LONDON - An Australian computer scientist who claims he invented bitcoin is not 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 name “Satoshi Nakamoto”.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (Copa) took Wright to court to stop him from suing bitcoin developers, asking for a ruling that Wright is not Satoshi.
“Dr Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. … Dr Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin system,” High Court judge James Mellor said on Thursday, calling the evidence “overwhelming”.
He said he would give his full reasons for his decision at a later date.
Wright had argued that he owned the copyright to the 2008 white paper and had intellectual property rights over the bitcoin blockchain.
He first publicly claimed to be Satoshi in 2016 and has since taken legal action against cryptocurrency developers and exchanges.
Copa, however, said Wright had never provided any genuine proof, accusing him of repeatedly forging documents to support his claim, which Wright denied.
Wright’s lawyer Anthony Grabiner told the court during an earlier hearing that it was “striking” that no one else had publicly claimed to be Satoshi.
“If Dr Wright were not Satoshi, the real Satoshi would have been expected to come forward to counter the claim,” he said.
