Australian computer scientist Dr. Craig Wright heads to the UK High Court today to lay claim to the title of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of bitcoin.
Wright has long claimed to be the mysterious creator of the original decentralised cryptocurrency; largely to the bemusement of the wider public, though he has not shied away from pursuing his claim through legal pressure.
His stated goal has been to preserve the integrity of bitcoin against “organisations (that) use the bitcoin name and the whitepaper itself to promote coins and products which they know to be inconsistent with the system as originally described”.
In a 2021 blog post, Wright wrote: “As the author of the white paper, I feel compelled to exercise my legal rights and to ensure that it cannot be marketed in such a way- not just so that bitcoin can live up to its potential, but so that people are not misled into supporting a different endeavour, having been led to believe that they were supporting Bitcoin.”
Through this manifesto, Wright has attempted to sue numerous bitcoin developers, podcasters and even major cryptocurrency exchanges Kraken and Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), which he claimed breached his intellectual property rights.
Now, he’s on the defence against the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit organisation hoping to quash Wright’s claims to bitcoin for good.
“Wright has failed to provide any credible evidence that he is Satoshi despite publicly pronouncing he would do so on numerous occasions,” COPA said in its initial complaint.
“On several occasions when Wright has chosen to proffer evidence that supports his claim, that evidence has been shown to be inauthentic, or of, at the very least, questionable authenticity or provenance.”
COPA has filed 38 pages of evidence against Wright's assertion that he wrote the original bitcoin whitepaper, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, accusing him of providing forged documents written in an incompatible typesetting system to the original whitepaper.
“The Bitcoin White Paper was not written in LaTeX. It was written and produced in OpenOffice 2.4. Its metadata record that it was produced by that means,” read COPA’s court filings.
“Examination by both parties’ experts has led them both to conclude, and agree, that it was produced by that means based on every level of the pdf from the fine details of its typographical presentation, down to the binary digits of the PDF…
“Dr Wright’s LaTeX files from the TC folder are not original to 2008 or 2009. Using LaTeX software that is up to date for 2009, none of them compiles properly, instead producing errors and warnings.”
However, the court has approved the use of these documents in the trial, with Justice Mellor saying he was “left in no doubt that Dr Wright should have permission to rely on some or all of the additional documents, on certain conditions”.
Wright’s attempts to delay the trial were shut down by Justice Mellor.
Wright initially offered to settle the playsuit on 24 January.
He agreed to rescind his copyright claims and database rights on bitcoin and associated bitcoin forks, on the proviso that COPA donate Burnside, a Uniting Church in Australia, and “opposition cease any media campaign(s) against me”.
“Any entities shall cease claiming that they represent the original Bitcoin as envisioned by me as Satoshi Nakamoto,” read the offer.
On rejecting the proposal, COPA stated: “Just like Craig Wright forges documents and doesn't quite tell the truth, his description of the settlement offer isn't quite accurate either - it comes with loopholes that would allow him to sue people all over again.
“It also would force us to accept that he is Satoshi.”
The case hinges on Wright’s ability to prove his authorship of the original bitcoin whitepaper.
If COPA is confident in its accusations of forgery, there should be little to worry about.