Nine years later, CSW finally admits that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto

Author: Luccy, BlockBeats

The two-month legal battle has finally come to an end today, as "Satoshi Nakamoto" Craig S. Wright (abbreviated as CSW) officially issued a public statement admitting that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

Since December 8, 2015, when Craig Wright first claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, he has frequently used that identity to engage with the public. On May 20 of this year, the High Court of England and Wales made a significant ruling, clearly stating that Craig Wright is not the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

According to the court ruling, Craig Wright has pursued his false identity through various legal avenues in the UK, Norway, and the US, with the court describing his actions as a "serious abuse of the judicial process." The court conducted a detailed examination of Craig Wright's statements and evidence, concluding that he "frequently and repeatedly lied" when providing evidence and attempted to support his false claims through "massive forgery of documents," ultimately ruling that Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto is filled with fraud.

"Satoshi Nakamoto" Craig Wright has long been under the court's scrutiny

The identity of Bitcoin developer Satoshi Nakamoto has always been a mystery. While many have claimed to be Satoshi, it is hard to find anyone as "persistent" as Craig Wright. Therefore, Craig Wright's long-term activities under the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto have burdened him with various legal "debts."

COPA filed a lawsuit against Craig Wright in April 2021, accusing him of "massive forgery" in his attempts to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto and questioning the legitimacy of his claims to Bitcoin copyrights.

Note: COPA refers to the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance, established in 2020 as a non-profit organization. COPA is dedicated to promoting the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technology and eliminating the barriers that patents pose to industry growth and innovation. Its members include 33 organizations such as Coinbase, Block, Meta, MicroStrategy, Kraken, and cryptocurrency participants like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

However, to date, the focus of his various lawsuits has never been on revealing his anonymous identity as Satoshi Nakamoto, but rather on ensuring that Bitcoin remains true to its core principles. To protect the continuity of these principles, Craig Wright filed copyright claims against "Bitcoin developers" and issued non-negotiable settlement proposals. This settlement proposal preserved Wright's goal of maintaining the integrity of the originally developed Bitcoin system while limiting unnecessary costs for all parties involved in the lengthy High Court trial.

To clearly demonstrate his proposed sincerity, Wright agreed to waive his database rights and copyrights related to the BTC, BCH, and ABC databases, offering permanent, irrevocable licenses to opponents controlling, operating, and/or owning these databases to encourage open commercialization of technology in a competitive and fair market that respects and utilizes intellectual property. He hoped this proposal would enable them to compete fairly with BSV.

It is worth noting that the core principles of Bitcoin that Craig Wright maintains are outlined in the Bitcoin white paper, but the final court ruling showed that Craig Wright is neither the author of the Bitcoin white paper nor the copyright holder of the Bitcoin white paper.

Since the settlement terms proposed by Craig Wright were not agreed upon by all parties, the trial against Craig Wright continued. On January 24, "Satoshi Nakamoto" Craig Wright stated on his personal blog that he would face a group of individuals and corporate entities in the London High Court in February to defend his intellectual property as the creator of Bitcoin.

On February 13, during the proceedings in the UK High Court, COPA's lawyers cross-examined Craig Wright for several days, demanding that he stop making "irrelevant accusations" and "answer questions." Craig Wright accused COPA members of turning Bitcoin into a "speculative coin" scam.

Craig Wright arrives at the London court for the COPA trial. Source: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images, coindesk

Meanwhile, Craig Wright himself was also accused of providing different versions of the same story in court. When Craig Wright protested, presiding judge James Mellor intervened, stating that the focus of the case was whether Wright was the pseudonymous author of the Bitcoin white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto. Subsequently, on February 23, Craig Wright admitted that he had altered the version of the Bitcoin white paper submitted during the COPA trial.

After testimonies from early Bitcoin developers like Martti Malmi, the judge concluded on March 14 that the evidence overwhelmingly indicated that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

After losing the first-instance ruling, Craig Wright transferred some assets offshore, further raising COPA's concerns about his evasion of court costs. On March 30, the UK court approved a global freezing order on Craig Wright's assets worth £6 million (approximately $7.6 million) at COPA's request.

No one believes Craig Wright

In 2019, Bitcoin user and podcast host Peter McCormack called Craig Wright a fraud and a deceiver, stating that he "is not Satoshi Nakamoto." Craig Wright claimed that these comments caused him to lose invitations to various events and meetings, resulting in financial losses. The judge concluded in August that Craig Wright provided false evidence in his claims, awarding him only £1 (approximately $1.23) in symbolic damages.

Not only did he fail to reclaim the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, but Craig Wright's claims to the copyright of the Bitcoin white paper were also stripped away that year.

The Bitcoin white paper was published under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) open-source license, allowing anyone to reuse and modify the code for any purpose. Craig Wright registered the copyright of the Bitcoin white paper and its code in the US in 2019, but the court subsequently issued an injunction preventing Wright from making further copyright claims.

Fast forward to October 1, 2023, Christen Ager-Hanssen, former CEO of nChain Group, stated on social media that he had immediately resigned from the company after reporting several serious issues to the nChain Group board.

One of the reasons for Christen Ager-Hanssen's resignation was his loss of belief that nChain Chief Scientist Craig Wright is the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Hanssen subsequently released a screenshot of a report claiming to show evidence of Wright's browsing history, contradicting Wright's long-standing claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto.

Not only does Craig Wright claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, but he has even sued others in Satoshi's name.

In early 2022, Craig Wright registered a new Twitter account, with his Twitter bio stating "the creator of Bitcoin." Subsequently, Norwegian citizen Magnus Granath posted harsh comments about Craig Wright on social media, calling him a "fraud" and claiming he perpetrated a "scam," even creating the hashtag "#CraigWrightIsaFraud."

Craig Wright and his team considered this defamatory, demanding that Granath remove these statements and publicly apologize. Granath refused the apology request, and both parties sought court mediation, with the Norwegian judge supporting Granath's viewpoint. Craig Wright then sought to appeal this loss.

However, the matter continued until April 12 of this year, perhaps due to his own loss of the Satoshi identity. After losing in the UK court, Craig Wright stopped his appeal against Granath.

Yesterday, UK judge James Mellor approved COPA's injunction, which prohibits Craig Wright from suing others in Satoshi's name again. James Mellor also stated that he would refer Craig Wright to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration of perjury charges.

Craig Wright participated in the COPA trial on March 1. Source: Camomile Shumba, CoinDesk

Ultimately, Craig Wright lost this legal battle and issued a statement today admitting that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto. The High Court's ruling specifically pointed out:

• Craig Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper.
• Craig Wright is not the copyright holder of the Bitcoin white paper.
• Craig Wright was not the person acting as Satoshi Nakamoto from 2008 to 2011.
• Craig Wright is not the creator of the Bitcoin system.
• Craig Wright is not the author of the original version of the Bitcoin software.

The detailed judgment and appendices revealed various documents forged by Craig Wright. Additionally, the court ordered Craig Wright not to initiate any legal proceedings based on his false claims or encourage others to do so, nor to explicitly or implicitly threaten similar lawsuits.

In 2019, Craig Wright attended the BSV Beijing Conference, where he stated in an interview with BlockBeats that he did not care how others mocked him. He also reiterated that Bitcoin is not anonymous but private, centered around government regulation. He made his evaluations of BTC, Ethereum, and many other projects. He also stated that those who advocate for "democratized finance" are frauds and bluntly called the crypto industry a scam, including many projects like Tron and Akon.

This legal battle concluded with Craig Wright's defeat, and as for who Satoshi Nakamoto really is, it may not matter. What is important is the groundbreaking invention of Bitcoin he created and the foundational consensus it established for the crypto world. As the community says, "Anyone can be Satoshi Nakamoto, except Craig Wright."