Australian who falsely claimed to have invented bitcoin is found in contempt of UK court

LONDON (AP) — An Australian computer scientist who falsely claimed to be the founder of the bitcoin cryptocurrency was found Thursday to be in contempt of an order of London’s High Court.

In a judgment on Thursday, Justice James Mellor said Craig Wright had committed “a clear breach” of the order in March that barred him from launching or threatening further legal action related to bitcoin.

Lawyers for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, or Copa, a non-profit group of technology and cryptocurrency firms, told the court earlier this week that Wright had issued a claim worth more than 900 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion) related to bitcoin in October which constituted contempt of court, and that he should be jailed as a result.

Mellor said that it was “beyond any reasonable doubt” that Wright had done so.

Mellor is expected to sentence Wright later Thursday.

In March, the judge ruled that Wright was not, as he claimed, the mysterious creator of bitcoin, nor the author of the initial versions of the bitcoin software.

For eight years, Wright had claimed that he was the man behind “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the pseudonym that masked the identity of the creator of bitcoin.

The murky origins of bitcoin date to the height of the financial crisis in 2008. A paper authored by a person or group using the Nakamoto pen name explained how digital currency could be sent around the world anonymously, without banks or national currencies. Nakamoto seemed to vanish three years later and their identity was never established.

The Associated Press