English High Court Ruling: Wright Lied About Being Inventor of Bitcoin

In a post dated 26 March 2024 we reported on the English High Court case concerning the identity of the inventor of Bitcoin who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. In an oral judgment given at the end of the trial, the judge was not able to say who the inventor was, but concluded emphatically that it was not Craig Wright who had, for years, claimed to be the inventor. We said in that post that “a written judgment will follow in which we can expect Wright and his evidence to receive a roasting.” That written judgment now has been released – it transpires that “roasting” was perhaps an understatement.

The first paragraph of the judgment provides a brief introduction. The judge, Mr. Justice Edward James Mellor, then wastes no time in lambasting Wright. In the second paragraph he writes:

“Thus, Dr. Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person. However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. In both his written evidence and in days of oral evidence under cross-examination, I am entirely satisfied that Dr. Wright lied to the Court extensively and repeatedly. Most of his lies related to the documents he had forged which purported to support his claim. All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.”

The judgment continues:

“Many of Dr. Wright’s lies contained a grain of truth … but there were many which did not and were outright lies. As soon as one lie was exposed, Dr. Wright resorted to further lies and evasions. The final destination frequently turned out to be either Dr. Wright blaming some other (often unidentified) person for his predicament or what can only be described as technobabble delivered by him in the witness box. … To the extent that it is said there is evidence supporting his claim, it is at best questionable or of very dubious relevance or entirely circumstantial and at worst, it is fabricated and/or based on documents I am satisfied have been forged on a grand scale by Dr. Wright.”

Most of the remainder of the 231-page judgment and its 150-page appendix provides the basis for the judge’s resounding contempt for Wright’s case and analyses forty of the separately identified allegations of forgery made by the claimants.

In his oral judgment, the judge made four declarations, namely:

“First, that Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin White Paper. Second, Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in the period between 2008 and 2011. Third, Dr. Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin system. Fourth, Dr. Wright is not the author of the initial versions of the Bitcoin Software.”

Counsel for Wright had submitted that even if these were the Judge’s conclusions the Judge should not make declarations to such effect. Having repeated these declarations, the written judgment therefore addresses also the question whether it was right for the Judge to have made these declarations. Unsurprisingly, the Judge concludes it was right to do so, citing (among other reasons) the utility of such declarations and:

“In view of the extremely unpleasant threats which Dr. Wright has made in the past against some of the individual developers in particular, I was minded to make declarations to ensure that Dr. Wright would not have any possible basis on which to threaten them with copyrights or database rights stemming from the work done by Satoshi Nakamoto.”

As is normal following the handing down of the judgment, there now will be a hearing for the Judge to hear the parties on what, if any, further relief should flow from the judgment. This likely will include:

• Injunctions, for example to restrain Wright from repeating his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto and the inventor of Bitcoin.
• That Wright pay all the legal costs of the case. Given the length of the trial, and the extensive evidence going to each case of forgery, one can anticipate a multi-million-pound liability for Wright.
• Contempt of court.

We await the outcome of that hearing with interest.

In the meantime, Wright posted on X, previously known as Twitter, “I fully intend to appeal the decision of the court on the matter of the identity issue.” Given that it is hard to overturn a lower court’s finding of facts, and given that so very many facts were found against him, Wright likely will face an enormous uphill struggle were he to appeal the judgment.