitators of his original, legal blockchain would immediately crumble.

That’s the story presented by Wright, at least, who seems determined to make as much noise as possible.

Hence the attacks on John McAfee, the crypto community’s resident Don Quixote.

John ‘McScammer’ McAfee: Anarchist, Scammer, Ponzi Artist

John McAfee, Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakomoto
“Faketoshi” alleged that John McAfee is a scammer who “runs Ponzis.” | Source: AP Photo/Moises Castillo

Wright was also quick to point out the shady nature of John McAfee’s past, which has been well documented at this point. Wright wrote:

“He is a criminal on the run, he has broken law after law, and he fled countries as a result. He takes money to promote scams, profits, and lives awake of destruction. Such is the problem with anarchy; it is people like John McAfee who run Ponzis and scams and the people with money who benefit most from your system without law.”

No doubt, a glance at John McAfee’s Wikipedia page  reads like a surreal black comedy, full of drugs, death, and derangement. How much of that madness McAfee is criminally liable for is an ongoing question for the authorities.

As for the question of McAfee promoting scams, McAfee himself has bragged about charging projects hundreds of thousands of dollars to mention their names in his tweets. Of course, he denies that they’re scams.

Indeed, McAfee has spent a lot of time shilling altcoins, dodgy mining equipment, and even “unhackable” crypto wallets that were eventually hacked.

Even a Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day

Craig Wright, Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin
Craig Wright, a lawsuit-happy individual if there ever was one, challenged John Mcafee to sue him. | Source: YouTube

Just because the pot calls the kettle black doesn’t mean he’s wrong. In this case, the pot that is Craig Wright might just have a point about the very dark kettle that is John McAfee.

However, McAfee’s failings don’t cancel out Wrights, and “Faketoshi’s ” campaign against crypto shows no sign of ending.

Finally, the Bitcoin SV cheerleader invited McAfee to meet him in court – something very much impossible for the perpetually sea-bound McAfee. Wright ended with:

“I would very happily face John McScammer a.k.a. McAfee a.k.a. conman John in court, because the defence for libel is truth, and if I can get conman John into a court, by the time we finish he will be spending multiple life sentences in prison. If I could, I would even get Mr conman John to sue me, because then he would have to go to court, and he would never leave again without wearing an orange jumpsuit.”