An important trial for the future of Bitcoin BTC is starting on February 5. The United Kingdom High Court is set to determine if the Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is the person behind the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The Crypto Open Patent Alliance has brought this case up. This non-profit organization aims to reduce the influence of patents and litigations in the development of the crypto industry.
Since 2016, Wright has been claiming to be Satoshi without granting evidence. Eight years and several legal disputes later, he must prove it in court. The verdict could affect many cases he’s currently disputing —if not all. The COPA claim started in April 2021 to “seek a declaration (in effect) that Dr. Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto,” as court documents show.
Under his claim to be Satoshi, Wright has started legal disputes against companies and developers that are, from his view, unlawfully using and changing his software. But despite the multiple court cases that Wright has going, the COPA claim has a significant meaning due to its focus on the identity issue.
A Settlement Offer And A “Hard Pass”
A few days before the trial, on January 24, Wright extended a settlement offer to COPA and all the parties in the case. His idea was to end the COPA claim and three others. “This settlement offer preserves my objective of maintaining the integrity of the Bitcoin system as it was initially developed while limiting (for all parties) the needless expense of a lengthy High Court trial, which would take our collective focus away from supporting, adopting and advancing digital currency technologies,” Wright detailed in an open letter with the offer.
However, the answer was a “hard pass” by COPA. “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,” COPA further explained on an X post. More importantly, the settlement forces COPA to accept the Satoshiness of Wright.
According to COPA and other experts, there are plenty of forgeries among the elements provided by Wright as proof. “The sheer number of file date alterations, impossible claims of files from 2007 being created from software only available from 2014, blaming (undocumented) advice from prior lawyers, etc. is unprecedented – this person is troubled”, law and intellectual property expert J Nicholas Gross posted on X.
So not only does Wright have to take care of these allegations, but he also needs to sustain his Satoshi claim better.
The trial is expected to last at least four weeks, but it could take longer to finally prove or disprove Wright’s claim.
We tried to reach Wright to get his comments, but by the time of publication, we didn’t get an answer.