Tether's general counsel doubles down on support for Peter McCormack

Stuart Hoegner, general counsel for Tether and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, is pushing back against claims the stablecoin operator has abandoned podcaster Peter McCormack in his lawsuit against Craig Wright, the Australian national claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

In an Oct. 24 tweet from Hoegner, the general counsel called a recent article from crypto media platform Coingeek which stated Tether had pulled funding from McCormack in his legal battle against Wright “a lie.” Coingeek is owned by Calvin Ayre, a high-profile supporter of Wright who backs his claims that Wright is the creator of Bitcoin (BTC).

“Tether supports Peter McCormack and believes he's in the right,” said Hoegner.

In April 2019, Wright filed a libel claim against McCormack in the U.K. over McCormack accusing the Australian national of fraud and falsely claiming to be Satoshi. Hoegner said at the time that Tether would “stand behind” the What Bitcoin Did podcaster in his defense against Wright, which hinted at financial support.

However, in response to Hoegner’s denial, Ayre is not backing down.

“I was forwarded a copy of the letter from Peter’s lawyer saying he wants to settle because his funding was cut,” said Ayre on Twitter. “Tether said they were the ones funding him so this has to mean Tether cut funding. If Tether is still funding this makes no sense.”

He continued by promoting Bitcoin SV (BSV), for which both Ayre and Wright are well known proponents:

“My conclusion is that Tether executives know already that Craig is Satoshi and this is all just a big game to keep their scams alive. The smart play would be to move Tether to BSV and abandon BTC.”

Wright has filed several defamation suits against perceived rivals in the crypto industry. In August, he filed a libel suit against Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponent Roger Ver in the High Court of Antigua and Barbuda. This followed The High Court of England dismissing a similar suit Wright filed against Ver in 2019. However, in April he also abandoned a $125,000 libel suit against Blockstream CEO Adam Back, agreeing to reimburse legal fees.