Self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor Craig Wright is not ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, UK judge rules
- The Australian computer scientist has been accused of lying about his identity to bully and intimidate developers in the cryptocurrency community
- Wright has long claimed to have been the author of a key white paper behind bitcoin, but the judge said the evidence against this was ‘overwhelming’
An Australian computer scientist who claims he invented bitcoin is not “Satoshi Nakamoto”, the pseudonymous inventor of the cryptocurrency, a judge at London’s High Court ruled on Thursday.
Craig Wright has long claimed to have been the author of a 2008 white paper, the foundational text of bitcoin, published under the pseudonym.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) took Wright to court to stop him suing bitcoin developers, asking for a ruling that Wright was not Satoshi.
Judge James Mellor said at the end of closing arguments on Thursday that the evidence 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 in the period 2008 to 2011.”
COPA – whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments firm Block – said the ruling was “a win for developers, for the entire open source community and for the truth”.