An Australian who falsely claimed to have invented Bitcoin has been found in contempt of a UK court

LONDON – An Australian computer scientist who falsely claimed to be the founder of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin was found guilty Thursday of contempt of a High Court order in London.

In a ruling on Thursday, Justice James Mellor said Craig Wright had committed a “clear breach” of the order issued in March that prevented him from launching or threatening to take further legal action related to bitcoin, which has seen a rapid rise in value since its launch around the world. The time of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Lawyers for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, or Copa, a group of technology and cryptocurrency companies, told the court on Wednesday that Wright issued a claim worth more than £900 billion ($1.1 trillion) related to intellectual property rights linked to bitcoin in October. . They argued that this constituted contempt of court and that he should be imprisoned.

Mellor said there was “no reasonable doubt” that Wright was indeed in contempt of the court order. The judge is expected to sentence Wright later Thursday.

Wright, who court documents indicate is in Indonesia or Singapore, attended Thursday’s hearing via video link. He did not attend the previous day’s hearing when Cuba presented its case.

He said he intends to appeal the contempt ruling.

In March, a judge ruled that Wright was neither, as he claimed, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, nor the author of initial versions of the Bitcoin software.

For eight years, Wright claimed to be the man behind “Satoshi Nakamoto,” a pseudonym that concealed the identity of Bitcoin’s creator.

The mysterious origins of Bitcoin date back to the height of the financial crisis in 2008. A research paper written by a person or group using the pseudonym Nakamoto explained how the digital currency could be sent around the world anonymously, without banks or national currencies. Nakamoto appears to have disappeared three years later and their identity has never been established.

Essentially, cryptocurrency is digital money designed to operate through an online network without a central authority – meaning it is usually not backed by any government or banking institution – and transactions are recorded using a technology called blockchain.

Bitcoin is the largest and oldest cryptocurrency, although other assets such as Ethereum, XRP, tether, and dogecoin have also gained popularity over the years. Some investors see cryptocurrency as a “digital alternative” to traditional money, but most daily financial transactions are still carried out using currencies such as the dollar.

Wright, who first claimed to be Nakamoto in 2016, has been accused of seeking to profit from a surge in the value of Bitcoin. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, for example, the price of Bitcoin was just over $5,000. Earlier this month, following the US election victory of Donald Trump, a big supporter of cryptocurrencies, the currency crossed the $100,000 level for the first time.

The currency remains highly volatile. On Thursday, it was trading at around $80,000, down nearly a fifth in just two weeks.