Bitcoin hoaxer Craig Wright convicted of contempt of court
The man who claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin — only to be exposed in court as a liar —was slapped with a contempt of court ruling by a judge on Thursday.
Australian computer scientist Dr Craig Wright claimed to the man behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, the name for the author of the Bitcoin White Paper.
However, earlier this year, a judge handed down a very rare quick judgment following the conclusion of a five-week trial and ruled he was in fact not the creator of Bitcoin.
In the full judgment, the court said that Wright was a “liar” as he attempted to create a false narrative by forging documents “on a grand scale” and presenting them in evidence.
The High Court judge in this case – Mr Justice Mellor – went on to refer Wright over to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after he “lied to the court extensively and repeatedly” at the trial.
In addition the judge granted some wide-ranging anti-suit and anti-threat injunctions against Wright.
However, that didn’t stop the Australian as he went on to launch legal cases asserting he had intellectual property rights to Bitcoin, including a claim he was owed £911bn.
An application was filed to the same judge over allegations of contempt concern his threats and
then bringing that new claim against some of the defendants.
He failed to attend the contempt hearing, only notifying the judge’s clerk “some 51 minutes before the hearing was scheduled”. Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) even offered to pay for his travels to the UK “whether from Singapore or Indonesia”, but he declined so the hearing proceeded in his absence.
On Thursday the judge found that Wright’s new legal claim and associated threats were clear breaches of the injunctions. In is judgment, the judge said “there is no doubt whatever” that each of the five grounds of allegations against Wright “has been proven”.
The ruling established Wright was in contempt of court, with penalties to be determined at a subsequent hearing.