So is this the mysterious creator of the €780bn Bitcoin?
Cryptocurrency row in court
A COMPUTER scientist’s claims to have invented Bitcoin is a ‘brazen lie’ fuelled by ‘forgery on an industrial scale’, the high court in London has heard.
Dr Craig Wright, 53, from Australia, declared in 2016 he was the real Satoshi Nakamoto – the mythical founding father behind the world’s best-known cryptocurrency.
But he has faced widespread scepticism and several legal clashes since having failed to provide conclusive evidence he invented the digital currency, worth €780billion. The Crypto open Patent Alliance (Copa), which is backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is aiming to ‘conclusively show’ his claims are false to stop him challenging Bitcoin-related projects.
Speculation around Nakamoto’s true identity has swirled around the digital currency ever since Bitcoin’s white paper was first published under a pseudonym in 2008. Dr Wright stepped forward in 2016 – but has so far failed to provide the secure code behind the cryptocurrency that would unlock access to the 1.1million original bitcoins.
This would prove beyond doubt he was the true author – but in 2022 Dr Wright told a Norwegian court he destroyed the computer hard drive with it on.
Jonathan Hough KC, representing the non-profit group, said yesterday that aspects of Dr Wright’s story had entered into the ‘realm of farce’, accusing him of using ChatGPT to forge documents.
Lord Grabiner KC, representing Dr Wright, who denies the allegations, said he had chosen the pseudonym due to his ‘deep admiration for Japanese culture’ and to maintain a level of privacy while developing it. In written submissions, he said: ‘If Dr Wright were not Satoshi, the real Satoshi would have been expected to come forward to counter the claim.’
At the start of a six-week trial yesterday, Mr Hough said: ‘Copa’s case is, simply, that Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi is a lie, founded on an elaborate false narrative and backed by forgery of documents on an industrial scale. As his inconsistencies have been exposed, he has resorted to further forgery and implausible excuses.’
He continued: ‘Once one aspect of Dr Wright’s story is discredited, he supplements it with yet further forgeries, moves his story in a different direction and casts blame on others, often casting lawyers and experts as his scapegoats.’
A key piece of evidence, the court heard, was that experts on both sides agreed that the original white paper was written on OpenOffice software. But the version provided by Dr Wright as evidence had been found to have been created on software called LaTeX, which did not exist when the white paper was written, Mr Hough said.
The legal action comes amid claims that Bitcoin’s evolution has been hampered by legal threats against developers working on the digital currency.
In 2022, Dr Wright won another high court case against blogger Peter McCormack, who alleged that his claim to be Nakamoto was fraudulent. He was awarded nominal damages of £1 by the judge, who ruled that he had given ‘deliberately false evidence’ to support his libel claim.
‘Forgery on an industrial scale’