In a London court, lawyers for a group backed by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) argued that Craig Wright's claim to be the inventor of Bitcoin was a “brazen lie” and that It disputed accusations of extensive document forgery to substantiate its claims. Wright's defense disputes these claims, arguing that he has presented conclusive evidence of his role in the creation of Bitcoin. Reuters reports: Craig Wright said he was the author of the 2008 white paper underlying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, published under the name “Satoshi Nakamoto.” He claims this means he owns the copyright to the whitepaper and has intellectual property rights to the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), whose members include Twitter founder Dorsey's payments company Block, is asking the London High Court to rule that Wright is not Satoshi. .
The five-week hearing, in which Wright will testify starting Tuesday, is the culmination of years of speculation about Satoshi's true identity. Wright first publicly claimed to be Satoshi in 2016, and since then he has taken legal action against cryptocurrency developers and exchanges. But COPA has accused Mr. Wright of not providing any evidence of his authenticity and of repeatedly forging documents to support his claims, which Mr. Wright denies. Wright sat in court as COPA lawyer Jonathan Huff described Wright's claims as “a brazen lie, an elaborate false narrative backed by industrial-scale fabrications.” “There are elements of Dr. Wright's conduct that deviate from the farcical,” Huff said, citing his alleged use of ChatGPT to create counterfeits.
But he added: “Dr. Wright's conduct is also deadly serious. He has pursued hundreds of billions of dollars in claims, including against numerous private individuals, based on his disingenuous claims that he was Satoshi.” added. But Wright's lawyer, Anthony Grabiner, argued in a court filing that Wright had provided “unambiguous evidence that he is the author of the white paper and the creator of Bitcoin.” Grabiner added that it was “shocking” that no one had publicly identified him as Satoshi before. “If Dr. Light wasn't Satoshi, one would have expected the real Satoshi to come forward to refute the allegations,” he says.
