A High Court judge in London has ruled that computer scientist Craig Wright «lied «on a large scale» repeatedly» by claiming to have invented bitcoin.
Wright introduced himself as «Satoshi Nakamoto» — a pseudonym used to refer to the person or group of people who developed the Bitcoin cryptocurrency protocol and created the first version of the program in which this protocol was implemented.
Little is known about the mysterious creator of the cryptocurrency — he is believed to have the largest amount of bitcoin in the world, approximately 1.1 million BTC (about $77 million at this time).
Satoshi’s identity was linked to Wright in articles published by Gizmodo and Wired in 2015, although the latter publication noted that some of the speculation that Wright was the elusive Nakamoto was planted by the scientist himself. Later reports by Wired, Vice, Forbes, and other publications also revealed inconsistencies in the evidence.
Wright spent the following years trying hard to prove that he was Satoshi: he repeatedly testified that he wrote the original bitcoin white paper
Wright’s latest court battle was provoked by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a nonprofit organization that tried to stop him from threatening developers. COPA rejected the man’s offer to settle the case in January, claiming that the agreement contained «loopholes that would allow him to sue» people again.
The case was concluded in March after a six-week investigation, when London High Court Judge James Mellor ruled that Wright did not create bitcoin and is not Satoshi.
«In both his written and oral testimony on cross-examination, I am fully convinced that Dr. Wright has lied to the court many times and repeatedly,» the judge wrote in a 231-page ruling released this week. «In my opinion, he is not as smart as he thinks he is».
According to Mellor, most of the forged evidence was «clumsy» and Wright often resorted to blaming other (often unidentified) people or giving out what can only be described as technobabble» in testimony.
Wright has already stated that he will appeal the «’s decision on the issue of»’s identification.
Source: The Verge