Who invented bitcoin?
Well, it certainly wasn’t Dr Craig Steven Wright!
This month, everyone at Leverets has been hooked by the curious high-stakes legal face-off between the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) vs. Dr Craig Stephen Wright. This case centres on the complex copyright and intellectual property rights associated with the crypto currency Bitcoin, and its blockchain peer-to-peer transaction ledger.
Dr Wright has maintained since 2016 that he is Satoshi Nakamoto – the pseudonym used by Bitcoin’s mysterious inventor(s).
One of the most enduring mysteries of Bitcoin is the identity of its founder. Physicist Dorian Nakamoto was controversially put forward by Newsweek in 2014 – only to quickly deny the claim; whilst Nick Sabo, the inventor of Bit Gold (the precursor to Bitcoin), also remains in the frame. Australian scientist Dr Craig Wright is, however, the only person to self-proclaim himself as the founder.
Despite many commentators pointing to inconsistencies in his claims and outright fraud over the years, most notably by COPA, Dr Wright has managed to carve himself a lucrative career as a prominent member of the crypto community.
That’s all now come to an end with Mr Justice Mellor’s ruling, at the end of the five-week RCJ trial, that it is overwhelmingly evident that Mr Wright is not the inventor of Bitcoin, and also that he has conducted fraud on an industrial scale, with abuse of the fraud system in several jurisdictions.
We wait with bated breath to read the final written judgment and sanctions.
