Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Inventor Found in Contempt of Court After Lawsuit Loss
A computer scientist who falsely claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin was handed a suspended prison termafter being found in contemptof court by a London judge after a stinging lawsuit loss.
The Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance, a nonprofit cryptocurrency group backed by Jack Dorsey, sued Craig Wright in 2021 after he laid claim to being Satoshi Nakamoto and to owning the copyright to the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Judge James Mellor handed Wright, who appeared in court via a video link, a 12 month sentence, suspended for two years. Wright refused to disclose his precise location other than to say he was in Asia. He wasn’t represented by lawyers in court.
The judge emphatically ruled in March that Wright wasn’t the person who invented Bitcoin. He laid out a series of injunctions against Wright and his companies, including barring him from starting any further legal action in relation to Bitcoin.
“When it comes to each of the grounds of contempt, I have found each of them proved beyond reasonable doubt,” the judge said on Thursday.
The Australian businessman breached that order in October after filing a £900 billion ($1.1 trillion) UK claim over intellectual property rights related to Bitcoin, lawyers for Copa said in documents prepared for the hearing this week.
“Dr. Wright has shown no remorse and made no apology for his actions, and this is a hallmark of his behavior,” Jonathan Hough, a lawyer representing Copa said in court filings. “He seems pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for his misconduct.”
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