The Australian computer scientist who claims to have invented Bitcoin is not the virtual currency’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, a London High Court judge ruled Thursday.
Craig Wright has long claimed to be the author of Bitcoin’s foundational text, a 2008 white paper, which was published under a pseudonym.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) has taken Wright to court, seeking to block lawsuits against Bitcoin developers and for a ruling that Wright is not Satoshi.
Judge James Mellor said on Thursday that Mr. Wright was not Satoshi and said he would provide sufficient reasons for his decision at a later date.
COPA, whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block, previously announced that it had filed a lawsuit to preserve Bitcoin’s open source nature.
After Mellor announced his decision Thursday, Dorsey posted the judge’s words and a single letter “W.”
COPA accused Wright of repeatedly falsifying documents to support his claims, including during the trial, which Wright denied when giving evidence.
Attorney Jonathan Huff said at the start of the trial in February that Wright’s claims were “a brazen lie, an elaborate false narrative backed by industrial-scale fabrications.”
“There are elements of Dr. Wright’s conduct that deviate from the farcical,” Huff said, citing his alleged use of ChatGPT to create counterfeits.
But he added: “Dr. Wright’s conduct is also deadly serious. Based on his disingenuous claims that he was Satoshi, he has pursued claims amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars, including against numerous individuals. .”
However, Wright’s lawyers argued in a court filing that Wright had provided “unambiguous evidence of his authorship of the white paper and the creation of Bitcoin.”
