Bitcoin ‘Creator’ Craig Wright Admits He Is Not Satoshi Nakamoto

Tom Jowitt,
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Australian computer scientist Craig Wright referred to Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to be considered for perjury charges

The legal problems continue to mount for Australian computer scientist Dr Craig Wright, who for years had claimed to be the inventor of bitcoin.

Mr Justice Mellor (a High Court judge) had ruled in March 2024 that Craig Wright was not ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, and that he would give his full reasons for his decision at a later date.

Then in May 2024 in a written judgement, Mr Justice Mellor issued a damning ruling against the self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor, stating that Craig Wright had lied “extensively and repeatedly” and forged documents “on a grand scale” to support his false claim that he was the inventor of bitcoin.

uk high court

Legal notice

Now Coindesk has reported, that following a court order, Craig Wright was forced to update the homepage of his personal website with a legal notice for six months, that publicly declares that he is not the inventor of bitcoin.

Wright was also forced to display the admission notice on his X account, as well as on the Slack channels where he communicates with his supporters.

“On 20 May 2024, Dr Craig Steven Wright was found by the High Court of England and Wales to have been dishonest in his claims to have been the person behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto (the creator of Bitcoin),” the legal notice states.

“The Court found that Dr Wright “lied to the Court extensively and repeatedly” in his evidence and that he attempted to create a false narrative by forging documents “on a grand scale” and presenting them in evidence. Overall, “all his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto,” the notice states.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Craig Wright had claimed in a blog post in May 2016, that he was Satoshi Nakamoto – the pseudonym used by the person (or persons) who developed bitcoin.

Nakamoto carried out the initial research underlying bitcoin and apparently ended his involvement in the digital currency in 2011.

Craig Wright in his blog post in 2016 provided a cryptographic signature that’s among those known to have been used by Nakamoto.

But many in the crypto community were sceptical of Wright’s claim, in part because he has not moved any of the early bitcoin presumed to have been mined by Satoshi.

Libel cases

Then from May 2019, Craig Wright began using English libel law to sue people who denied he was the inventor of bitcoin, and who called him a fraud.

A court case in London had begun on 5 February 2024 after the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) took Dr Wright to court to stop him suing bitcoin developers.

COPA – whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments firm Block, said it had brought the lawsuit to preserve the open-source nature of bitcoin. The alliance asked for a ruling that Dr Wright was not Satoshi.

COPA had accused Wright of repeatedly forging documents to substantiate his claim, including during the trial itself, which Wright denied when he gave evidence.

Perjury charges?

Now Coindesk has reported that the Mr Justice Mellor on Tuesday has issued his issued a final judgement in the case referring Wright – as well as his colleague nChain co-founder Stefan Matthews, to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to be considered for perjury charges.

Wright on his social media channels has previously indicated he would appeal against the damning rule from Mr Justice Mellor.

In Mellor’s final judgement however, the UK High Court judge said that Wright has made “no application for permission to appeal” despite what he has said on social media.