Craig Wright sentenced to 1-year imprisonment for contempt in claims related to Satoshi
Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, who had long claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin, has been found guilty of contempt and sentenced to 12 months in prison. The sentence was suspended for 24 months by a U.K. judge.
In March, a court ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. This ruling came after Wright’s £900 billion intellectual property claim, where he sought copyright ownership of the Bitcoin whitepaper and key code databases.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) took legal action against Wright in the U.K. to dispute his claims of being Satoshi. Key figures in the Bitcoin community, such as Adam Back, the creator of the proof-of-work consensus model, provided testimony against Wright during the court proceedings.
COPA successfully won the case, leading to Wright being declared “Not Satoshi” in court. This ultimately resulted in Wright being found guilty of contempt of court for his attempts to assume Nakamoto’s identity.
According to the Guardian, Wright declined to disclose his physical location during the sentencing for his jail term. He participated in the proceedings through a virtual meeting app and announced his intention to appeal the court’s decision.
