Man convicted for repeatedly lying about inventing Bitcoin

Getty Images

A computer scientist has been found to have committed contempt of court for falsely and persistently claiming to be the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

In March, the High Court ruled Craig Wright was not Satoshi, and ordered him to stop claiming he was.

However, he continued to launch legal cases asserting he had intellectual property rights to Bitcoin, including a claim he was owed $1.2 trillion ($911 billion).

A judge said that amounted to a "flagrant breach" of the original court order and sentenced him to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years.

It means if Wright - who is from Australia but lives in the UK - continues to claim he invented the cryptocurrency he will face being jailed.

However, Wright, who appeared via videolink, refused to disclose where he was, saying only he was in Asia.

It means an international arrest warrant would have to be issued if the UK authorities wanted to detain him.

Wright's actions were described in court as "legal terrorism" that "put people through personal hell" in his campaign to be recognised as Bitcoin's inventor.

The judge, Mr Justice Mellor, said Wright arguments were "legal nonsense" but acknowledged that he was not in the UK and "appears to be well aware of countries with which the UK does not have extradition arrangements".

Starting in 2016, Wright claimed to be the man behind the mysterious moniker Satoshi Nakamoto – generally known as Satoshi - the person who invented the world's first and largest cryptocurrency.

As the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi could be one of the richest people in the world, with more than $100bn (£80bn) worth of the cryptocurrency estimated to be in their digital wallets.

However, Wright failed to provide concrete evidence for his claim, which was largely disregard by the cryptocurrency world.

In an attempt to assert he was Satoshi he launched costly legal cases against people and companies that challenged him.

His actions prompted a coalition of industry companies - the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) - to force a high court trial this year to prevent him from carrying out any further legal cases.

A judge ruled in their favour saying Wright had "lied extensively" to support his false claim.

Copa lawyer Jonathan Hough said elements of Wright's conduct during the trial "stray into farce" - but he told the court it also had "deadly serious" consequences and created a "chilling effect" on the industry.