Craig Wright is not Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto: UK court
What's the story
In a landmark ruling, the High Court in London has determined that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
The verdict was delivered by Justice Mellor immediately after the conclusion of a two-month trial.
Mellor stated that the evidence against Wright's claim was 'overwhelming' and promised to issue a detailed written judgment soon.
Legal
Details of the lawsuit against Wright
The lawsuit against Wright was initiated by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a consortium of cryptocurrency companies.
Copa, whose members include X co-founder Jack Dorsey's Block, Coinbase, and MicroStrategy, sought to prevent Wright from claiming he invented Bitcoin and using this claim to expand his influence in the sector.
The group accused Wright of fabricating a copious amount of evidence presented during the trial.
Issues
Allegations of evidence fabrication against Wright
COPA's expert witnesses claimed they found signs of backdated edits in the documents provided by Wright as evidence.
They alleged that these documents were created or altered using software versions, that did not exist at the time the documents were supposedly made.
One such document even contained traces of ChatGPT, a software that was not available until years after the document was allegedly written, according to COPA's claims.
Defender's plea
Wright's defense and previous legal battle
During the trial, Wright expressed dissatisfaction with his own expert witness, Dr. Simon Placks, stating that he was underqualified for the task.
He pointed out that Dr. Placks is a psychologist with no qualifications in information security.
In a previous legal battle in August 2022, Wright won a defamation case against an individual who labeled him a "fraud" for claiming to be Nakamoto.
However, the damages were set at just £1 (Rs. 106) due to false evidence presented by Wright.
Democratizing crypto
COPA celebrates verdict as win for open-source community
Following the verdict, a spokesperson for COPA hailed the decision as a victory for developers, the open-source community, and the truth.
The spokesperson stated that Wright and his financial backers have been floating false claims about his identity as Nakamoto to intimidate developers in the Bitcoin community for over eight years.
With this ruling, they expressed relief that such intimidation would now subside.