Bitcoin SV Rally Cools Off as Craig Wright Opens ‘Pandora’s Box’

Sead Fadilpašić
Last updated: | 3 min read

While Craig Wright news prompted bitcoin SV (BSV) rally is still based on speculations, rather than clear answers, the price of now the 4th largest coin has already dropped from its heights reached earlier today.

Craig Wright. Source: a video screenshot, Coingeek

At pixel time (11:15 UTC), BSV trades at c. USD 362 and is down 17% from its peak of USD 436. The price even touched USD 327 earlier today. So far, this is the biggest correction during the recent rally. In either case, it’s still up 77% in a day, increasing its weekly gains to 212%.

BSV price chart:

Source: coinpaprika.com

The price rise is not all that has prompted an uproar in the crypto community, as we’ve seen BSV flip bitcoin cash (BCH) – that is, BSV’s total market capitalization surpassed that of BCH. The token landed in fourth place with the market capitalization of USD 6.5 billion, compared to now 5th-placed BCH’s USD 6.2 billion. The market capitalization of the 3rd largest coin, XRP, stands at USD 10 billion.

“Pandora’s box”

According to the January 14 notice of compliance with the court order from January 10, the infamous BSV supporter, Wright said that “a third party provided the necessary information and key slice to unlock the encrypted files” and that Wright gave the list of BTC holdings to the estate of his deceased partner David Kleiman, represented by his brother Ira Kleiman.

However, a document filed by Kleiman the same day accuses Wright of repeated forgery of documents and perjury, and it alleges that the list provided by Wright contains 16,404 addresses and no information on the so-called bounded courier, the company they worked for or the message delivered. While his experts are analyzing the list, Kleiman requests seven interrogatories about the couriers that Wright must respond to in ten days, saying that the plaintiffs will use the responses to seek discovery from the courier and their company.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency lawyer, Stephen D. Palley, likened the case to a sand foundation. “I’m not saying that the list is or isn’t authentic,” writes Palley. “I am saying that this is a guy who two federal judges have basically called a liar and he just opened a new Pandora’s box of discovery. So it may not end well. Also, gotta wonder about some market timing issues, no?”

The theories of the town

It might be the flippening, or the arrival of the key slice which the supporters might interpret as the final proof that Wright is indeed the creator of Bitcoin and that BSV is one true Bitcoin – or the combination of both – that has led the price to this jump.

On the other hand, critics are still discussing whether this is a pump and dump, or an exit scam, and there are proposals to call this particular flippening – the Fakening. Others have gone into possible causes of the rally. SetProtocol product marketing manager Anthony Sassano says that the best explanation he’s seen is that BSV pumps because most of the supply remains unclaimed from the fork, meaning that it’s not being actively traded.

Also, CoinText CTO Vin Armani posted a thread on Twitter writing that nobody but Ayre is mining BSV, that he deploys hash on BCH, and could then take BCH and sell it to tether (USDT), wait for a bullish momentum, start wash trading BSV/USDT on shady exchanges, then BSV pumps, and as BSV reaches parity with BCH, Ayre can dump USDT and hold BSV.

Meanwhile, as reported back in May of 2019, a pump-and-dump situation occurred in BSV at the time, which was largely attributed to fake news circulating in China. Also in May of 2019, BSV rallied almost 70% in a day on news that Wright filed registrations with the U.S. Copyright Office and has been granted U.S. copyright registrations for the original Bitcoin white paper and Bitcoin code (version 0.1).
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