The man who claimed to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto just lost access to $8.4 million
A UK court has authorized freezing £6.7 million (US$8.4 million) of Craig Wright’s assets to stop the Australian computer scientist from avoiding court expenses.
The court made its decision after Wright transferred some of his assets outside the country after its verdict disproved his claim to be Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. According to court documents, this prompted him to transfer shares of his London firm, RCJBR Holding, to a Singapore entity on March 18. Judge James Mellor declared:
“Understandably, that gave rise to serious concerns on COPA’s part that Dr Wright was implementing measures to seek to evade the costs and consequences of his loss at trial.” The judge signed a “worldwide freezing order” by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to manage the total court expenses of £6.7 million.
COPA was established in 2020 “to encourage the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technologies and to remove patents as a barrier to growth and innovation.” The alliance’s 33 members include Meta, Block, Coinbase, Kraken, MicroStrategy, Paradigm, Uniswap and Worldcoin.
Wright had falsely claimed to be Nakamoto to file copyright claims concerning the Bitcoin network, demanding that two websites pull the Bitcoin white paper in January 2021. He also sued 13 Bitcoin Core developers and several companies, including Blockstream, Coinbase and Block, for copyright violations relating to the white paper in 2023.
COPA filed a lawsuit against Wright in April 2021, challenging his claims. Judge Mellor ruled on March 14 that Wright is not Nakamoto.
Wright filed for a US copyright for the Bitcoin white paper in 2019. The Bitcoin white paper now holds an MIT open-source license, allowing anyone to modify and reuse the code for any objective.
