- A U.K. judge ruled that Craig Wright violated a court order that required him to stop claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, and taking related legal action. He received a one-year prison sentence that was suspended.
Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who for years falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, was found to be in contempt of court Thursday and received a suspended prison sentence.
The U.K. High Court ruled Wright violated a court order that required him to stop saying he was Nakamoto, a pseudonym for the inventor of Bitcoin whose true identity remains a mystery, and taking legal action based on that claim.
Justice James Mellor hit Wright with a one-year prison sentence that was suspended for two years and ordered him to pay 145,000 British pounds in costs. That means he won’t face prison unless he violates the court order again during that time. But even if he does, an international arrest warrant may be necessary because he’s not in the U.K.
Wright appeared remotely by video, saying only that he was in Asia while declining to be more specific, according to the BBC. Mellor said Wright “appears to be well aware of countries with which the U.K. does not have extradition arrangements.”
Wright couldn’t be reached directly for comment. A request for comment posted on his X social media account went unanswered.
In March, Mellor ruled that Wright is not Nakamoto, didn’t create Bitcoin, didn’t author the Bitcoin white paper, and didn’t create any of the related technology.
The decision came after Wright said he owned the intellectual property related to Bitcoin and sued developers who help maintain the open-source code.
But the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, which is backed by Jack Dorsey, defended the developers, who countered with claims of their own that Wright had put forged documents before the court to support his suit.
“In both his written evidence and in days of oral evidence under cross-examination, I am entirely satisfied that Dr. Wright lied to the court extensively and repeatedly,” the judge said in a written judgment that followed in May. “Most of his lies related to the documents he had forged, which purported to support his claim. All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.”
After the court ruled in favor of the developers, Wright was ordered to stop taking legal actions against them based on his debunked claims. But he sued in October for more than 900 billion British pounds over intellectual property rights related to Bitcoin.
