Satoshi Pretender Craig Wright Dodges Two-Year Jail Sentence

There he goes again. Craig Wright, the computer scientist whom a UK court ruled in March was absolutely not Satoshi Nakamoto, was found in contempt of court Thursday for continuing to assert his identity as the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin. Wright, who is believed to be in Asia and did not show up for the London hearing, faced as much as two years in the slammer, per UK contempt-sentencing guidelines.

High Court Judge James Mellor suspended the sentence for two years, provided that Wright stopped suing people in Nakamoto’s name. The contempt claim, filed by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, stemmed from Wright’s latest shenanigans—a lawsuit brought in October. In it, Wright claimed that Bitcoin “fundamentally deviated” from Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision and that Bitcoin developers misled investors.

Wright sought $1.14 trillion in damages, and the suit was summarily dismissed in November, leading to COPA asking Wright to be held in contempt. In court documents filed by the High Court on Thursday, Judge Mellor ruled that by filing a copyright suit against COPA on behalf of Bitcoin, Wright was again claiming to be Nakamoto, a stance deemed unacceptable. In March, Mellor had ruled Wright categorically was not Nakamoto. In July, Wright was ordered to publicly declare that he was not Nakamoto or the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper.

“It’s rare for someone, having been ordered not to file legal proceedings, to do exactly that in the same court that issued the prohibition,” legal counsel for COPA Tristan Sherliker with Bird & Bird told Decrypt in an interview. “By filing the new claim, Craig Wright breached the court’s order, which specifically barred him from pursuing further court proceedings based on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto or his ownership of related intellectual property.” In an email to the court, Wright had argued that attending the hearing would have been a financial burden to him and that he was in Asia “for work purposes.”

COPA offered to fly him to the contempt hearing in economy class. Since 2021, Wright has been embroiled in a legal battle with COPA, a Jack Dorsey-backed organization, and a group of Bitcoin Core developers. According to Sherliker, Judge Mellor said that the suspended sentence was intended to dissuade Wright from committing further breaches of the order and ensure compliance with the original ruling.

“We have an indication that Craig Wright has chosen exile,” Sherliker said. “The judge recognized that this meant that if he were to impose a custodial sentence, it probably wouldn’t be carried out directly and he imposed a suspended sentence, the effect of which is that if there’s any further improper behavior, the one-year jail sentence will be imposed on Dr Wright.”

Wright’s attorneys did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. Sherliker believes today’s ruling is the final nail in Craig Wright’s saga of claiming to have created Bitcoin. “It should have been the end back at the beginning of the year in March when his claim was entirely dismissed,” the attorney said. “The whole world can see after that he was not Satoshi.”

Terron Gold