Syed Rahman explains how a court found against Craig Wright.
Computer scientist Craig Wright has been found to have committed contempt of court for persistently making the false claim he is the unidentified inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
In March this year, the High Court ruled that Wright was not Satoshi and ordered him to stop claiming he was. But he continued to launch legal cases arguing that he had intellectual property rights to Bitcoin, including a claim that he was owed $1.2 trillion (£911 billion).
A High Court judge has now said that his actions are a "flagrant breach" of the original court order. Wright, a UK-based Australian has been sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years. He faces the prospect of going to jail if he continues to claim he is Bitcoin’s inventor.
Wright appeared at the court hearing via video link. He would not give his exact location, saying only that he was in Asia - meaning that the authorities would need to issue an international arrest warrant for him if he was to be jailed. The judge, Mr Justice Mellor, said that Wright "appears to be well aware of countries with which the UK does not have extradition arrangements".
The High Court heard that Wright's attempts to be recognised as the inventor of Bitcoin were “legal nonsense’’ and "legal terrorism" that "put people through personal hell". He had started saying he was Satoshi Nakamoto in 2016 but had not provided any proof of this, which had led to most of the crypto world ignoring his claims.
Wright brought legal cases against a number of people and companies that challenged his claim. This led to a coalition of industry companies being formed - the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) – to bring the High Court action to prevent him bringing any more legal cases.
Claimed
Wright is not the only person to have claimed to be Satoshi or to have been identified by others as Satoshi. But all the claims that have been made so far have been rejected and the real Satoshi is yet to be known publicly.
This latest development emphasises the importance of the Bitcoin inventor. That person, whoever it proves to be, will own the rights to it, have the scope to enforce those rights and will be one of the wealthiest and most important figures in the crypto world; which is dependent to a large degree on Bitcoin.
Yet none of this will be determined while the founder of Bitcoin remains anonymous. Anonymity is often welcomed by the creators of crypto, for reasons such as removing personal bias and centralised control. But it is a double-edge sword, as it is also used by those looking to utilise crypto as a vehicle for criminal behaviour.
