What’s new
An Australian computer scientist who repeatedly claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin was found guilty of contempt at the High Court in London on Thursday.
Why it matters
Dr. Craig Wright’s claims and subsequent lawsuits have been controversial in the cryptocurrency world, where Bitcoin’s decentralized philosophy directly opposes the monopolistic control it seeks.
The court’s decision represents a major victory for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a consortium of technology and cryptocurrency companies that champion open source software development. In challenging Wright’s lawsuits, COPA aimed to prevent disruption of Bitcoin’s development and protect the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem from Wright’s litigation threats, which included claims totaling more than £900 billion (1 .1 trillion dollars).
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What you need to know
Judge James Mellor gave Wright a 12-month suspended prison sentence for violating a court order barring him from pursuing legal proceedings related to Bitcoin intellectual property.
Wright, who attended the hearing via video link from Asia, plans to appeal.
The computer scientist of Australian origin and resident in England first claimed to be “Satoshi Nakamoto”, the pseudonym which masked the identity of the creator of Bitcoin, in 2016. He claims authorship of the 2008 white paper, a document founder for Bitcoin and others. cryptocurrencies.
He presented false documents to support his claims, according to findings at the High Court in London earlier this year. His deception consisted largely of “large-scale” counterfeits and “technological chatter.” For this reason, Judge Mellor ruled in March 2024 that Wright did not create Bitcoin and had fabricated evidence to support his claim.
Wright then committed “a blatant violation” of the March court order barring further legal action related to his alleged intellectual property rights to Bitcoin.
His actions led to contempt proceedings brought by COPA, which argued that his continued lawsuits aimed to “terrorize” developers and maintain a false narrative about the origins of Bitcoin. The court rejected Wright’s massive claims and ordered him to pay £145,000 in legal costs within two weeks.
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What people say
Judge James Mellor told the court: “Both in his written testimony and during his oral evidence under cross-examination, I am entirely satisfied that Dr. Wright lied to the court extensively and repeatedly,”
“Most of his lies were related to the documents he falsified, which purported to support his claims. All of his lies and falsified documents supported his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Jonathan Hough KC, counsel for COPA, told the court: Wright’s legal threats had “terrorized” people, subjecting “developers and bloggers to years of personal hell” and the new claims were intended to “cause as much distress as possible.”
What happens next
Wright’s suspended sentence allows him to avoid prison if he refrains from pursuing further charges. However, he announced his intention to appeal the contempt ruling. Legal experts suggest the appeal is unlikely to succeed, given the strength of the evidence against him.
The ruling is expected to impact three ongoing lawsuits that Wright has filed based on his claims regarding Bitcoin’s intellectual property rights. It remains to be seen whether Wright will persist in his efforts to claim ownership of the intellectual underpinnings of cryptocurrency, but the court’s decision has significantly weakened his legal position.
This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.
