Judge Rejects Craig Wright’s Claim to Be Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto

On Thursday, March 14, 2024, the High Court in London ruled that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not the inventor of Bitcoin. Judge James Mellor said the evidence against Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, was “overwhelming.”

After closing arguments, Judge Mellor said he was satisfied that Wright’s claims to be Satoshi were false. “I’m prepared to say this: Dr. Wright is not the inventor of Bitcoin. Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper. He is not the person who adopted the name Satoshi Nakamoto,” the judge declared.

The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a group of cryptographers, had brought the claim seeking to prevent Wright from claiming to be the inventor of Bitcoin. COPA argued that Wright was lying and committing forgery in his claims. Judge Mellor was willing to make a preliminary ruling from the bench, given the clarity of the evidence.

In his decision, the judge affirmed that Wright was neither the author of the original Bitcoin software nor the creator of the Bitcoin network. A COPA spokesperson said the ruling was “a win for developers, for the entire open source community, and for the truth.”

COPA’s legal representatives said they were “absolutely delighted” to have definitively established that Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto is false. The declarations granted by the judge would offer reassurance to open source and digital currency communities, they added. Wright’s representatives declined to comment on the ruling.