The judge The UK High Court has ruled that computer scientist Craig Wright lied “extensively and repeatedly” and engaged in “large-scale” fraud in his efforts to prove his identity as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, and has ordered prosecutors to consider bringing criminal charges against him.
In a ruling released on Tuesday, Judge James Mellor outlined various injunctions that should be imposed against Wright after finding in May that he had “knowingly produced false documents to support false assertions.” [to be Satoshi] They use the courts as a vehicle for fraud.”
The judge’s order prohibits Wright from publicly claiming to be Satoshi or from filing or threatening lawsuits in any jurisdiction on that basis. Wright must pin a notice to the homepage of his personal website and on his X-Feed detailing the results of his investigation.
Mellor wrote that the matter would also be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in the UK, “to consider whether a prosecution should be initiated against Dr Wright.” It will be up to the CPS to decide whether the available evidence is sufficient to charge Dr Wright with “complete perjury and forgery” and “whether an arrest warrant should be issued.”
Wright did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This latest ruling follows a six-week trial earlier this year to resolve a civil lawsuit against Wright brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit consortium of cryptocurrency companies. The group asked the court to declare that Wright was not the inventor of Bitcoin and prevent him from proceeding with the lawsuit. Multiple separate lawsuits against Bitcoin developers and other parties based on their claims.
During exhausting cross-examination, Wright was presented with hundreds of suspected forgeries. Wright offered a variety of excuses to explain the anomalies, but failed to convince the judge. On March 14, the final day of the trial, Mellor issued an unusual summary judgment. “The evidence is overwhelming,” Mellor told the court. “Dr. Wright is not an individual who has ever assumed or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.”
In his formal ruling on May 20, Judge Mellor detailed the reasons for his sentence, finding that Wright lied about Bitcoin’s creation and falsified documents to support his lies: “I am entirely persuaded that Dr. Wright lied extensively and repeatedly to this Court, all of whose lies and forged documents supported the greatest lie of all – his claim that he was Satoshi Nakamoto,” Judge Mellor wrote.
In his latest ruling, Judge Mellor stressed the importance of cutting off all avenues for Wright to continue claiming to be Satoshi: “Dr. Wright’s long-running, malicious and false campaign to prove his identity as Satoshi, with total lies and forgeries, requires an extraordinary response,” he wrote.
