Craig Wright, the computer scientist ruled to have lied “extensively and repeatedly” about being the inventor of Bitcoin, has been given a one-year prison sentence by a UK judge after being found in contempt of court. The sentence is suspended for two years, meaning that Wright will only face prison if he reoffends during that period.
At a hearing Thursday in the UK High Court, Justice James Edward Mellor ruled that Wright—in bringing a $1.15 trillion lawsuit in October against Bitcoin developers and payments firm Square—had violated an earlier court order. The order required that Wright refrain from claiming publicly to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, and taking legal action on that basis, among other things.
Craig Wright could not be reached for comment. At the hearing, he is reported to have said he will appeal the contempt finding.
The contempt of court issue was raised by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a nonprofit consortium of crypto firms, which in February took Wright to trial in the hope of securing a formal declaration that he is not Satoshi. The aim was to prevent Wright from carrying forward multiple separate lawsuits against Bitcoin developers and other parties, through which he was trying to assert intellectual property rights over Bitcoin—and to ward off any future lawfare.
On March 14, the final day of the six-week trial, Mellor delivered a rare snap verdict: “The evidence is overwhelming,” he told the courtroom. “Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.”
“It is clear that Dr. Wright engaged in the deliberate production of false documents to support false claims and use the Courts as a vehicle for fraud,” wrote Mellor in his judgment. “I am entirely satisfied that Dr. Wright lied to the Court extensively and repeatedly. All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.”
At a hearing in July, in addition to imposing the various injunctions upon Wright, Mellor directed the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in the UK, to consider bringing criminal charges against Wright for his “wholesale perjury.” (The CPS has not yet charged Wright with perjury.)
In the lawsuit filed by Wright in October, he sought to argue that Square and Bitcoin developers had misrepresented BTC, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, as the original bitcoin. “The defendants have, without authorization, altered the original Bitcoin protocol” in ways that “fundamentally deviate from the original system as defined by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin White Paper,” the claim states.
Because Wright’s claim depends on his ownership of copyright over Bitcoin as its creator, COPA argued, it violated the legal injunctions placed upon him. The organization alleged contempt of court on five separate grounds in all.
In his judgment, Mellor ordered that Wright drop the case against Square and Bitcoin developers. “There is no doubt whatever that each of these contempts has been proved,” he wrote.
Wright had been due to attend a hearing on Wednesday to answer the contempt of court claim. But despite being ordered by Mellor to attend in person, he did not show up. In an email, he claimed that doing so would cause him £240,000 ($303,000) in lost business. Wright is suspected by COPA to be in Singapore or Indonesia, but reportedly refused to reveal his location when asked by Mellor, stating only that he is in Asia.
Even if Wright were to reoffend during the period of probation, it could be difficult for UK authorities to enforce the prison sentence for as long as he remains outside the country. There is no extradition treaty between the UK and Indonesia. Though the UK and Singapore maintain an extradition agreement, civil contempt does necessarily meet the extradition threshold. “It’s a very unusual scenario,” says James Marsden, a specialist in intellectual property at law firm Simmons & Simmons.
Updated 12-19-2024 6:00 pm GMT: Updated to indicate that Craig Wright could not be reached for comment.
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