Blockchain startup nChain, associated with a man who once proclaimed himself to be Bitcoin’s (BTC) creator, has been granted three Bitcoin Cash (BCH)-related patents by the European Patent Office (EPO), according to an official statement July 11.

The three new patents relate to the development of new methods of digital rights protection using blockchain technology and specify Bitcoin Cash’s blockchain as the standard technology on which transactions are demonstrated. The first patent listed in nChain’s announcement is entitled “A method and system for verifying ownership of a digital asset using a distributed hash table and a peer-to-peer distributed ledger,” while the second two patents are both entitled “A method and system for verifying ownership of a digital asset using a distributed hash table and a peer-to-peer distributed ledger.”

NChain’s Chief Scientist Craig Wright –– who is notorious for proclaiming himself to be the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, back in 2016 –– predicted that 2018 would be “the year” for Bitcoin, which he conflates with Bitcoin Cash.

Last fall, Wright, an Australian entrepreneur and computer scientist, seemingly admitted that he in fact was not the creator of the top cryptocurrency.

In February, 2018, Wright was sued for $5 billion –– to compensate for allegedly stolen Bitcoin –– by the estate of David Kleiman. Kleiman was a computer scientist and cyber-security expert, whom many suspect to have been one of the developers behind Bitcoin’s invention.