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A British judge has ruled that Craig Wright is not the inventor of Bitcoin.
London – 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.
Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) I took Wright to court. To stop Wright from suing Bitcoin developers for a ruling that Satoshi is not him.
Judge James Mellor said at the end of closing arguments Thursday that the evidence that Wright was not Satoshi was “overwhelming.”
“Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin White Paper,” Mellor said. “Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto from 2008 to 2011.”
COPA members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments company block (square), said the ruling was “a victory for developers, the entire open source community, and the truth.”
“For more than eight years, Dr. Wright and his financial backers lied about their identity as Satoshi Nakamoto and used those lies to bully and intimidate developers in the Bitcoin community,” a COPA spokesperson said. said in a statement.
“It ends today with a court ruling that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.”
A spokesperson for Mr Wright said: “We are not prepared to speak to anyone at this time.”
COPA had accused Wright of repeatedly falsifying documents to support his claims, including during the trial, which Wright subsequently denied. he gave 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.”
In closing arguments, COPA’s lawyers called on Mellor to refer the case to the UK Crown Prosecution Service “for consideration of prosecution for charges of perjury and perversion of justice.”
Mellor did not say whether he would do so.
