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Vinny Lingham Says Core Dev Threatened Him For NYA Support

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:59 PM
Josiah Wilmoth
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:59 PM

Civic CEO and Gyft co-founder Vinny Lingham claims a Bitcoin Core developer threatened him for supporting the controversial New York Agreement (NYA) earlier this year. Lingham made the accusation on Twitter following a tweetstorm between prominent Core and SegWit2x supporters.

Barry Silbert Accused of Using Threats to Promote NYA

The tweetstorm began when Bitcoin Core contributor Matt Corallo accused Barry Silbert–Founder and CEO of the Digital Currency Group, a venture capital firm that invests in cryptocurrency startups–of threatening businesses to get them to sign on to the NYA and support the SegWit2x scaling proposal. 

Silbert called the accusation “bullshit” and demanded an immediate retraction, to which Core developer BTCDrak replied that he had emails proving Silbert was a liar.

Many people, including Silbert, told BTCDrak to prove his accusation by posting the emails, but he had yet to do so at the time of writing.

Then, SegWit2x developer Jeff Garzik then jumped into the conversation, claiming that Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back had called NYA signatories to tell them what an “awful person” he was, citing private evidence.

Vinny Lingham Says Core Dev Threatened Him for NYA support.

Replying to Garzik’s assertion that arguing against someone based on “secret, private evidence” is standard practice for Core, Vinny Lingham said an undisclosed Core developer had threatened him over the messaging app Telegram for his support of the NYA.

Core developer Luke Dashjr told Lingham to name the person who supposedly threatened him to avoid casting aspersions on all the other developers, but Lingham said he would not to make the accusation since he had not taken screenshots before the developer had deleted the messages.

However, he posted a screenshot that purportedly shows the messages he (Lingham) sent during the conversation and said he hopes the developer will “own up to it” because the truth “will eventually come out.”

At the time of writing, the unnamed developer had yet to come forward, and Lingham had not named him.

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