"Said he invented bitcoin". A court has recognized a computer scientist who posed as Satoshi Nakamoto as a liar

The judge of the High Court of London ruled that computer scientist Craig Wright "repeatedly and at length" lied, claiming that he invented Bitcoin.

Wright posed as "Satoshi Nakamoto" - a pseudonym used to denote the person or group of people who developed the Bitcoin cryptocurrency protocol and created the first version of the program in which this protocol was implemented.

Little is known about the mysterious creator of the cryptocurrency - it is assumed that he owns the largest amount of bitcoins in the world, approximately 1.1 million BTC (about $77 million at the moment).

Nakamoto's identity was linked to Wright in articles published by Gizmodo and Wired in 2015, although the latter publication noted that some assumptions that Wright was the elusive Nakamoto himself were fabricated by the scientist. Later reports from Wired, Vice, Forbes, and other publications also found discrepancies in the evidence.

In the following years, Wright spent persistent efforts trying to prove that he was Satoshi: repeatedly testified that he wrote the original Bitcoin whitepaper, challenged people involved in Bitcoin-related projects, and filed lawsuits for defamation against those who accused him of lying.

Wright's latest legal battle was triggered by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit organization that tried to prevent his threats to developers. COPA rejected the man's proposal to settle the matter in January, stating that the agreement contained "loopholes that would allow him to sue people again."

The case was concluded in March after a six-week investigation, when High Court Judge James Mellor ruled that Wright did not create Bitcoin and is not Satoshi.

"As in his written and oral testimony during cross-examination, I am fully convinced that Dr. Wright repeatedly lied to the court," the judge wrote in a 231-page ruling published this week. "In my opinion, he is far from as smart as he thinks."

According to Mellor, most of the fake evidence was "clumsy," and Wright often resorted to blaming others (often unidentified) or gave testimony that can only be described as "technobabble."

Wright has already stated that he will appeal the decision "on the issue of identification."

Source: The Verge