A British judge ruled on Thursday that Australian Craig Wright, who claims authorship of bitcoin, was not its creator, following the trial that pits him against an industry association.
“I have concluded that the evidence is overwhelming” to declare that “Dr. Wright is not the person who created the bitcoin system,” nor “the author of the initial versions of the bitcoin software,” declared Judge James Mellor , explaining that he would detail his reasoning in his next sentence.
The 53-year-old computer scientist and businessman “is not the author of the bitcoin white paper,” a text that details the founding principles of this cryptocurrency, nor is he “operating under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto (the enigmatic developer known as the father of bitcoin). ) during the period from 2008 to 2011,” the judge also stated.
For almost a month and a half, the British High Court of Justice examined the claims of the man nicknamed Faketoshi (for false Satoshi) by his detractors, who claimed copyright over this founding “white paper”, as well as the code of this cryptocurrency .
“Dr. Wright has not provided a single verifiable and reliable document to support” his claims, said Jonathan Hough, an attorney for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), an association that seeks to eliminate patents on cryptocurrency-related technologies, said Tuesday.
COPA “will ask after the trial” British prosecutors to examine a criminal case for “perjury and obstruction of justice,” the association explained in its final written arguments, consulted by AFP.
The outcome of this case will determine that of another, which pits Wright against 26 developers, both individuals and companies such as the Coinbase platform, which he accuses of having infringed his intellectual property rights.
