It's over for the infamous Craig Wright, one of Bitcoin's early developers who actually did work with Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, then in recent years begun to claim he was Satoshi himself.

 A ruling by a High Court judge in London on Monday (May 20) determined that the Australian computer scientist Craig Wright provided false testimony and fabricated documents to substantiate his unsubstantiated assertion of being the inventor of bitcoin.

Judge James Mellor, in a decision rendered in March and with reasons outlined on Monday as reported by Reuters, concluded that the evidence did not support Wright's claim to be the pseudonymous "Satoshi Nakamoto" behind bitcoin's creation. The judge found that Wright had been deceitful and had forged documentation to bolster his inventor claim, and that Wright's legal actions against bitcoin developers as well as his expressed views on bitcoin contradicted his purported status.

Developers Feel Relief Following Ruling...

Wright's legal attempt, had it succeeded, would have given him the right to sue anyone who built anything on Bitcoin's network, as he would become the copyright holder to Bitcoin's code.

In a blog post on Monday following the ruling, a Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) spokesperson said that the judgment "forensically demolishes Wright's fraudulent claims."

"This decision is a watershed moment for the open-source community and even more importantly, a definitive win for the truth," a COPA spokesperson said. "Developers can now continue their important work maintaining, iterating on and improving the bitcoin network without risking their personal livelihoods or fearing costly and time-consuming litigation from Craig Wright."

Wright Vows To Appeal...

On X (formerly Twitter), Wright stated on Monday: "I fully intend to appeal the decision of the court on the matter of the identity issue. I would like to acknowledge and thank all my supporters for their unwavering encouragement and support."

Wright first came forward with his claim to be bitcoin's creator in May 2016, making the assertion to three publications — the BBC, The Economist, and GQ — and sending digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during bitcoin's early development days.

"These are the blocks used to send 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney in January [2009] as the first bitcoin transaction," Wright stated at the time during his demonstration.

However, by December 2019, when a Florida judge ruled that Wright's late partner was entitled to half of the bitcoins Wright mined through 2013 and half of the related intellectual property, some crypto experts were skeptical of Wright's claims, viewing them as fraudulent.


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Author: Mark Pippen
London Newsroom
GlobalCryptoPress | Breaking Crypto News

Craig Wright, who claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin, is being sued in the Superior Court of London on the grounds that Wright is not the author of the White Paper of Bitcoin, and isn't the copyright holder either.

Behind it is an organization called "The Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance" (COPA) which describes themselves as a community of 'blockchain and crypto advocates' including patent attorneys with 30+ years experience.

Their announcement reads "Today, COPA initiated a lawsuit asking the UK High Court to declare that Mr. Craig Wright does not have copyright ownership over the Bitcoin White Paper. We stand in support of the Bitcoin developer community and the many others who've been threatened for hosting the White Paper."

The concerns stem from Wright already attempting to stake claim to the Bitcoin whitepaper, when he kicked off 2021 by having lawyers send letters to websites that hosted it demanding it be removed.

"Here's an example of what this lawsuit will stop cold" says a Bitcoin trader on Twitter in reference to the above tweet.

Most noteworthy of them being Bitcoin.org, but on the day of the deadline (Feb 3rd) it's owner stated "today was the deadline for me to stop hosting the whitepaper, otherwise I would be sued. It’s still up."

Nobody knew what Craig's next move would be, but with fears that his failure to get sites to remove the whitepaper left him angry and desperate, it appears COPA decided to make the next move themselves.

Patents being granted to people wrongfully, and that unleashing predatory lawsuits on industries (known as patent trolls) is unfortunately common - losing this case would make it nearly impossible for Wright to ever take legal ownership.

There's a lot going on in the Satoahi Nakamoto cosplay world.

Yesterday, another surely mentally stable character stood up and claimed the title of bitcoin's creator - exciting because it's been awhile since we had some freshly baked Nakamoto! 

The big reveal began with 'teasers' starting a few weeks back, followed by 3 days of extra hype, ending with the name announcement...

It was none other than James Bilal Caan! Well, now it all makes sense!

Just kidding, I have no idea who he is either, but imagine our luck - he has something to promote!

"Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance Holdings" is ready to provide 'industry-leading Blockchain products and services' which at first sounded extremely vague, then I thought... if anyone can do it all, it's Satoshi!

Before you go asking why a billionaire like Satoshi is now available to hire, you need to understand everyone makes mistakes, and on that note 'oops' - he lost the hard drive containing the keys needed to access the approximate 1 million BTC.

I really doubt we'll be hearing much from Caan in the future, by any standard this publicity stunt was a flop, it would be too sad to watch if they try to drag this on any longer.

To me, there is only ONE real fake Satoshi...

I don't even need to say the name - that's how official it is.

Imposers like Caan aren't even worth a second of his time, as he traveled around the world to meet some faithful believers in Colombia.

Check out this totally not-creepy video of the one and only, mingling with fans...


If at first you don't succeed, try a 3rd world country where about half the population doesn't have a high school education.

But seriously, here's what it comes down to...

I love this stuff, and god bless Craig, and even the new guy who's name I already forgot.  You can't put a price tag on entertainment like this.

But while some people make jokes, and other people argue the technical aspects of someone proving they're Satoshi, debating if Craig's best evidence is just forged backdated PGP keys, etc - I will forever be hung up on one simple factor...

How did Satoshi apparently go through the biggest personality transformation I've ever seen in a person?

Anyone can look back at the e-mails exchanged during Bitcoin's creation.  As the real Satoshi took on building such a complex system from scratch, which no doubt was full of frustrating moments - he remains calm, cool and collected.

There's so many examples of the real Satoshi's communications you can get a feel for how he conducts himself - he's never over-emotional, always rational,  not impulsive, or vulgar, or angry -even at high-stress moments most coders would be.

It's not surprising these unique traits created something equally unique.

So don't tell me it turns out this whole time he was really just another easily-triggered spotlight-loving attention whore, always ready to give a big "f*ck you" to anyone who disagrees with them.

I'll also add, to be fair - while i'm convinced Craig isn't Satoshi, he's also not a lot of the things his opponents say. Anyone saying Craig is 'stupid' or 'an idiot' is lying as well. 

Obnoxious? Yes. Stupid? No.

This isn't my first role in media, at one point I worked for the largest broadcasting company in the nation, I say this because I saw the same thing there, that we're seeing here.. often.

A dark side of human nature can drown out that voice inside saying 'you're taking it too far', suddenly a talented person who made real contributions to a project becomes overwhelmed with the desire to take full credit for it.

That's why, for me personally, until I see some transactions on the blockchain from a wallet belonging to the real Satoshi, i'll consider those claiming to be him 'for entertainment purposes only'.

Who do you believe is the real Satoshi? Do you hate that this is even being debated? Or, like me, do you appreciate the endless entertainment it's provided us?  Tweet us your thoughts @GlobalCryptoDev
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Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk

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