DeFi Is a ‘Complete Scam,’ Says Controversial Entrepreneur Craig Wright
Craig Wright (Rob Mitchell)
DeFi Is a ‘Complete Scam,’ Says Controversial Entrepreneur Craig Wright
nChain chief scientist Craig Wright has delivered an obscenity-laden interview discussing decentralized finance (DeFi) and stablecoins, calling such projects a “complete scam” and “illegal.”
- Taking part in the virtual conference Reimagine 2020 published Saturday, the controversial figure told host Patrick MacLain that both DeFi schemes offering lending and borrowing, and stablecoins, are “illegal, unregistered and unlicensed.”
- Creators of DeFi projects are “conmen … criminal a**holes taking money, full stop,” he told MacLain, adding an inflammatory take on oracle networks such as Chainlink.
- “‘We’ve got a decentralized oracle.’ Bullshit you do! Sue me!” Wright said, making an obscene gesture to the camera.
- “Where is the damn backing?” Wright asked, when discussing his thoughts on stablecoins.
- Wright appeared to conflate all stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that aim to hold a stable value with backing from an asset such as the U.S. dollar or gold – with tether, a widely used USD-linked crypto that has never released a comprehensive audit of all its reserves.
- Other stablecoins, such as USD Coin, have done so.
- When MacLain asked Wright for his view on decentralized exchanges, Wright claimed there was “no such thing, full stop. … [T]he exchanges are still run by a person.”
- Wright has said he is the creator of bitcoin, but has yet to provide convincing evidence to back up his claim and has faced allegations of fraud, which he contests vigorously through lawsuits.
- “I fight in court, I’m not a cowardly you-know-what who runs away,” Wright told MacLain, taking a swipe at bitcoin investor Roger Ver, who he is suing for libel over such fraud accusations.
- Wright is also fighting an ongoing court case involving the estate of his deceased former business partner, David Kleiman, that relates to the ownership of a 1.1 million ($12.8 billion) bitcoin fortune.
- Wright’s credibility as the supposed inventor of bitcoin has suffered somewhat during the process, with a judge saying he has at times argued in bad faith, perjured himself and admitted false evidence.
- In May, a message also alleging Wright is a fraud was cryptographically signed with over 100 bitcoin addresses he has claimed to own in Kleiman case evidence.
- Cryptography experts have described his subsequent claims about how bitcoin signing works as “nonsense.”
- Wright is a proponent of a bitcoin alternative cryptocurrency called Bitcoin SV (for Satoshi’s Vision).
- He further took the chance to knock bitcoin in his interview, saying that it “isn’t a decentralized network of every node running things.”
- “Your node doesn’t help the network unless you’re a miner,” he claimed.
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